The Penny Dreadful Protocol

My grandmother, Eleanor, was a woman of impeccable silence. She kept her teacups arranged by height, her garden free of weeds, and her memories locked behind a door I wasn’t permitted to open. It wasn’t until I was twenty-five, sitting across from her at her kitchen table, that she finally cracked it open. I had asked why we never kept a Ouija board in the house, despite her vast collection of tarot decks and pendulums. She looked at me with those faded gray eyes, and I knew she was about to tell me something she had never told anyone else.

It was the summer of 1952 in the dusty town of Cinder Falls, Oklahoma. Eleanor was seventeen, and her best friend, Ruth, had just returned from a trip to New Orleans with a gift: a hand-carved Ouija board, its planchette shaped like a crescent moon. Ruth was insistent they use it that very night, and Eleanor, ever curious despite her cautious nature, agreed. They set up in Ruth’s basement, a cramped room filled with old boxes and the smell of mothballs. Ruth lit a single candle and placed the board on a rusted card table.

They began with simple questions, the usual teenage nonsense. The planchette slid under their fingers, spelling out names of boys and predictions of school dances. But then Ruth, giggling, asked, ‘Is there a spirit here who wants to speak?’ The planchette shot to the corner of the board, trembling. It spelled out a single word: ‘HOME.’ Ruth laughed, but Eleanor felt a cold knot in her stomach. She wanted to stop, but Ruth insisted they continue.

They asked the spirit its name. The planchette moved, spelling ‘PETER.’ Eleanor froze, because Peter was the name of a boy who had drowned in the Cinder River three years before, a boy she had known and had a secret crush on. Ruth, oblivious, said, ‘Why, you know him!’ and asked Peter if he had a message for Eleanor. The planchette spelled, ‘BENEATH THE WILLOW.’ Ruth thought it was a game, but Eleanor knew exactly what it meant. A willow tree by the river, where they used to meet. She forced a laugh and said the candle was making her dizzy. She pushed the board away, but Ruth insisted on one more question: ‘What do you want?’ The planchette flew to ‘MOURN’ and then spelled ‘WITH ME.’ Ruth shrugged, but Eleanor saw the candle flame flicker green for a split second.

Eleanor didn’t sleep that night. The next day, she went to the willow tree, her heart pounding. At the base, she found a small tin box, rusted and half buried. Inside was a cheap penny dreadful, a horror story pamphlet, soaked in river water. The cover was blank, but the pages were filled with a handwritten story about a boy who drowned and a girl who would follow him. The ink was smeared, but she recognized Peter’s handwriting. The last page read: ‘I am still here. Come down with me.’

Eleanor ran home, but the dread followed her. Over the next week, she would see Peter in reflections—in store windows, in the toaster’s gleam—always with wet hair, always with a sad smile. She told Ruth, but Ruth dismissed it as grief. But then Ruth fell ill. A strange fever that wouldn’t break, and she kept muttering, ‘The willow, the water.’ Eleanor knew she had to do something. She remembered her mother’s old superstition: bury the board, salt the corners. She tried to retrieve the Ouija board, but Ruth’s mother said she had thrown it away after Ruth’s sickness. So Eleanor went back to the willow tree, dug a hole, and burned the penny dreadful, pouring salt over the ashes. She never played with a Ouija board again.

Eleanor paused, her hands wrapped around her now-cold tea. ‘I married your grandfather a year later,’ she said. ‘I never told him about Peter. But the night you were born, I swore I saw a shadow in the corner of the room, a boy with wet hair, and he nodded once before fading. It was as if he was saying, ‘She’s yours now, but I’ll wait.’ I named you Hope, so he would have nothing to hold onto. But I always wondered.’ She looked at me, her eyes pleading. ‘You’re the first person I’ve told. Because you asked. And because I need you to believe me, Hope. Some doors shouldn’t be opened, not because of what’s behind them, but because they open both ways.’

I sat in silence, the weight of her words settling in my bones. I glanced at my own reflection in the dark window behind her, and for a moment, I thought I saw a faint figure, a boy with wet hair, standing outside the glass, his hand pressed against it. But when I blinked, it was gone. Eleanor must have seen my expression, because she whispered, ‘He’s still waiting. Promise me you’ll never play.’ I nodded, and I never did. But sometimes, when I pass a mirror, I check for water droplets on my shoulder, and I hear a voice, faint and wet, calling my name.