The Ouija

Growing up we all have that certain someone who is our rock, our safe person, someone we can relax around and just be ourselves, someone we can confide in and turn to during our darkest moments. That person for Lucinda Maxwell was her Granny Erma.

Lucinda is a bit of a peculiar girl, somewhat socially inept. She’s the very definition of Plain Jane, dressing conservatively for the nineteen-fifties, much less the twenty-first century. She prefers books to television and board games to video games. She writes and draws in a journal she keeps with her at all times. She also enjoys baking and needle point. These are the things she shares with her granny and not much of anyone else. They have a special bond and Lucinda feels that Granny Erma is the only person who understands her.

The day came, on Lucinda’s fourteenth birthday, that Granny Erma passed away peacefully in her sleep. This was devastating for Lucinda who now felt alone in a world full of people. Granny Erma practically raised Lucinda from the time she was a wee little babe. Lucinda’s mother, being the sole provider, worked constantly, picking up extra shifts to pay the bills. The two never bonded the way Lucinda and Erma did, and Lucinda feels her mother sees her as odd and as a disappointment.

It took Lucinda a couple weeks to open the present her grandmother left behind. It was wrapped in leftover Christmas paper, the design Lucinda loved with the chubby cherubs resting on their clouds. Taped to the outside was a card that read, ‘Happy Birthday! Contact me anytime.’ She opened it gently, wanting to save the paper for a scrapbook she was putting together of her and Granny Erma. Inside was an old wooden box containing an antique Ouija board, all black with rounded edges and faded gold lettering. It was decorated with the sun, the moon, and the stars. It had a real rustic charm and a creepy vibe. Lucinda loved it.

That night, after her mother went to sleep, Lucinda snuck out of the house and rode her bike down to the cemetery with the Ouija board, her journal, and a candle tucked away in her bag. She climbed the stone wall to get in and found her granny’s grave. The night’s air was cool and damp. She pulled her shawl tight around her and laid out the Ouija board on the still fresh, moist soil of her grandmother’s grave and lit the candle. She put both sets of fingers on the planchette and asked, “Granny Erma, are you there?”

The planchette moved to yes.

“Granny, I miss you so much. Dou you miss me?”

The planchette circled back around to yes.

“I wish you were still here. It’s so lonely without you.”

The planchette moved across the board: Y-O-U-C-A-N-B-R-I-N-G-M-E-B-A-C-K.

“How granny? I would do anything to have you back.”

The planchette moved rapidly across the board. Lucinda had to write down the letters as they came. It was directions on how to bring her granny back. Draw a star on the ground. Circle it. Light black candles and place them at the points of the stars. Build a small fire in the middle of the stared circle. Cut your hand and drip blood into the fire while chanting, with my blood, restore my blood, six times. After that blow out the candles. In a day or two I will find my way to you.

With that, Lucinda enthusiastically said goodbye and went home.

The next day, after her mom left for work, Lucinda rode her bike to the mall where there was a candle store and purchased five black candles. She then went over to the office supply store and bought some chalk. When she got home, she pulled up the living room rug and drew her star, circling it. Then she lit the five candles and placed one at each point of the star. On a plate she made a small fire of grass and twigs. With a butcher’s knife from the kitchen, she slit her hand and squeezed her blood into the flames as she chanted, “with my blood, restore my blood,” six times. When she was done, she blew out the candles, bandaged her hand, and put everything back the way she found it.

That night, Lucinda woke in the middle of the night. She thought she saw her Granny Erma watching her from her doorway. She rubbed the grit from her eyes and when she looked again, she was gone. Lucinda got out of bed to look for her. She looked in the kitchen when from behind her a hand grabbed her by the shoulder.

“What are doing,” her mother asked.

“I’m looking for Granny Erma,” Lucinda said groggily.

“Let’s get you back to bed,” her mom said, guiding her into her room. “I know you miss your grandma sweetie, but she’s in a better place now. It gets easier with time. You’ll see.”

As Lucinda drifted back to sleep, she mumbled, “She’s coming back. You’ll see.”

