Joelle had always found comfort in the library’s gloom. The ancient shelves, the smell of dust and fading paper, the cool hush … it was a cocoon for someone who devoured Christopher Pike and Anne Rice like holy texts. Her friends, Lynne and Sara, teased her for it, though they shared her taste for the macabre.
It was Lynne who suggested they make their own Ouija board. Out of boredom, out of curiosity, out of a restlessness that seemed to have infected them all that year.
They started looking for stationery supplies from the art room but only managed to find a neon-orange cardboard. They scrawled out the letters and numbers, a crooked “YES” and “NO” in marker. Lynne even drew delicate filigree around the edges. It was clumsy, a toy. They laughed as they finished it.
When Sara proposed the library as their séance ground, Joelle didn’t hesitate. The school building dated back to the 1920s, surely if ghosts lurked anywhere on campus, it would be here.
They picked a table tucked away near the archives, where the shelves crowded close and the fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a tired hum.
Lynne set the Echo Board, as the girls called it, carefully on the scratched wood. The neon seemed almost too bright against the dim library gloom. They cut a planchette from clear plastic and balanced it in the center.
Sara leaned forward, seemingly excited. “So… how do we start this, exactly?”
“Two fingers each,” Lynne instructed in her usual playful bossiness. “And then… I guess we just ask.”
Joelle rested her fingertips lightly on the plastic. The board felt oddly warm, as though it had been sitting in sunlight, not a dusty old library.
“Is anyone here with us?” Sara whispered, almost giddy.
For long seconds, nothing happened. Joelle exhaled, almost disappointed. Then, the planchette gave a tiny, reluctant jerk.
Joelle gasped, eyes darting to each of her friends. Sara and Lynne did the same, exchanging nervous looks.
“You moved it!” Sara hissed.
“No, I didn’t!” Lynne snapped, eyes wide.
It jerked again, sliding over to the corner of the board. Slowly, almost painstakingly, it spelled: H E L L O.
They all sucked in a breath.
A cold draft whispered through the stacks. Joelle shivered. Her heart thudded against her ribs, but a thrill curled in her stomach too.
“Who are you?” she asked before she could stop herself.
The planchette skittered. C O L L — then wavered, scraped backward, settled on O.
“‘Collo?’” Sara tried, forcing a laugh that cracked in the middle.
“Maybe it’s trying to say ‘collect’?” Lynne said. Her voice was hushed, as if she regretted speaking at all.
Sara rolled her eyes, trying to shove away the fear. “Or you two are just messing with me.”
But when they all lifted their hands, the planchette kept moving. It scraped slowly across the board, a dry whisper of plastic on cardboard, spelling out: M I N E.
Joelle’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t touched it. Neither had Lynne or Sara. They were all sitting back, hands hovering in stunned horror.
Then something knocked over a pile of books a few aisles down. The crash echoed like a gunshot. All three of them jumped to their feet.
“Okay. That’s enough,” Lynne said, voice shaking. She snatched up the Echo Board, shoved it back into her tote. “Let’s… let’s just forget we did this.”
Of course, forgetting was impossible.
That night, Joelle awoke frozen in her bed, breath locked in her chest. At first, she thought it was her usual sleep paralysis…her body pinned while her mind thrashed.
But then she saw it: a man standing by her window. His silhouette sharp and wrong, hat pulled low, coat too long, hands twitching. One hand raised, and in it gleamed a blade slick with something dark.
Joelle tried to scream. She blinked. He was gone. She thought she saw her own severed arm floating above her chest, beckoning.
Days later, Lynne started seeing things at home…dark shapes with long fingers curling around the doorframes.
At school one day, Lynne came to Joelle and Sara with sleeves tugged over her wrists. “I keep seeing… something. At my house. Out of the corner of my eye. Long nails, like… like knives.”
She finally showed them her arms. Thin red welts curled around her skin, almost playful. As if something had traced patterns on her while she slept.
Sara didn’t mention anything until one week later, when she showed up at the cafeteria clutching a fat paper envelope from the photo shop, the kind with your name and the number of photos scribbled on the front.
“I… I got these developed from my weekend trip to Penang with Adrian,” she said, her voice low, eyes darting. “But something’s wrong.”
She spread the glossy prints out on the table with trembling hands. They were mostly tourist shots with Adrian grinning in front of old shophouses, the two of them sharing coconut shakes, bright sun overhead.
But in one photo, taken outside a crumbling Peranakan house, something stood in the dark window behind Adrian. A pale figure. A woman, maybe, though her features were blurred, like the camera had trembled violently. Even so, her head was unmistakably tilted toward the lens, as if staring directly at whoever would one day hold this photo.
“I don’t even remember taking this one,” Sara whispered.
Finally, in the hushed heat of the afternoon library, they gathered again. None of them wanted to be there, but it felt like the only safe place left.
“We need to fix this,” Lynne whispered. Her hands were shoved deep into her sleeves, hiding scratches that hadn’t been there last week. “Maybe a medium. Someone who can… undo whatever we started.”
Sara nodded, pale. Her eyes darted around the stacks, as if expecting something to peer out.
Joelle swallowed. “Yeah. Okay.”
They didn’t talk about the board still tucked in Lynne’s bag — the way it seemed darker now, the neon orange leached into something bruised and old. Or how sometimes, even when none of them were touching it, the planchette would sometimes be found resting over a single letter, over and over again: M.
None of them wanted to ask what it might finish spelling.
