The Lacquered Rosewood Board

My grandmother’s house always smelled of dried lavender and old paper. I spent summers there, roaming the dusty attic where she kept her ‘curiosities,’ as she called them. She had a way of knowing things, a stillness that made the air around her feel charged, like before a thunderstorm. She warned me once, her voice low and serious, ‘In this house, we don’t call to the dead. The dead have their own roads, and some are best left untraveled.’ I was young then, and her words faded into the attic dust.

Years later, after she was gone, I found myself in a cramped apartment in the city, far from those whispered warnings. My friend Elena, a believer in everything that shimmered, was grieving her great-aunt, a woman who had collected oddities from around the world. Elena begged me to hold a séance. She wanted closure, a final goodbye. I hesitated, but I had always been drawn to the thin places, the spots where the veil felt worn. I’d seen things my whole life—shadows moving without a source, the chill touch of a presence—and I prided myself on navigating these encounters without fear.

I decided to build a proper Ouija board. I found an old piece of mahogany in a thrift shop, already carrying a deep, warm patina. I stained it darker, almost black, and painted the alphabet in a shimmering gold that seemed to shift in the low light. For the planchette, I used a vintage magnifying glass with a brass handle, its glass slightly warped, distorting whatever it pointed at. It felt wrong, but I pushed the feeling aside. I was in control.

The night of the séance, Elena and I sat opposite each other, our fingers resting on the planchette. I lit a single candle, its flame casting long, trembling shadows. I spoke the words I had read in a book, a call to the spirit of Elena’s aunt. The room grew cold. The flame dipped, nearly dying, then flared back. The planchette began to move, slowly at first, tracing hesitant circles. Then it shot to the corner of the board, spelling out a name I didn’t recognize: ‘MORAG.’

I looked at Elena. She shook her head, confused. ‘That’s not my aunt’s name,’ she whispered. The planchette moved again, more forcefully now, spelling ‘LET ME IN.’ A chill ran down my spine. This was not the gentle spirit we had summoned. The candle flickered, and in the glass of the planchette, I saw a reflection that wasn’t mine—a gaunt face, eyes like pits, and a mouth stretched in a silent scream. The glass was warping, distorting the room around us, making the walls seem to breathe.

I tried to pull my hand away, but it was as if the planchette was glued to my fingers. The board itself felt alive, humming with an energy that vibrated through the wood. I could feel something pressing at the edges of my vision, a presence that was ancient and starving. The words my grandmother had spoken echoed in my mind: ‘Once you open the door, you must be prepared to close it. And some doors, once opened, cannot be shut.’

Desperate, I did something I had never tried before. I focused my intent, not on shutting the door, but on understanding what we had let in. I let my consciousness drift, leaving my body in a trance-like state. The room disappeared, replaced by a vision of a dark forest, where a figure stood under a gnarled oak—a woman draped in mourning clothes, her face hidden. She was calling something, not to me, but to the earth itself. And in response, the ground began to writhe, and roots like black veins rose up, reaching for the sky.

I snapped back to reality. Elena was shaking, tears streaming down her face. The planchette was spinning wildly, and the board was beginning to crack, dark lines spreading from its center like a spiderweb. The air was thick with the smell of rot. I knew then that Morag was not a spirit to be summoned or dismissed; she was something older, a guardian of a threshold that should never have been crossed. And by building that board, I had unknowingly crafted a key.

I grabbed the candle and poured the wax over the board, then threw a heavy cloth over it. The movement stopped, but I could feel its rage, like a pressure in my ears. The next morning, I took the board to the city incinerator and burned it. As it blackened and curled, I saw the face in the flames again, and it was smiling. It wasn’t gone. It had merely been pushed back to its gate, and now it knew where to find me.

Weeks passed. I tried to forget. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw that forest, that figure. And in my dreams, I heard her voice, not in words, but in a rhythm, like a heartbeat, coming from under the floorboards. I moved, threw away my phone, changed my name. But last night, I found a small piece of polished wood on my nightstand, shaped like a wedge, with a single painted letter: ‘M.’ I’m writing this now, but I’m not sure how much time I have. The board is gone, but the door is still open. And something is walking through.