The Unburied Board

The day Derek moved out, he left the planchette and the board on the back porch, half buried under a pile of old newspapers and a broken lawn chair. I said I’d toss them, but the next day came and went, and the day after that, and soon they became part of the porch’s clutter, like the dead ferns in their cracked pots. I nagged him once, and he just shrugged, saying he’d get to it ‘eventually.’ Eventually turned into never.

Now the house feels different. It started subtly—a chill in the hallway that had no source, a draft in rooms with closed windows. Then the shadows began to move. Not just at the edge of vision, but in the corner of the living room, a shape that would slide across the wall when you weren’t looking directly at it. My roommate, Priya, swore she saw a figure standing in the kitchen doorway one night, tall and featureless, before it dissolved into the dark. My brother, Sam, heard whispers in his room, like a soft conversation just beyond the wall, but when he pressed his ear to it, there was nothing but the hum of the house.

Last week, I was taking a shower. The water was scalding, but the air around me turned icy, so sudden that my breath fogged. I had shampoo in my hair, and I was lathering when something jabbed me hard in the stomach—a sharp, cold prod, like an icy finger. I yelped and scrambled out, dripping water across the tile, my heart pounding. I didn’t go back in for two days, using the gym shower down the street.

Three nights ago, Sam was on the couch, and I was in the recliner with the dog, Lulu, on my lap. I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, I was wide awake, every muscle tense. The air was frigid. Lulu was stiff, her ears flat, a low growl rumbling in her chest. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Then I saw it—a shadow, thicker than the darkness, standing at the foot of the recliner. It tilted its head, as if studying me, and then it leaned in, close enough that I felt its cold breath on my face. A whisper, like dry leaves, skittered past my ear: ‘You kept me.’

I finally screamed. Sam jolted awake, flicked on the lamp, and the shadow was gone. But the cold remained, and Lulu wouldn’t stop shaking. We both knew it was the board. We went to the porch to finally get rid of it, but the planchette was gone. The board was still there, but the planchette had vanished. We searched the yard, under the porch, everywhere—nothing. That night, we heard footsteps upstairs, slow and deliberate, crossing from the spare room to the bathroom. We didn’t sleep.

Now it’s worse. The cold spots are everywhere, especially downstairs. I walked into the kitchen last night and saw the board on the table, not on the porch. It had been cleaned, dusted, the letters gleaming under the overhead light. The planchette was on it, and it began to move on its own, sliding to ‘Y-O-U,’ then ‘K-E-P-T.’ I backed away, and it stopped. But I know it’s not over. Derek left that board out there, and we never buried it. Now it’s become part of the house, and it’s not going to leave until we finish what we started.