Boo! A True (Ghost?) Story
Dear fellow earthlings—this is a reposting from October, 2021. I decided to add audio and make a few minor edits. Am I being too lazy? Maybe!
Tis the season to gather round the fire to tell tales of ghouls, goblins, and ghosts.
As a rational, scientifically-minded, twenty-first century woman, I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in them despite having in my teens witnessed a see-through mother-daughter pair in 19th century garb glide across our backyard, six-feet off the ground.
They came out the back of our house and sailed to the fence along the alley, then dissipated. My response to them is like Scrooge to Marley:
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!
I don’t believe in ghosts despite this tale I’m telling, in honor of Halloween. A true tale. Make of it what you will.
Spring, 1970
I was ten. My grown-up cousin had rented the house across the alley from us. His wife, Patricia, popped in through the back door one night after dinner. My mom, my 29-year-old sister, and I were sitting around the kitchen table.
The conversation went something like this:
“Look what I found under the eaves in the attic!” Patricia said as she held up a battered yellow tray. “A Mystic Tray.”
It looked similar to a Ouija board. There was no internet to google back then so we could only speculate on the age of thing.
“Should we try it?” Patricia asked.
“Did you find a planchette?” Mother asked.
“The thing that points at the letters,” I added.
“Nope.”
“I’ll get the one from the Ouija Board,” I said.
I don’t recall who went first. Our next-door neighbor, Rena, joined us. We tried different pairings. The planchette moved a little for some. It didn’t move at all when I partnered with Mother. It zoomed in rapid communication from the great beyond when Patricia and I set our fingers upon it.
For the next few nights, we gathered in the kitchen asking questions of the spirits.
The speed of communication when I sat at the tray fell under suspicion. I fell under suspicion. They decided to test me.
My sister put a blindfold on me.
They thought I was pushing the planchette! Me? How dare they!
After a couple of hours of the planchette’s peak performance while I was blindfolded, my reputation was vindicated.
Of course, I was pushing the planchette.
Through a tiny gap next to my nose I could make out just enough of the board to guide the planchette. By then, I’d memorized the letters’ positions so I didn’t need to clearly see the whole board.
I used the same skills that later made me a wickedly fast typesetter during my years in advertising. I’d been playing the organ for a couple of years. You can’t read music and look where your fingers and feet are at the same time.
They should have known.
Blindfold removed, Patricia and I were paired again. The Mystic Tray had a tantrum. It wanted its own planchette. It objected to the “toy” one. It argued when Mother insisted that this was the best we could do. The planchette left the board, flew across the room, and crashed into the fridge.
Gripped with fear, Patricia said, “I’m done.” She declined to participate any further in what she was coming to see as dangerous, if not demonic.
We carried on without her. Other neighbors joined in from time to time--Louise, Clara, Pat, Mary, Esther. Coincidentally, I worked best with the other Pat, but no one was as good a partner as Patricia had been.
Rena was my least favorite as she was most prone to make sharp, jerky motions that made it hard to hit my mark.
Mother tried a few more times but the planchette would not budge for her.
I could lie to her and say I wasn’t pushing it. I could perform. But I couldn’t move the planchette with her knees touching mine.
I loved being the center of adult attention. We went from house to house. Mother kept a notebook of our questions and the answers from the great beyond.
Some spirits visited regularly. Other times, ghosts who happened to be passing by would drop in.
Among the regulars were my Granny who’d passed in ’67 and uncle Bud from ’68.
I made up a Scottish immigrant, Ewan McTavish, who had lived in the house two doors away. He happened by accident. I was pushing out “it is” but Mother wrote, “tis.” I tried re-spelling the message, but she kept transcribing “tis” so I went with it.
My step-grandfather hailed from Scotland so I knew how to work a brogue into the tale.
Ewan was a friendly fellow who had died before the days of plumbing. He talked about his outhouse. He was confused, didn’t know that he was dead.
Rena was born a Hatfield, as in the feuding Hatfields and McCoys of Kentucky, so I had some of those in the queue of regulars.
Rena’s daughter had a child by a man named Tucker. That inspired Amy Tucker. Amy Tucker was a bitchy southern witch.
I don’t know from whence some of the ideas came. Mother asked Granny and Uncle Bud questions about the afterlife. The descriptions they provided did not come from my Sunday School lessons. Granny talked about different planes of existence where we develop aspects of our soul. She said the “streets of gold” and "mansions” in the Bible were metaphors.
I do know where some of my more nefarious ideas came from.
Every school day I came home for lunch. We didn’t have a cafeteria. On lucky days, I’d find the house empty but not the mailbox. Inside would be the Marshall News Record, the newspaper from Mother’s hometown in North Carolina.
I’d skim the obituaries, then hide the paper under my mattress. After ghosts from the south made an evening appearance at a Mystic Tray session, I’d sneak the newspaper back into the mailbox.
The next day, the paper confirmed the passing of our spirit visitor, sending chills down Mother’s spine.
I know; I was so bad.
One night, the recently departed insisted we call his family to tell them not to be upset, to let them know he was on a new journey. All was well.
I knew two things—the area code for phones in Marshal and how expensive a long-distance call was in 1970. The planchette pointed out the real area code and a made up a number.
Mother picked up the phone but couldn’t make herself dial it. Whether fear of it being real, fear of looking a fool, or thrift stayed her hand, I cannot say.
Another night, not feeling very creative, I pushed out the lyrics from Bye Bye Miss American Pie. Mother thought it nonsense and soon called it a night.
Maybe because Amy Tucker was such a bitch, Mother often asked her to prove her existence in some way.
One day she demanded Amy tells us how much change was in the napping Charlie’s (Rena’s husband’s) pocket. I took a wild guess. Rena went in and counted. She said Amy got it right. Wild coincidence? Did Rena fib?
They say all good things must come to an end. Amy Tucker brought an end to my starring role with the Mystic Tray.
One evening, Mother, Rena, Pat, and I were talking to the Mystic Tray in Rena’s kitchen. Amy stopped by. She and Mother got into one of their usual battles-of-the-will. Mother insisted Amy show herself. I guess she was ready for something more than transcription.
Amy said she would appear if we turned off the lights (instinct told me Mother wouldn’t do that).
Mother said no.
I pushed out the letters again—T U R N O F F T H E L I G H T S
Mother, “No.”
T U R N O F F T H E L I G H T S
“We’re not turning off the lights,” Mother snapped.
T U R N O F F T H E L I G H T S
“No!”
The lights went off.
I screamed. I don’t know who else screamed. Someone. Everyone?
I ran and grabbed Mother.
No one else was in the house. No one near the light switch.
The lights came back on, probably within 30 seconds. Probably. It felt longer. Much longer.
I never touched the planchette again.
Mother argued with me. I didn’t argue back. I just said no.
When Mother died, the Mystic Tray went to my older sister’s. When she died, to my younger sister’s. When she died, I brought it home. It’s out there in the garage somewhere.
I know it was just a coincidence, the lights going out.
I know I made up everything.
C.S. Lewis was asked where he got his ideas for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He wrote:
I don’t believe anyone knows exactly how he makes things up. Making up is a very mysterious thing. When you have an idea could you tell anyone exactly how you thought of it?*
A question for you, my fellow earthlings:
If ghosts wanted to send a message through a ten-year-old girl, what would that feel like inside her head?
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*C.S. Lewis, "It All Began with a Picture." Radio Times. 15 July 1960.
PHOTO CREDITS:
Old pictures, Library of Congress
Mystic Tray photo from eBay
Witch photos by Sinitta Leunen on Unsplash
Candle Photo by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash
