The Paper Circle

I was nine the summer my parents sent me to stay with my aunt and uncle in the hills above the old mill town. Their house, a sprawling Victorian with a sagging porch and peeling paint, sat at the end of a gravel lane, half-swallowed by firs. My cousin Evie was my age, and we’d spent the first two days exploring the attic, finding moth-eaten dolls and a phonograph with warped records. But on the third evening, as the sun dipped behind the ridge, throwing long shadows through the parlor windows, Evie whispered about a trick her friend had taught her.

She’d seen it at a slumber party: a way to talk to the dead. You made a little board with letters, and a glass would move to spell answers. I’d heard of such things, of course, from a babysitter who’d told me a story that made the hairs on my arms stand up, but I’d never tried. Evie’s eyes were wide, and she laughed a little too loudly. ‘Come on, it’s just a game,’ she said.

We used an old cardboard box from the cellar, cutting it into a rough circle with scissors that were dull and kept snagging on the corrugated cardboard. We wrote the alphabet on small slips of paper, the pencil scratching in the quiet of the den. Evie’s sister, Cora, was in the corner, propped in her wheelchair, her head lolling, her eyes half-closed. She was only five and couldn’t walk or talk much, just a small wheeze when she breathed. Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bart were downstairs in the kitchen, the clatter of pots faint and far away.

We pushed the sofa against the door, even though there was no lock. ‘Just in case,’ Evie said, and her grin had a wild edge. We closed the heavy curtains, and the room fell into a dusty dimness, the only light from a single lamp with a frayed shade. Evie placed a small juice glass upside down in the middle of the paper circle, and we both set a fingertip on the rim.

‘Is there anyone here?’ Evie asked, her voice a stage whisper.

Nothing. The glass was still. I could smell dust and furniture polish and something else, a faint iron tang, like old pennies. Cora made a noise, a sort of gurgle, and Evie shot her a glare. ‘Shut up, Cora.’

The glass twitched. I felt it slide a fraction under my finger, like a tiny push. Evie’s eyes went wide. ‘You’re moving it,’ I accused.

‘No I’m not,’ she breathed.

The glass began to move in a slow circle, then darted to the letter ‘H’. Then ‘E’. Then ‘L’. ‘L’. ‘O’.

‘Hello,’ I read aloud, my voice cracking. The glass stopped. My heart was pounding against my ribs. Evie’s face had gone pale, her knuckles white.

We asked if it had a name. The glass spelled ‘M-A-R-Y’. I didn’t know any Mary. Evie shook her head. We asked where it was. The glass slid to ‘H-E-R-E’.

A floorboard creaked above us. The chandelier swayed slightly, even though the windows were shut. Cora’s head rolled to the side, and her eyes opened, for just a second, clear and focused, and she smiled. A thin, wet smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Then her head lolled back, and she was as before.

Evie and I looked at each other. ‘Maybe we should stop,’ I whispered.

‘We can’t,’ Evie hissed. ‘We have to say goodbye.’ She turned to the glass. ‘Goodbye, Mary.’

The glass didn’t move. ‘Say goodbye,’ she urged me. I mumbled it. The glass remained stubbornly still, the letters mocking us in their careful rows.

Then the lamp flickered, once, and went out. We sat in darkness, the only sound Cora’s labored breathing. I could feel a cold draft on my ankles, as if a door had opened somewhere. Evie’s fingers were trembling on the glass. We sat there for what felt like an hour, but was probably only a minute, until the light came back on, as if nothing had happened.

We shoved the board and letters into the box and carried it down to the cellar, throwing it into the coal bin. We didn’t speak of it. But that night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in the guest bed, listening to the groans of the old house. Around 2 AM, I heard a sound from the room across the hall—the attic stairs creaking, as if someone were walking down. Then, the soft, halting shuffle of feet, and a wheezing breath. I pulled the covers over my head, my heart hammering.

The door to my room swung open. I squeezed my eyes shut. I heard the rustle of fabric, and then a small, cold hand pressed against my cheek.

I screamed. The hand withdrew. I heard Cora’s giggle, a high, brittle sound, from the doorway. I opened my eyes. She was standing there, leaning against the frame, her legs hanging uselessly. Her head was tilted, and in the dim light from the hallway, I saw that her eyes were black, like pools of oil, and her mouth was stretched too wide.

‘Hello, John,’ she said, in a voice that was not her own, but deeper, older, with a hiss. ‘You woke me.’

I must have fainted. When I came to, I was on the floor, tangled in the sheets. Cora was in her wheelchair in the hallway, her head lolling, as if she’d never moved. The door was shut. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night, and I never told anyone what I saw.

The next day, I insisted we burn the paper circle. Evie was reluctant, but she helped me rip the board into pieces and toss them into the wood stove in the kitchen, watching the flames catch. As the last scrap curled to ash, I felt a sense of relief. But that night, as I lay in bed, I heard a faint tapping at my window, rhythmic, like fingernails on glass. And a voice, very soft, from the hallway: ‘Mary says hello.’

I left the next morning, earlier than planned. My parents thought I was homesick. I never told them the truth. And I never stayed in that house again, not even for a night. But even now, years later, when I close my eyes on a quiet evening, I can still hear that wheezing breath, and I can still see Cora’s small, shadowed form standing in my doorway, her eyes like empty sockets, and I know that the paper circle is not the only thing I left behind. Something followed me home, and it has been waiting, patient, for me to be alone again.