You do not have to believe anything that I am going to say. Even I do not believe in this story; and I have witnessed it with my own eyes! I do not intend to tell you this story to convince you that ghosts exist or anything of the sort; I only wish to recount in the most precise way possible that lonely night of June which I and my best friend will always remember.
I do not remember exactly why I bought that OUIJA board in the first place. I only know that, after a random day of winter at the mall, I took the bus with a bag full of new clothes and books, along with a dark blue box with golden letters on top.
June 4th, 2025—at the sleep of night.
The idea came to us one random evening in early June. We were hanging out in my room, when I mentioned the board. Or perhaps she simply noticed it. Whatever the case was, she suggested that we bring it to the primary school we attended when we were at our purest age. It was right in front of a church, and not so far from the cemetery, though I had never known about it as a kid, seeing as it was a considerable walk for a child of this age alone.
I never believed in such things. Paranormal, or ghosts, or spirits… Those were all words that seemed meaningless to me. In fact, when I bought that board, I had in mind a funny decoration for my wall. I was thinking that I would find a way to hang it up or something of the sort. The project never came into fruition, and so it sat at the bottom of its box, collecting dust for a few months until that cold night.
But my friend, oh, she believed in it, alright? I remember her telling me, over a year ago, about her experience with TAROT—which I quite honestly qualified as “too broad to be credible”—and other magic spells taught by her father that apparently worked in her favor. She mentioned experiences with black magic, but I never paid attention to it. I always thought that those things worked thanks to confirmation bias; if it works, it’s because magic is real, but if it doesn’t, you should try again later, or maybe you are just not receptive to it. She judged me a little for having that thing in my room. I guess she was sort of right, now.
I guess that is how we ended up walking out of my house, blue box in hand, and walking to our destination, stopping by the corner store to each get our own slushie on the way. As I paid for my drink, I had an idea. I suggested to her that we should not go to the primary school—where “no spirit would answer us”—but instead walked a few more minutes to go to the cemetery. I told her that we would be alone there, especially that it was ten and a half at night and no one would ever go there at such an ungodly hour. With the obvious fact that ghosts were far more known for inhabiting cemeteries than school grounds, she liked the idea and we chose to turn one corner of the street early, so that we could go to the cemetery instead.
Now, it might sound cliche, but trust me that this happened; the first thing that we saw, as we turned the corner, was a black cat. It had been hidden in the shadows, but our arrival frightened it, and it ran from one side of the street to the other. We looked at each other as we laughed—we both knew that was how horror stories began. With a black cat, a OUIJA Board, and two friends that have found an idea that might sound stupid with a little bit of retrospect.
We walked up to the cemetery, opened its small chain gate. It was the first time for both of us. I walked past the tomb stones, carefully looking at their names. They meant nothing to me. None of my family had been buried here. I knew none of these names. We advanced to the center and we sat down in the grass, next to two greyish brown trails left behind by the tires of the car that brought caskets from time to time.
“Now remember,” she told me, “there are a few rules. Only do what I do, and always remember; never stop touching the pointer before you’ve said goodbye.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, “I read those books too.”
I was referencing a series of books, Anna Caritas, that we both read, and which began with the premise of a OUIJA session gone wrong after a couple of teens accidentally severed the contact between the spirit and them by letting the pointer go.
“I even met the author,” I added.
“I know!” she complained. “You’ve told me like five times already!”
“Whatever.”
We both finished setting up our stuff. Our slushies were on one side, the box on the other, and the board was right in between us both. The pointer was set in the center. I opened my phone’s flashlight so that we could see better, and I set it against the box so that we could see the board better.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
We both put our hands together on the pointer. For close to ten minutes, we rhythmically repeated the same chant, “hello? Is there any spirit that wishes to speak to us?” We tried it both in French and in English, quietly and loudly, timidly and bravely. Nothing seemed to work. After every try, we would say goodbye anyway, and we would try to figure out another way to make it work. I mean, we did not go all of this way just to go back after a couple of failed tries, right? After ten minutes or so, I suggested that we went to the very end of the cemetery, following the path I mentioned earlier, and stopped in front of an area that formed a demi-circle of important-looking tombstones and that was completed by a couple of hedges that looked to have been there for at least half a century. In the middle of those hedges, there was a giant black cross, but I am quite sure that I do not remember seeing the figure of the Christ hanging from his wrists. We placed the board down and tried again there for a couple of minutes before my friend suggested that I close my phone’s flashlight. She said that our eyesight would adjust itself anyway, so that it did not really matter.
