Twins

In 2010, I was living in a very small town in northern Michigan and had a few friends up there who lived right near me, on the same road. We were always hanging out together, playing on the beach right near my house in the summer and sledding down every possible hill in winter. One day, though, my friend who we'll call Beth, brought up something rather interesting while we were eating lunch at a pizza place in town. She said that her mother had found a Ouija Board in her basement, and that she was allowed to use it. This excited all of us, because the forest I lived in and the beach right off that forest had some stories tied to it about being a paranormal hotspot.

So we decided to use the board that night, after my parents fell asleep. We planned for our group (Beth, Jonathan, Michael, Tyler, and I, note that those are not real names) to come to my place at midnight. Being a small town, it was pitch black after 9 o'clock during summer, especially near my house because I lived in a little cabin alongside about 7 others in one of the forests within the city limits. So they had to bike through these desolate roads surrounded by thick forest, which actually had a large amount of coyotes, so I'm sure they were spooked a few times by some. Note that, though it was in the forest, it was only a 20-minute bike ride to my school, which was in the heart of the city, so they probably only biked for like 10-15 minutes.

After they arrived, we set up the board under this tree I called the "Halloween Tree," a really crooked, knobby pine or something of the sort, that curved towards the top making the tip nearly touch the ground, forming a little alcove. From what I can remember, it grew from the water, so the alcove was half water/half sand. There was a really big, flat rock that we set the board on. There was also a small dock that was in the shade of the tree.

We decided that Beth and Jonathan would use the planchette first, and the rest of us sat on the dock waiting our turn. Beth wanted to use the planchette every time, so we'd just take Jonathan's place, or whoever wasn't Beth at the planchette.

Beth and Jonathan tried for a while, getting nothing from the board itself. But 10 or so minutes into them whispering questions to spirits who clearly were not going to answer at the moment, a large branch fell from the tree. Not a little one that could easily fall on its own, but a huge branch almost three feet long. It hadn't been loose before, but we thought that it probably was, we just hadn't noticed.

Next up was Tyler. He'd used a Ouija Board before, and he said that he and his brother had really good luck. He wasn't lying; once his fingers were on the planchette and he began speaking, the planchette began moving slowly, in circles on the board. We thought that it was just him, and we all got really mad, but he insisted he wasn't. When he asked it its name, it said "no". Not by moving the planchette to the word "no" on the board, but by spelling it out, which confused us. When we asked it how it died, once again, it spelled out "no". We asked it its birth date, who its family was, if it was good or evil, all the generic questions. To each one it spelled "no". When we said that it was dismissed, it moved the planchette to "goodbye".

I was nervous by then, looking over my shoulders all the time, trying to get Tyler to say that he'd been moving the planchette, but he wouldn't admit to it, or he really hadn't been. It was supposed to be my turn next, but I refused to use the board. So we put Michael in place of me. When he got on the board and asked if there were any spirits there, it responded with a spelling out "go" multiple times. I was scared out of my mind, so were Michael and Beth. Beth asked, "Who do you want to go?" and it moved the planchette towards Michael, who yelped. He asked where the spirit wanted him to go, it said "line". It knew we had an order. Michael asked if it wanted anyone in his place, and it spelled out my name, "Aide" multiple times. I was nearly in tears by this time, but I walked over to the board. Michael and I carefully traded places on the planchette. When I was sitting at the board, the planchette promptly moved to the letters spelling "smile". I didn't know if it wanted me to smile or if it was smiling.

I didn't smile, I couldn't, I was really afraid. I said "hello" to the spirit. It replied with "hi". I asked its name, to which it responded "your" very slowly. Nothing followed the your. I silently screamed, and started bawling at that point, which is when Michael came up to me and hugged me from behind and said "it's okay," and I kept going.

I asked it more questions, and found out that the spirit was a boy who died in 1998, the year I was born, on the same day I was born, the 12th of December. I tried dismissing it, it responded with spelling out "no" over and over again for nearly two minutes. I said, "You are dismissed, goodbye" again, and it responded with "okay" then slowly worked the planchette to "goodbye".

I cried really hard after that, along with Beth. My parents heard us, along with one of my neighbors, and asked us what had happened. I couldn't answer. Michael and Tyler tried to explain. Beth and I were hugging and my mum was comforting us. Jonathan was putting the board back in the box, saying that this was a bad idea, screaming at Beth that we should throw the board into the water. We didn't though.

My parents normally would have gotten us all in trouble, but instead took pity on us. We drove everyone home and I slept with my parents that night, not asking about a boy who had died when I was born.