We Contacted The Dead — And Uncovered A Decades-Old Secret
Part 1
We sat cross-legged on the faded persian rug, our knees almost touching in a tight circle around the homemade spirit board.
Two white candles provided the only light in the cavernous, drafty living room, casting long shadows across our tense faces.
Brenda had always been drawn to the supernatural, and tonight, she had a highly specific, terrifying goal.
Her grandfather, Craig, had passed away a few years ago.
He died sitting right in the heavy oak armchair that still dominated the dark corner of the room.
Brenda always insisted she could feel his presence lingering heavily whenever she walked past it.
She claimed the air would turn freezing cold, and the faint scent of his pipe tobacco would hang thick in the room.
Heather was the skeptical one, always ready to aggressively debunk anything strange or unexplained.
I usually sided with logic, but there was something undeniably eerie about that empty armchair.
It sat there like a silent sentinel, facing the dark window as if waiting patiently for someone to return.
Around midnight, the reckless idea of making a homemade spirit board came up.
We didn’t want to use a store-bought one, as Brenda believed they carried unwanted, negative energies.
We ripped a large piece of cardboard from a pizza box and carefully drew out the letters and numbers in thick black marker.
A small glass shot glass served as our makeshift planchette.
We set up a perimeter of protective crystals Brenda had brought along from her personal collection to keep us safe.
The shadows danced against the floral wallpaper, making the faded flowers look like shifting, restless faces.
I poured us each another glass of cheap wine to steady our rapidly fraying nerves.
The grandfather clock in the hallway suddenly chimed midnight, the deep sound vibrating violently through the floorboards beneath us.
We all placed our trembling fingertips lightly on the smooth rim of the glass.
Brenda closed her eyes, bowing her head in reverence, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
She called out into the darkness to Craig, asking if his spirit was present in the room with us.
At first, absolutely nothing happened, and the silence stretched out, becoming thick and suffocating.
Heather shifted uncomfortably, her brow furrowed, clearly about to pull her hand away and end the game.
Then, the glass trembled fiercely beneath our fingers.
It wasn’t a small twitch; it was a deliberate, powerful vibration that sent a terrifying shockwave straight up my arm.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird desperately trying to escape its cage.
The glass began to glide across the cardboard, moving smoothly and with undeniable purpose toward the word yes.
We stared at each other, our eyes wide and completely terrified in the flickering candlelight.
I suspected one of them was pushing it, but their fingers barely rested on the surface of the glass.
Brenda’s voice shook violently as she demanded the spirit reveal its true name.
The glass zipped across the board to the letter C, then R, then A, then I, then G.
Craig.
Heather gasped sharply, her grip tightening on her own wrist as if to ground herself in reality.
We decided to test the spirit with questions only Brenda and her immediate family would know the precise answers to.
We asked for his exact birthday, the year he graduated high school, and the obscure name of his favorite childhood dog, buster.
The glass moved with startling precision, spelling out every single answer flawlessly without a moment of hesitation.
The temperature in the room plummeted, our breath pluming into thick white clouds in the dim light.
Brenda’s eyes welled up with tears, her lower lip quivering uncontrollably as the surreal reality set in.
She leaned closer to the board, practically whispering as she asked him if he had a personal message for her.
The glass moved quickly, spelling out a strange, archaic nickname that Brenda had never told either of us about.
She let out a choked sob, instantly covering her mouth with her free hand to muffle the terrible sound.
It was a name he had called her when she was a toddler, long before anyone else could possibly remember.
The energy in the room felt overwhelming, physically pressing down on my chest like a heavy, unseen weight.
I wanted desperately to stop, to blow out the candles, flip on the overhead lights, and forget this ever happened.
But Brenda wasn’t finished, her eyes locked fiercely and stubbornly onto the small glass.
She asked him if he had found peace in the afterlife.
The glass slowly, deliberately, slid across the cardboard to the word no.
A cold, sickening dread pooled deep in the very bottom of my stomach.
Brenda swallowed hard, forcing the words out as she asked what was keeping his soul tied to this earthly place.
The glass dragged across the board, stopping at specific letters with alarming, almost angry force.
B-E-D-R-O-O-M.
We all exchanged terrified glances, the heavy reality of the situation fully crashing down upon our shoulders.
Brenda asked what exactly we needed to find hidden away in the dark bedroom.
The glass spelled out E-N-V-E-L-O-P-E.
My mouth went completely dry, and the tiny hairs on my arms stood perfectly straight up.
I asked the final question, my voice cracking and barely audible above a whisper.
I asked why he needed us to find it.
I watched the planchette slide to the word ‘sorry’, my blood running completely cold.
