The Pale Door

I never told anyone about the weight. It wasn’t a physical weight, not like carrying a backpack full of books. It was more like the air itself thickened around my chest, pressing down with each breath, and it only ever happened when I stepped into the old Millbrook Cemetery. I’d grown up in Port Hastings, a small coastal town in Nova Scotia, where the fog rolled in off the Atlantic like a hungry animal. My grandmother used to say I had the ‘sight,’ but I thought it was just a family joke. I could feel things in old houses, sense the lingering sadness in rooms where people had died, but the cemetery was different. The weight wasn’t sadness; it was expectation. Like something was waiting for me to come back.

I was in my third year at the university in Halifax, living in a rambling old house on Robie Street called the Bramble House, owned by a professor who believed in ghosts and rented rooms to students who didn’t ask too many questions. It was a house tradition, started by the seniors, to make a weekly pilgrimage to the graveyard behind St. Martin’s Chapel, just a fifteen-minute walk from our front door. The chapel had been deconsecrated decades ago, and the cemetery was overgrown with wild roses and brambles, the headstones leaning like drunken sailors. Every Thursday night, a group of us would gather in the parlor, light a few candles, and take turns with the Ouija board. I always went along, partly because my friends insisted, partly because I couldn’t resist the pull. The weight would start as soon as I passed through the rusted iron gate, a dull pressure that made me want to bend over, but I never said anything. My friends would laugh and make jokes, but I could see the flicker of fear in their eyes, the way their hands shook when they held the planchette. Only I knew the truth: the spirits weren’t the ones to fear.

One Thursday, in late October, the wind was howling off the harbor, rattling the windows of the Bramble House. I was in my room, trying to study for a midterm on 19th-century maritime history, when my roommate, Daniel, burst in. Daniel was a lanky engineering student with a permanent smirk, and he had a way of making everything seem like a dare. ‘Hey, Alistair, we’re going to the cemetery. You coming?’ I looked at the rain-streaked window, the black branches of the elms swaying violently. The weight was already settling on my chest, just thinking about it. ‘It’s pouring out,’ I said. ‘And the wind is insane. The board will blow away.’ Daniel laughed. ‘We’ll hold it down with rocks. Come on, it’s tradition. And we have a newcomer, Lena. She’s never been. You wouldn’t want her to go alone, would you?’ I sighed and closed my book. Lena was a quiet, pale girl from Newfoundland who had moved into the room down the hall two weeks ago. She always wore a silver locket that she never took off, and she had a way of staring at things that made me uncomfortable. But I couldn’t let her go alone.

The wind fought us the whole way, tearing at our coats, flinging rain like needles. The streetlights were few and far between, and the cemetery was a black smudge against the darker sky. As we pushed through the gate, the weight hit me so hard I gasped. I had to lean on a headstone to catch my breath. Daniel and the others didn’t notice; they were already spreading a blanket over a flat grave, setting the Ouija board on top, anchoring the corners with stones. Lena stood apart, her face half-hidden by her hood, watching the dark trees at the edge of the cemetery. I knew there was a path that led down to the old crypt, a stone structure that had been sealed years ago after some vandalism. The weight was strongest there, so thick it felt like a presence leaning over my shoulder.

We huddled around the board, Daniel grinning, his girlfriend Sarah gripping his arm, and Marcus, a philosophy major, who always tried to rationalize everything. Lena knelt across from me, her eyes fixed on the planchette. ‘Who wants to go first?’ Daniel asked. No one volunteered. I could feel the weight rising, pressing down on my skull. I knew I had to, because if I didn’t, the pressure would build until I couldn’t breathe. I placed my fingertips on the planchette. ‘Hello?’ I said, my voice barely a whisper. The planchette didn’t move. The wind howled, and I felt a cold draft snake around my ankles, despite the rain. Lena reached out and placed her fingers on the plastic triangle, her touch like ice. The planchette trembled, then slid slowly to ‘HELLO.’

‘Who are we talking to?’ I asked. The planchette jerked to ‘A,’ then ‘N,’ then ‘N.’ ‘Ann?’ Sarah guessed. The planchette moved faster, spelling ‘A-N-N-A-B-E-L-L-E.’ Marcus let out a nervous laugh. ‘Like the doll?’ But Lena’s face had gone white. She whispered, ‘It’s her. It’s my sister.’ I wanted to pull away, but the planchette was moving on its own, my hand just along for the ride. ‘D-O-N-T-L-E-T-H-I-M-I-N,’ it spelled. ‘Who?’ Daniel demanded. ‘Who’s him?’ The planchette spun wildly, then stopped. The rain had turned to sleet, and the wind had dropped. The air was still, heavy, so thick you could taste it. I looked at Lena. Tears were streaming down her face, but she was smiling. ‘He’s here,’ she said. ‘He’s been waiting.’

The weight on my chest suddenly lifted, and in its place, a horrible cold filled me, like I had swallowed ice water. The trees around the cemetery went silent. I saw a shape move between the headstones, a tall, gaunt figure in a long dark coat, its face hidden under a wide-brimmed hat. It was walking toward us, slowly, deliberately, and I knew with a terrible certainty that it was the thing that had been waiting. ‘Run,’ I said, but my voice was a croak. No one moved. The figure stopped at the edge of our circle, and I saw its face: not human, but a mask of white bone, with eye sockets that were black voids. It raised a long arm, and its finger pointed at Lena. ‘He wants your locket,’ I said without meaning to, the words falling out of me like stones. Lena clutched the silver locket. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all I have left of her.’

Daniel grabbed my arm. ‘What are you doing? Snap out of it!’ But I couldn’t. The figure reached out, and I saw that behind it, the door of the old crypt was open, a rectangle of absolute blackness. ‘He wants to take you through the pale door,’ I heard myself say. The others finally moved, scrambling away, but Lena stood frozen. The figure took another step, and its hand touched the locket. There was a flash of light, and suddenly we were back in the parlor of the Bramble House, soaking wet, the Ouija board lying on the floor, the candles blown out. Lena was gone. The front door was open, and outside, the rain had stopped. We searched for hours, but there was no sign of her. In her room, we found her diary, open to the last page. In shaky handwriting, she had written: ‘He came for me tonight. He’s been waiting since the accident. He wants the key to the pale door. I have to give it to him.’

The police questioned us, but we told them she wandered off, confused. They never found her. A week later, I walked back to the cemetery alone, in daylight, and found the crypt door sealed with fresh concrete. But the weight never came back. Instead, I felt a hollow space in my chest, like a part of me was missing. As I turned to leave, I saw a figure standing at the edge of the trees, tall and gaunt in a long coat, watching me. It raised a hand and pointed to the crypt. And then it was gone. I never went back to the cemetery. I transferred to a university in Ontario, moved to an apartment with no history, no spirits. But every time I pass a door, whether it’s an old wooden one or a modern metal one, I can’t help but feel a pull, a subtle tug, as if something on the other side is waiting for me to open it. And sometimes, late at night, I hear a faint whisper, a girl’s voice, saying, ‘Don’t let him in.’ I don’t know if it’s Lena or her sister. But I know one thing for certain: that pale door is still out there, and it’s not finished with me.