In the morning, Lucinda was eating some cereal for breakfast when her mom came in to say goodbye before leaving for work. “Make sure you rinse out that bowl and clean your room. Make sure there’s no food lying around. I’m going to call an exterminator today. We’ve got something in the attic. I heard it moving around up there all night.”

After Lucinda finished her breakfast, she went straight to cleaning her room. Once done, she decided it was time for a long hot bath and a good book. She filled the tub and stretched out to read for a while. Once she was nice and relaxed, she put the book down and submerged her head. When she came back up, she felt something crawl up her nose. A second later a millipede crawled out of her mouth. She threw it across the room and gagged and spat, fiddling with her nose trying to rid it of the sensation. Then she felt it all over her. The tub was filled with various insects. She screamed and tried to get out, but they smashed under her feet, and she slipped, falling in head fully submerged in bugs. She could feel them wiggling their way up her nose and into her ears. She could feel them crawling across her eyes and burrowing their way into her loins. She managed to crawl over the side of the tub, spitting and gagging, crying, horrified, but found nothing on her or anything in the tub but water. Written in the fog of the mirror was ‘granny’s gone.’

Lucinda grabbed the Ouija board and rode to the cemetery in a panic. She runs up to her granny’s grave and slides to a stop on her knees. She frantically sets up the board and puts both sets of fingers on the planchette. “Granny Erma, are you there?”

The planchette moves to no.

“Who am I talking to?”

The planchette moves: M-E

“Me? Who is me? Who are you,” Lucinda demands.

The planchette moved to goodbye. Then it circled around again to goodbye. Then again. Lucinda let go of the planchette, yet it kept moving, circling around to goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Lucinda grabbed the planchette and threw it in her bag. She folded up the board and threw it in the bag as well. Then she headed home where she found her neighbors staring at her house. Lights were flashing on and off, doors could be heard slamming, and the smell of sulfur was emanating from her home.

Lucinda pushed past everyone and barged in the front door. The furniture was levitating, crashing into things, and the pictures on the wall were spinning. Lucinda fought her way through the chaos to the fireplace. She threw in some kindling and started ripping pages out of her journal. She got a fire lit and threw the Ouija board in. The cursed thing growled and hissed before shrieking like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July.

Lucinda’s bedroom door flung open revealing a black abyss that began sucking everything in the room its way. Lucinda grabbed on to the hearth for dear life as hurricane grade winds tried to blow her into the darkness. Her mom appeared at the front door, clinging to the doorpost.

“Lucinda, what is happening,” she shouts as monstrous sharp teeth emerge from the doorframe, cutting her hands and forcing her to let go.

Lucinda reached out for her. She could hear her mother's fingernails clawing on the wood floor. Her mom reached out for her and in an instant, she was gone.

The bricks of the hearth where Lucinda was hanging on began to liquify, making it harder to maintain her grip, then they splashed to the floor, sending Lucinda barreling into the dark abyss.

Lucinda was falling in the darkness. She could hear her mother’s agonizing cries ahead of her. The heat was unbearable, causing boils to form on her skin as she fell. She screamed in terror as hands everywhere groped and clawed her, causing her fall to turn into a tumble as she bounced off unseen bodies that reeked of death until she spilled out of her bedroom into the living room burnt and bloody next to her mom who was also burnt and bloody.

Her mom grabbed her by the arm and the ran out of the house and drove straight to the church, avoiding the hospital and the questions that would come with it. There Lucinda confessed all that she had seen and done to her mother and Father Brimley. Father Brimley convinced them both that they needed to be baptized, so they were, and he tended to their wounds. Then they went back to the house where Father Brimley found the Ouija board lying in the fireplace unscathed.

“Do you have a box for this,” he asked Lucinda.

Lucinda ran and got him the box. He put the board and the planchette back in and tacked it shut with two small crucifixes along the seam. Then he tacked a larger cross to the top and said a prayer over it.

“I’ll be sending this to the Vatican. They have a special place for demonic relics like this,” Father Brimley said plainly.

“Father, what do we do now,” Lucinda’s mother asked.

“Move, and never again mess with anything you do not understand.”