The Game at the Holloway House

My introduction to the Holloway family was a blur of handshakes and polite smiles, but the house itself was the real character. It sat at the end of a winding gravel drive, its dark green shutters peeling like sunburned skin, and its porch steps groaning with the weight of every visitor. Halloween night, a string of orange lights flickered along the railing, but they did little to dispel the shadows that pooled in the corners. I was eighteen, newly married to Marcus, and this was my first family gathering. The air inside smelled of cinnamon and old wood, and the walls were covered with photographs of ancestors whose eyes followed you across the room.

After dinner, the younger cousins gravitated to the upstairs bedroom that had once belonged to Marcus’s great-aunt, a woman who had died in the house fifty years ago. Her name was Edith, and they said she had been a recluse, keeping to her room with only a radio for company. The cousins—three girls and one aunt around my age, named Dana—thought it would be a lark to hold a séance. They produced a battered Ouija board, its letters faded from decades of use, and placed it on the quilt-covered bed. I had heard stories about such games, and I chose to sit in a chair by the window, watching. Marcus stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the hallway light.

Dana, the young aunt, dimmed the lamp on the nightstand until the room was lit only by the moonlight from the window and the distant flicker of Halloween lights. The cousins—Lila, Bess, and Cara—giggled as they placed their fingertips on the planchette. Dana asked, ‘Is anyone here with us?’ The planchette seemed to tremble, then slid slowly to YES. The girls laughed, accusing each other of pushing. They tried again, and the planchette moved in a zigzag to spell out ‘E-D-I-T-H.’ The laughter died. Cara asked, ‘Who is Edith?’ The planchette spelled ‘O-L-D.’ Dana, with a smirk, said, ‘Probably just the wind.’ But I saw the goosebumps on Lila’s arms.

The next question came from Bess, her voice barely a whisper: ‘Edith, how did you die?’ The planchette began to move in a slow, deliberate circle before darting to the letter ‘S,’ then ‘T,’ then ‘A,’ then ‘R,’ then ‘V’—and stopped. The girls exchanged confused glances. Dana said, ‘Starv?’ Bess supplied, ‘Starvation? That’s horrible.’ The planchette then shot to YES so fast it nearly flew off the board. Lila pulled her hands back, shaking. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said. But Dana leaned in, her eyes glinting with excitement. ‘Let’s ask her for a sign.’ Dana asked, ‘Edith, if you’re really here, show us something.’

The room went cold. The lamp flickered, then died entirely. The door, which had been ajar, swung shut with a slam that made Marcus jump back. The girls screamed, and in the darkness, the planchette began to move on its own. It spelled out ‘S-C-R-E-A-M.’ I froze, my fingers digging into the armrest of the chair. Then, from the far corner of the room, we heard a sound—a faint, dry rattling, like bones clicking together. It grew louder, and the floorboards creaked as if something were walking toward the bed. The girls scrambled off the bed, huddling near Marcus who fumbled for the light switch.

When the light came back, the Ouija board was on the floor, cracked in half. The planchette lay in the corner, its tip pointing toward the closet. The closet door, which had been closed, was now ajar. Inside, we could see a small, gilt-framed portrait of a woman with hollow eyes. Dana, her face pale, whispered, ‘That’s Edith.’ None of us went near the closet. We left the house shortly after, and the memory never left me. Years later, when we returned for the funeral of Marcus’s grandmother, I asked a local historian about Edith. He told me she had been a spinster who had starved herself to death in a fit of religious mania, but the family had suppressed the truth—she had been locked in her room by her father for refusing an arranged marriage. She had scratched ‘S-C-R-E-A-M’ into the wallboard before she died. I never played with a Ouija board again.

That night, as I drove away with Marcus, I looked back at the Holloway House. In the second-floor window, I saw a pale face pressed against the glass, watching us leave. It was not the face of any living person, and I have never forgotten the way it smiled.