Lucie N. – died at 74
We repeated our chant, and almost immediately I felt the pointer move. It crept jaggedly across the board. It seemed uncertain. As though it was not even sure that it was moving.
It spelled-out slowly:
{H-I}
“Are you doing that?” I asked.
“No…” She turned her attention back to the board. “Hi,” she repeated doubtfully, inviting me to do so too.
She took a pause before she continued, “are you evil?”
{YES}
My friend looked at me. There was something in her look. “Do you intend to bring us harm?”
{NO}
“So, you are friendly to us?”
{YES}
By then, I could not believe that it was happening. I wanted to laugh, telling her to stop acting up, but I was somehow convinced that it was not really her moving the pointer.
“What is your name?”
Silence.
“Will you tell us your initials?”
{L-N-7-4}
“74?” I asked.
“That must be his age,” she answered quickly before she turned her attention back to the board.
“My name is —, and this is my friend, —…” I tried experimentally.
She looked at me like I was stupid.
“… Will you tell us what your name is?”
{L-U-C-I-E}
“When did you die?”
{NO}
“You don’t want to tell us?”
{NO}
“Or she doesn’t know.”
{YES}
“Are you buried here?”
{YES}
That is a key detail, considering that a proper name and date were inscribed on all tombstones before they were laid. If we could find one that said “Lucie N. — died at 74,” we would have our confirmation that this was all real.
“How did you die?”
{D-R-W-N-G-N}
“Drwngn?” I quoted, puzzled.
“Did you drown?” she asked.
{YES}
She turned her gaze to me and said, “sometimes words are a little bit jumbled up.
“Did you die nearby?” I asked.
{NO}
I was thinking of a beautiful place nearby, a park which was severed into two halves by a waterfall and the river that flowed from it. It was truly a beautiful place, but I guess before there was so much security around it, it had once been a place where you could very well drown, if you were not careful enough. I guess that was wrong.
“Did you die in a river?”
{L-A-K-E}
“How did you drown?”
{P-U-S-H-D}
“Who pushed you?”
{N-O-N-A-M-E}
“What does that mean?” I asked her.
She ignored me, “was it a stranger?”
{NO}
“Was it a friend?”
{NO}
“Was it a family member?”
{YES}
“Do you know why they did that to you?”
{NO}
“Do you know where they live?”
{YES}
“Will you tell us?”
{NO}
We asked many other questions of the sort. I felt cold, but I could not take my eyes—nor my hands—off of the board. By the time we finished asking this so-called “Lucie” all of our questions, it must have almost been midnight if it had not already passed.
During that time, we both tried to prove to each other that we were not moving it. While the pointer was moving, we both showed to each other that our fingers were practically on their tip and did not hold the strength to move it so fluidly.
“Are there any other spirits with you?”
{YES}
“Would one of them wish to speak to us?”
{YES}
“Goodbye, Lucie.”
{GOODBYE}
Thristan D/R- died at 4
Without lifting our hands from the pointer, we began a new conversation:
“Hello,” we both said at the same time.
{H-E-L-L-O}
“Are you evil?”
{NO}
“Do you wish us harm?”
{NO}
“Do you want to tell us your name?”
{T-H-R-S-T-N-D/R}
I cannot remember what the last letter was between those two options, and neither did I when I wrote texts about it to my partner.
“Is your name Tristan? Tristan D/R?”
{YES}
“How old were you when you died?”
{I-D-O-N-O-T-K-N-O-W}
“Were you young?”
{YES}
“Were you an adult?”
{NO}
“Were you a teen?”
{NO}
“Were you younger?”
{YES}
“Were you ten?”
{Y-O-U-N-G-E-R}
“Were you five?”
{Y-O-U-N-G-E-R}
“Were you three?”
{O-L-D-E-R}
“So you were four?”
{YES}
“Are you with your parents?”
{NO}
“Are they still alive?”
{YES}
“Do you know where they are?”
{NO}
“Is Lucie your friend?”
{YES}
We asked a few more questions before my friend whispered to me, “I’m scared.”
“A few more questions.”
“I want to leave.”
I looked at her.
“Can we say goodbye?” she looked at me, beggingly.
I turned my gaze to the board. My fingers ached. I was shaking.
“Goodbye,” I said to the board.
“Goodbye,” my friend said.
