The Pale Glass

In the autumn of 1987, I had just returned from my first assignment in the Navy, granted a month’s leave before shipping out again. My wife at the time, Lena, had invited a few friends over for a late harvest gathering. The house we rented sat on the edge of a small town, surrounded by fields that had already turned brittle and brown, and the wind carried a smell of rot and distant smoke.

As the evening wore on, the conversation drifted to the unexplained. I had always been skeptical, but one of the guests, a wiry man named Marcus, claimed he and two others had crafted a Ouija board from glass, consecrated it with a dark ritual. He said they used black candles, and when they dripped the wax on the corners of the glass, the wax turned clear as it touched, revealing the glass beneath. He insisted this allowed them to see the spirits they contacted.

I pressed him for details of the ritual, but he grew evasive, saying only that they had followed instructions from an old book and that the results were palpable. His eyes darted to the window, as if expecting something. Another guest, a quiet woman named Simone, added that the thing had a presence, a heaviness. She claimed that after using it, she felt watched for days.

I dismissed it as paranoia, but the conversation lingered. Later that night, as I lay in bed, I couldn’t shake the image of that glass board, the wax turning clear like ice melting. I imagined it sitting on a table, reflecting the candlelight, and I felt a chill crawl up my spine. I told myself it was just the wind rattling the old window frames.

A week later, a package arrived at our door, no return address. Inside was a rectangular pane of glass, about the size of a shoebox lid, wrapped in brown paper. On it were painted the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, and YES/NO, all in faded black paint. In the center, a worn planchette of polished wood. My blood ran cold. I had never given our address to anyone, and the parcel bore a postmark from a town I’d never heard of.

Lena was equally disturbed. She wanted to throw it away, but I was morbidly curious. I half suspected it was a prank from Marcus, but when I called him, he denied it, and his voice cracked when he asked where I got it. He warned me to burn it, to not touch the glass without gloves. ‘You stained it,’ he said. ‘The wax, it doesn’t just clear. It drinks.’ He hung up.

Despite her fears, I set the board on our dining table one evening after Lena had gone to bed. I placed my fingertips on the planchette, just to see if anything would happen. The glass felt cold, unnaturally so, and the room seemed to dim. The planchette trembled, then moved slowly across the letters: G… R… A… V… E. I pulled my hands back, heart pounding.

I tried to dismiss it as my own involuntary muscle movements, but the board seemed to have a gravity. Over the next days, I felt an urge to touch it, to place my hands on it again. I fought it, but one night I woke to find myself sitting at the table, the planchette under my fingers, sweat on my brow. I had no memory of getting up.

The thing began to speak, spelling out fragments: ‘I see you’ and ‘She weeps’ and ‘More than you know’. I tried to remove my hands, but they were frozen, as if glued. The planchette moved with a will of its own, etching a phrase that made my stomach drop: ‘You are not the first.’ Then it stopped.

I managed to break free and staggered back. The glass seemed darker, the letters clearer, as if the paint had been refreshed. I noticed that the corners of the glass, where the wax had supposedly been dripped, were no longer clear but had a milky white film, like cataracts. And in the center of the board, I saw a faint reflection—not of my face, but of a woman I didn’t recognize, with hollow eyes and a slack mouth.

I grabbed the board, intending to smash it, but as I lifted it, the reflection moved. It seemed to follow me. I could see it growing clearer, more solid, as if it were coming through. I threw it on the floor, shattering it into a thousand pieces. But the shards didn’t fall; they hovered for a moment, then reassembled, the glass whole again, but now the planchette was gone. In its place was a smear of something dark and sticky.

Lena came running at the noise. She saw me kneeling on the floor, the board intact, and she screamed. She pointed at my reflection in the glass: it was not me. It was a gaunt, pale version, with eyes that were dark voids. And she said, ‘It’s wearing you.’

I dropped the board and ran out of the house, into the cold night. The fields were dark, and the wind was howling. I could feel something pressing on my mind, a whisper that seemed to come from inside my skull: ‘You have my body now.’ I looked down at my hands, and they seemed foreign, as if they belonged to someone else. I saw a scar on my thumb that I knew I didn’t have.

I returned to the house, but Lena was gone. The board was on the table, the planchette back in its place, and the glass was clear again, the letters now slightly golden, like old blood. I haven’t used it since, but I can’t get rid of it. It sits in the attic, wrapped in a black cloth, and sometimes at night I hear a faint scratching from above, as if something is trying to get out. And I feel my reflection watching me, even when I’m not near a mirror.

I don’t know what that glass board was, or who sent it, but I know this: it wasn’t a joke. It’s a doorway, and I opened it. Sometimes, when the wind blows just right, I think I see her—the woman with hollow eyes—standing at the edge of the fields, waving at me. And I’m afraid that one day, she’ll walk up to the house and knock, and I’ll have no choice but to let her in.

That was thirty years ago. I’ve moved, changed my name, but the board always finds me. It’s in my current home now, tucked under the bed. And last night, I woke to find the planchette resting on the word ‘YES’. I don’t know what question I asked in my sleep, but I fear the answer is already in motion. This board was never meant for the living, and I’m just a host, waiting for the final transfer.