The Last Sweater

I was sixteen when I went to the old Marrow house, a crumbling Victorian on the edge of Cinderfield, where the trees grew in twisted knots and the wind always carried the smell of wet ash. My friend Eli had invited a few of us over to drink cheap beer in his basement, but his younger sister, Margo, was hosting a sleepover with her friends in the upstairs parlor. We thought it would be a night of stupid games and cold pizza, nothing more.

Around midnight, the laughter upstairs turned to a hush, then a flurry of excited whispers. Margo’s voice rang down the stairs, calling my name, piercing the bass of our music. I rolled my eyes and called back, ‘What do you want?’ But she insisted, her tone urgent and trembling, ‘You have to come see this! It’s asking for you!’

I trudged up the creaking steps, Eli and the others following out of curiosity. In the parlor, the girls had set up a battered Ouija board on a lace-covered table, candles flickering in Mason jars. Their faces were pale, eyes wide. Margo pointed at the planchette, which was resting on the letter ‘Y’. ‘It said your name,’ she breathed. ‘When we asked if it wanted to talk to someone specific.’

I laughed, assuming they were pranking me. ‘Sure, and I’m the Queen of England.’ But Margo shook her head, and her friend Lena swore on her mother’s grave they hadn’t touched it. To humor them, I placed my fingers lightly on the planchette. The wood was cold, unnaturally cold. I said, ‘Okay, spirit, what do you want?’

The planchette skittered across the board, spelling out: D-A-N-C-E. I smirked. ‘You want to dance?’ The board answered: Y-E-S. The girls giggled nervously, but I felt a strange energy, as if static was running through my fingertips. I asked, ‘Who are you?’ The planchette moved: J-O-H-N.

That name hit me like a punch to the gut. John was my uncle, my father’s younger brother, who had died before I was born in a house fire. My brother Jake was alive, but the board was clear: it was John, not Jake. I swallowed hard. ‘How do you know me?’ I asked.

The planchette flew in a frenzy, spelling: Y-O-U R-W-E-A-R M-Y S-W-E-A-T-E-R.

I looked down at the faded red cardigan I was wearing—it had been my mother’s, but she’d said it belonged to her brother John, who she never talked about. I had taken it from her closet that week, drawn to its worn softness. A cold dread curled in my stomach. I whispered, ‘What do you want?’

The planchette spelled: L-E-T-M-E-I-N.

The room grew frigid. The candles guttered, almost dying. The girls screamed, and Eli grabbed my arm, pulling me back. ‘We’re done here,’ he said, his voice shaking. He flipped the board over, but the planchette kept moving on the bare wood, scratching the letters L-E-T-M-E-I-N repeatedly. Margo sobbed, hiding behind the couch.

I yanked the sweater off and threw it into the fireplace, where the flames, which had been small, erupted into a roaring blaze. But the sweater didn’t burn. It lay on the coals, smoking, and the letters on the board became a deep, burned black. I ran out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house, the others tumbling after me.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing the board, the letters, the sweater. The next morning, I went back to the Marrow house alone, though I don’t know why. The parlor was still, the candles burnt out, the board gone. But on the floor, in ash, was a message: ‘You ruined my dance.’

I never saw the sweater again, but sometimes, in the dead of night, I feel a cold hand on my shoulder, and I hear a voice—a man’s voice—humming a tune I never learned, a tune that seems to echo from the ashes of a fire that should have died long ago.