{GOODBYE}
We removed our fingers from the pointer. Mine felt sore, as though they had been stuck in the same position for an hour—which they just had. I cracked my knuckles and I put the board back in its box along with the cursor. I took my slush and my phone; she did too. We walked back to the gate we entered through, careful not to step over anywhere pearly white bones would lie underground, and we left. We walked quickly. I accompanied her back to her house.
“Don’t tell my dad about this,” she said. “If he knows I went to the cemetery to play OUIJA, he’ll kill me himself.”
“Don’t worry.”
I left her at the front door to her apartment and I went back home, almost running with the box in my hand. I left it on the ground, at the front door, and I entered. If I had truly just spoken to spirits, I did not want that thing to go inside my house. I picked up some salt in the cabinet, and talked to my dad on my way back.
I told him about what had just happened. He described to me how his experiences with TAROT had always been more precise than a OUIJA board ever could be, but he also explained that he thought that we all have our own ways of communicating with spirits. Maybe my connection was stronger with a OUIJA board than it had been for him in the past.
It was almost 1:00 AM when I circled the house, blue OUIJA box in one hand and salt on the other. I did not want to enter my house with it. I climbed on the steps of the patio and left the box on the glass table. I had only had time to put a small amount of salt around the board that my friend texted me
[im scared]
[u ok?]
[no]
[want me to join you?]
[yes]
[ill be there soon]
I made a proper salt circle around the board, just in case, and I left it outside for the night.
I walked back to her house, fighting the terror of the night, and I opened the front door. It was always unlocked. Her dad was still awake, barely glancing up at me as I walked up the stairs. He was playing some games on his computer. I went to my friend’s bedroom and knocked.
I did not sleep at her house that night, but I tucked her in and I stayed with her for a few minutes. She told me that she was terrified and that she would never step in the cemetery again—a promise which she still holds to this day.
I went back to my house and I went to sleep. I looked up some key details about Lucie’s story. I could find nothing on the internet. I found a story with someone named Lucie S, who died drowning in some camping in Temiscouata, but she was only 37 and was quite unlikely to have been buried in that cemetery. There was only one way for me to figure out if this whole thing was true.
June 5th, 2025—a morning’s lonely walk
I woke up at nine the next day. I got dressed, I ate something quickly to remove that horrible taste from my mouth. When I felt ready, I went outside and climbed on my bike. The ride to the cemetery felt just as long as the walk had yesterday. I stopped in front of the gate, I locked it unto the pole close to the fire hydrant and I walked up to the gate.
For more than an hour, I walked in front of every single tombstone. I looked carefully at each name that laid in front of me. I scanned everything, starting by the area closer to where we had talked to this “Lucie” and this “Tristan.” There were a couple of names that I could not make out, old tombs overtaken by moss or time. Sometimes I thought that I was going too fast and that I must have missed it.
Neither the words “LUCIE N – died at 74” nor “THRISTAN D/R – died at 4” were engraved in stone. I could find neither that nor any combination that sounded similar enough to be anywhere close to a match. I remember taking pictures. Lucienne D, 56; Lucie B, 21; Louise, 73; and Lucien B, 70, my closest match. There was no Lucie N who died at 74. And I could not find a single Tristan in that cemetery either, but as we had not asked him whether or not he was buried there, it did not matter much. Neither of their names figured on a tombstone, and so, I would always remain in doubt.
What really happened?
To this day
Even to this day, as the death of the year approaches, I could not tell you what really happened that night in June. All that I could tell you is that my friend remained terrified of the cemetery and that I could find no information on these spirits. Doubt thus still inhabits my own. One thing stays true in my heart, though: I am convinced that she did not move it herself, and she trusted that I had not done so myself. I have already told you that I do not believe in the paranormal; but how should I explain this to anyone? Am I to keep this all locked up inside of my heart, letting the memory die along with my body and my brain? Or am I to preach that it happened and call my friend as a witness, at the cost of my sanity? I know that it may all sound like a story to you, but believe me, I can only wish that it was. I wish it was all just a simple story and that I could forget about it. I still do not believe in ghosts; if our two interlocutor’s names had been written on a tombstone, that would have been a different story. And I have no video to prove it; only the picture that you see.
The only proof that it had all happened are the silent eyes of a mysterious black cat that crossed the street suddenly as he saw us walk on the small street that brought us to the cemetery.
And that picture that you see. We took it before we started talking to spirit.
