The Unanswered Question

It began with a cardboard box, unmarked and dusty, found wedged behind the cider press in my great-aunt’s cellar. I was clearing the place after she’d passed, and my flashlight caught the corner of it. Inside, wrapped in a moth-eaten shawl, was a planchette board—not the commercial Milton Bradley kind, but a hand-painted thing with worn letters and a sun-and-moon motif rimmed in tarnished brass. There was no instruction booklet, just a white silk cord tied around the box.

I’d always been the skeptical one in my family. My cousin, Elara, had tried a talking board with her friends years ago and claimed it moved on its own, but I figured it was their fingers. So when I found this antique, I saw a curiosity, not a threat. I didn’t read the rules because I didn’t think I needed them. That weekend, I set it up in my tiny apartment’s kitchen, the only room with a table large enough, and lit a candle for ambiance.

I tried to contact Elara, but she was out of town. My friends were too spooked by the idea. So I sat alone, placed my fingers on the planchette, and asked, ‘Is anyone here?’ The planchette didn’t move. I asked again, more firmly. Still nothing. I was about to give up when a cold draft swept through the room, and the candle flame bent sideways. I asked, ‘What is your name?’ The planchette slid to ‘G’ then ‘R’ then ‘A’ then ‘C’—Gracie. ‘Are you a child?’ I asked. The planchette moved to ‘Y’.

I spent the next hour talking to Gracie. She said she was eight years old, had died in a house fire on the outskirts of town, and she was lonely. I felt a pang of pity. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked. The planchette moved to ‘F’ ‘R’ ‘I’ ‘E’ ‘N’ ‘D’. A friend. I felt the usual skeptic’s relief—maybe I was just moving it with my own subconscious. Then the planchette jerked violently to the corner of the board, spelling ‘D’ ‘A’ ‘R’ ‘K’. ‘What do you mean, dark?’ I asked. The board went still. I asked again. Then the planchette spelled, ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘L’ ‘P’ ‘M’ ‘E’.

I felt a sudden shift, as if a new presence had come in. I asked, ‘Who is this?’ The planchette spelled ‘R’ ‘U’ ‘T’ ‘H’. ‘Hello, Ruth,’ I said, then jokingly, ‘Are you a friend too?’ The planchette spelled ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘A’ ‘T’ ‘H’. I laughed, assuming it was nonsense. ‘No, really. What do you want?’ The planchette spelled ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘A’ ‘T’ ‘H’ again. I started to get annoyed. ‘Prove it,’ I said, my voice sharp. ‘Show me something real.’ The planchette flew off the board, clattering to the floor. The candle snuffed out. I sat in the dark for a long moment, feeling foolish. I decided it was all in my head, and I packed the board away, shoving it into a closet.

For two months, sleep became my enemy. Every night, between 3 and 4 in the morning, I’d jolt awake, drenched in sweat, my heart hammering, a sense of dread so thick I could taste it. I’d lie still, straining to hear, but the apartment was silent. Sometimes I felt a pressure on my chest, as if something was sitting on me, watching me with a malevolent hunger. I told myself it was stress, grief over my aunt, but the feeling never left.

One night, about fifty days in, I woke to a chorus of inhuman screams coming from the living room. The sound was so piercing and alien that I couldn’t move. Then came a thunderous thud, like a body hitting the floor, so loud the walls shook. I forced myself out of bed, my legs like jelly, and stumbled to the doorway. The living room was dark, but I could feel a presence, a suffocating weight in front of me, radiating pure intent to harm me. I screamed for my upstairs neighbor, but there was no sound from above. I grabbed my phone and dialed 911, but the line was dead.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I stayed in the kitchen with all the lights on, the Ouija board box on the counter, unopened. The next day, I tried to burn the board. I took it to the backyard, doused it in lighter fluid, and set it alight. The flames were unnaturally cold, and the letters seemed to sizzle and contort. As they burned, I heard a whisper in the smoke, a voice I didn’t recognize saying, ‘You didn’t ask the question.’ I tried to ignore it, but the fear had taken root.

A week later, I was in the kitchen at 3:33 AM, unable to sleep, when the cupboards began to rattle. The lights flickered. Then, on the counter, the milk carton began to slide, and the fridge door swung open by itself. I backed away, but the air had turned icy. I heard a faint, guttural whisper, like a voice through a broken radio, repeating one word: ‘Why.’ The word hung in the air, and I realized it was asking me: Why had I contacted it? Why had I challenged it? Why had I tried to burn it? I didn’t have an answer.

That was two years ago. I haven’t slept through the night since. I see shapes in the periphery, hear distant footsteps, and smell the stench of burned wood and bitter almonds. I’ve moved three times, changed my phone number, and tried every cleansing ritual I could find. But I know now: the board was just a conduit. The real thing had latched onto me the moment I asked that question, the fatal question: ‘Who is this?’ I never asked the one question that might have saved me—’What do you want from me?’ Because the answer, I fear, would have been one I couldn’t bear to hear. And so the darkness follows, patient and ravenous, waiting for me to finally ask the question that has haunted me: ‘Why me? Why me? Why me?’ The board is gone, but every night at 3:33, I hear the whisper, and the fear is that one day I won’t just wake up screaming—I’ll answer it.