[The following story is a first-hand, cautionary account about the Ouija board and does not promote it’s casual use. It is NOT a game. It is NOT a toy. If you decide to use the board, please take spiritual precautions such as saying a prayer before use. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! All names are fictitious to protect the identities of those mentioned in the story.]
Within a few weeks of using the board, we had already noticed odd goings-around. We had contacted several spirits, but the one we happened to encounter the most was a Filipino nanny of sorts who we called “Ya-Ya”. We knew that just invoking her name brought us some sort of “bad luck”. My cousin who didn’t actively participate in our sessions came down with a case of sudden fatigue believed to have been brought on after seeing a shadow person. But, we weren’t expecting what was yet to come.
My Aunts Have an Accident
While we spent the after resting from berry picking, my aunt Pat and my aunt Lena went to downtown Port Orchard to do some window shopping at the local antique stores. They were gone longer than what was expected. Normally, they would run some errands, buy groceries and visit some of the antique shops in town, but it was unlike them to be gone until the evening.
We were surprised when my uncle received a call and ready to answer the flood of questions coming their way: Are you OK? What happened? Who did you hit? Where did it happen, etc.
Downtown Port Orchard is hilly. It was build on a slope that goes into the Sinclair Inlet, a branch of the Puget Sound. The buildings on the uphill side of Bay street were cut into the side of the slope, so many of the windows to the businesses appear to be lower than street level.
My aunt Pat parallel-parked her El Camino downhill on one of the side streets next to the antique shop she and my aunt Lena were planning on visiting. When they were ready to leave, Aunt Pat started the car and shifted the car in gear, but instead of backing uphill, the car lunged forward, jumped the curb and crashed through the store window below! It took several hours to remove the car and there was thousands of dollars of damage to the store.
My Aunt Lena never learned to drive and after this incident she refused to. She was skittish to even ride in a car for a few months afterward. To this day, Aunt Lena has never driven a car.
Aunt Lena Saw Something Strange
Aunt Pat assured us that it was not driver error. Aunt Lena, on other hand had an explanation: a shadow figure. Right before the car leapt over the curb she saw a shadowy, wispy figure appear and dash across the front of the car.
Aunt Lena was known to be very sensitive to the paranormal. After Thanksgiving dinner one year, she saw the full body apparition of my Aunt Pat’s late husband in a hallway mirror when no one did. Off and on she would tell us about seeing his apparition in the house. She saw the same older, bald man often although she had never met him in person. She only knew about him via pictures and descriptions from other family members. She saw him so solidly once that she mistook the apparition as a customer who wanted to buy a flat of raspberries. She also felt other spirits on my Aunt Pat’s property, but reported seeing my late uncle the most.
When we played with the board, we didn’t let Aunt Pat or Aunt Lena know what we were doing. Maybe they saw us use the board once or twice, but they never commented on it. It’s most likely that they had never heard of the thing and assumed we were playing a simple board game.
The Board Goes Back
Sobbing, my Aunt Lena’s eldest daughter, “Ate Beth”, yelled as us. She was scared and felt uneasy about the board or about what it could bring ever since we told her about what happened the first night we used it. All the while, she would hound us whenever we brought it out, but this time she was furious.
“Look at what you guys brought in! My mom and Tita Pat had an accident and mom thinks that the dark shadow she saw helped cause it! You guys better return that damned thing!!!”
I looked to the receipt for the board and on our next trip to the mall, we returned it to the store we bought it from.
