The Glass Marble

In the autumn of my seventeenth year, I lived in a crumbling boarding house perched on the edge of a fog-choked valley. The house was a relic of a bygone era, its wooden beams groaning like tired bones, and its windows stared out at the endless gray like hollow eyes. My wing was shared by a motley crew of senior students, including a lanky, serious girl named Meera, who had a reputation for dabbling in things best left alone. I, on the other hand, was a skeptic. I scoffed at ghost stories and called the Ouija board a parlor trick. But Meera, with her knowing smile, promised me a real experience if I dared.

My grandmother, Amma, had passed away two years prior, after a long and painful illness that left her bedridden for forty days. She had been a kind soul, but her death had been cruel, and I still felt the weight of it. I thought of her as I sat across from Meera in the dim light of a single candle, our fingers resting on a dusty wine glass that served as our planchette. The board was hand-drawn on a piece of parchment, the letters and numbers smudged but legible. I asked the questions that had been burning in my mind since I was old enough to dream of a future: ‘When will I marry?’ ‘What letter does my husband’s name start with?’ ‘Where will I settle?’

The glass began to move, slowly at first, then with purpose. It slid to ‘3’, then ‘1’, then ‘M’, then ‘A’ — I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. Meera’s face was pale, but she said nothing. Then the glass spelled out ‘HILLS’. I laughed nervously, thinking it was a joke. But the candle flickered, and the glass suddenly flew across the board, shattering against the wall. The room plunged into darkness, and I heard a voice — soft, like my grandmother’s, but twisted — whisper in my ear, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

The next morning, Meera was found in her room, her eyes wide open, staring at nothing. The doctors said it was a seizure, but I knew better. I tried to ignore it, bury myself in my studies, but the incidents mounted. I would find ‘HILLS’ scratched into my mirror, or hear the shuffle of slippered feet in the hallway at night. I began to see a figure in the periphery — a woman in a white saree, her face obscured, standing at the end of my bed. I took to sleeping with the lights on.

I sought out a local priest, a wizened man who listened to my tale with a grave expression. He told me that I had not summoned my grandmother’s spirit, but something else — something that fed on my grief and curiosity. He gave me a small glass marble, cool and heavy in my palm, and told me to trap the spirit within it by reciting a particular mantra at midnight. Desperate, I agreed.

That night, I sat alone in my room, the marble on the floor before me, the mantra written on a scrap of paper. As the clock struck twelve, I began to recite, my voice trembling. The temperature plummeted, and the shadows grew long and grasping. The figure materialized fully before me — a woman with no face, only smooth skin where her features should be. She reached out a hand, and I felt a tug at my very soul. But I focused on the marble, forcing my will, and the spirit was drawn into it with a deafening shriek.

Silence. The marble now held a tiny, swirling darkness within. I was exhausted, but relieved. I placed the marble in a small wooden box and buried it in the garden, vowing never to touch it again. I finished my schooling, moved to a city far from those hills, and thought I had left it all behind.

But last week, I received a package with no return address. Inside, wrapped in brown paper, was that very marble. And a note in spidery handwriting that read: ‘You can’t trap a dream. I am still waiting to know your husband’s letter.’ I looked out my window, and for the first time, noticed the hills in the distance — low, rolling, and impossibly familiar.