threshold

The attic smelled like dust and old wood and something faintly sweet underneath both, the kind of smell that lives in places that have been closed up for years. You were not looking for anything. Just boxes. Just time. Your grandmother kept everything and you were only half paying attention when your fingers caught on something heavy and solid buried under a stack of folded curtains. You pulled it out. Dark wood, thick and real, the kind of weight that sits in your hands with purpose. Not plastic. Not a toy. The letters burned into the surface were faded but precise, the edges of the board worn smooth in the specific way that things get worn when many hands have touched them over many years. The planchette was heavier than it had any right to be. Ivory colored, or something close to it. Strange small symbols ran along its edges that you did not look at long enough to read. You set it down on the dusty floor and something changed immediately - not in the room exactly, more in the quality of the air, the way it sat against your skin. You told yourself it was nothing. Old wood. Old house. You placed your fingers on the planchette because it seemed like the thing to do and because you were alone and because some part of you that you would not examine too closely was curious. The attic went colder. The smell shifted - still sweet, but underneath it now something older and closer. The planchette moved. You had not moved it. One direction, slow and certain, with a dry scratching sound that you felt in your back teeth. H. Then E. Then L. Then L. Then O. It stopped. The ghost figure printed on the back of the board was faded and cracked and you had barely glanced at it when you set the board down. But it was looking at you now. Not at the board. Not at the planchette. At you. Directly. With hollow eyes that had no business being that clear on something so old. The planchette trembled once beneath your fingers. It had said hello. It was waiting to see what you would do next.