Albert had always known of his mother’s spirit board; it’s not like her attempts to hide it were great in the first place. Said board was stored inside a small, locked trunk in the attic, and the key to open it had carelessly been placed in mother’s box of jewellery and other small trinkets she certainly liked, but hardly ever used.

As such, taking the key from the box was undoubtedly the easiest part of this whole scheme Albert had carefully crafted in the past week.

The hardest part was to make the board work while doing it alone. These boards, at least according to his classmates, operated on group energy, and so doing it alone would defeat the purpose. But the whole reason Albert even wanted to use the ominous board in the first place was to have a friend (since he had none), and so he had no other choice but to try it alone.

“Never use the board at home,” he had once heard a classmate tell another. “Otherwise you might invite a demon into your house.”

“That sounds great,” Albert had thought upon hearing this exchange. A demon in the house was certainly better than nobody.

Albert had chosen their home basement as the ideal place to use the board, as the mood of the place was perfect: quiet and eerie, no other location within the large house had quite the same feeling of ominousness and dread as this one had. As younger, Albert had been convinced the entire basement was haunted and that a hideous child-eating monster lived there. He wasn’t sure at what point he stopped being afraid of the basement, but it might have been the time when he realized it was the least likely place his father would visit whenever intoxicated and aggressive.

Albert had lit a few candles here and there to give light in the otherwise dark cellar, the old board now resting on the floor and surrounded by candles. The flames flickered in careful motions, indicating the basement wasn’t entirely windproof: there had to be a hole somewhere within the old, cold walls of it, but Albert couldn’t tell where exactly this spot was.

On top of the board a small planchette rested, carefully placed in the middle and waiting to be used. Albert felt a little nervous (and somewhat foolish) about all this, but the idea of finally having someone, anyone, to talk to was making him determined to go through with his plan. The boy inhaled deeply and then exhaled, collecting himself for this hopefully historical moment where he would finally get a friend of his own.

Gently, Albert touched the planchette on the board and started moving it in a circle very slowly, clockwise and three times. He then cleared his throat in an almost ceremonial manner, and with the squeaky voice of a middle schooler he was, Albert spoke: “Is there anyone here with me?”

No answer.

Albert tried again, this time with more courage: “Is there someone, anyone, here with me?”

Still no answer, and Albert could feel the uncomfortable cold sweat starting to fall down on his back. After having gone through all the trouble to start this, however, he had no intentions to stop the game just yet.

For the third time, Albert called out: “Is there anyone here with me?”

What happened next was something Albert couldn’t quite put into words: it was almost like the planchette itself had started to move, but simultaneously it was as if his own hand had stopped cooperating with him and was now leading the small piece of wood across the board, all the way to the left side with the text “NO” written on it.

“Very funny,” Albert said with a frown, but after the initial mix of amusement and annoyance, the boy started to realize there indeed was someone with him - and that someone had immediately started messing with him.

“Do you have a name?” he asked, and the planchette moved towards “YES” on the right top corner of the board.

“What is it?” Albert then asked as a follow-up to his previous question. One by one, the board spelled out W-I-N-S-D-T-O-N, but Albert wasn’t sure if the spirit just didn’t know how to spell, if it was messing with him again or if he had just looked at the letters wrong. He decided to gamble on it, and responded to the supposed spirit in the room: “Your name is Winston?”

The board moved to “YES” once again, and Albert figured he himself was probably the one who couldn’t spell properly, and he really wished he could go to school more often. Staying at home all the time made him slightly less intelligent at an alarming rate, or so he often felt.

“Nice. Uh, mine is Albert,” he finally replied and nodded awkwardly to the blank space on the other side of the board. Albert was certain the spirit was right there in front of him, although he couldn’t have explained why or how he thought this way.

“How old are you? I’m 13, turning 14 soon,” the boy then spoke to the board once again.

The board, in turn, spelled out 1-7.

“You’re pretty old,” Albert replied. “How long have you been 17?”

“F-O-R-S-O-M-E-T-I-M-E,” the board replied.

“Does it suck to be dead?”

“YES”

Albert nodded knowingly.

“Then, Winston, um… Would you like to be my friend?”

Finally, the question he had wanted to ask since the beginning. Albert closed his right hand into a fist and waited anxiously for the answer, left hand resting on top of the planchette.

“W-H-Y,” Winston seemed to ask.

“Uh…,” Albert started hesitantly. “I have no friends.”

“W-H-Y,” the board spelled out again.

“I’m sick,” the boy replied sadly. “And weird. But mostly sick. I’m not allowed to go to school really often, so nobody wants to hang around with someone like that.”

He took a small pause, and then added with a slightly shaky voice: “And they say you shouldn’t get attached to someone who might die at any point.”

Albert felt the tingling under his fingers again, and the board replied:

W-A-N-T-T-O-K-N-O-W-W-H-E-N-Y-O-U-D-I-E”

Albert shook his head. “No thank you.”

“W-H-Y”

“I don’t think I’d be able to do anything useful with that information,” he explained and shrugged. “I would spend the rest of my days being afraid of dying and waiting for the time it comes, and I’d forget to live while I’m still alive.”

“S-M-A-R-T-B-O-Y,” Winston replied, and Albert couldn’t help but feel a little proud of his answer, and found himself puffing up his chest a little.

“So, um, yes… I have no friends because of that. And I was wondering if you’d like to be my friend?”

Winston seemed to think for a while, and during this moment of thoughtful silence Albert wished he would have been able to see Winston: what kind of face was he making right now? And what colour was his hair? Was Winston tall? They weren’t even friends yet, but Albert wanted to know this and a lot of more about Winston. Did he like dogs? Or was he more of a cat person? Was he able to play an instrument while alive? Did he read books?

Albert’s excited line of thought was interrupted when the wooden piece under his left hand finally started moving, but what it spelled out puzzled Albert.

“D-O-Y-O-U-T-R-U-S-T-M-E”

“I don’t know,” the boy stated rather nonchalantly. “I mean we just met. Do you usually trust people the moment you meet them?”

“NO”

“Why do you ask?”

But there was no answer, and Albert thought it was better to continue being persistent about his own question instead.

“Will you be my friend? Y-you can say no too if you want.” Albert’s reassuring words were betrayed by his sad tone of voice: he didn’t want to think he would never speak to Winston after this. He was already closer to the spirit than he had ever been to his classmates; at least Winston had spoken to him more than just two words.

“A-R-E-Y-O-U-A-F-R-A-I-D-O-F-M-E”

“Nope, not really. Or should I be? Are you an evil spirit?”

“W-H-O-K-N-O-W-S,” Winston answered, and after a short pause the planchette moved again:

“D-O-E-S-I-T-M-A-T-T-E-R-T-O-Y-O-U”

Albert smiled: “No, it doesn’t. An evil spirit as a friend is better than no friend at all.”

“I-S-T-H-A-T-S-O”

“I think so, yes.”

“W-A-I-T-S-T-I-L-L”

Albert didn’t know what this meant, but he saw no reason to decline. He sat still, looking at the board and the flickering lights around it, unsure whether the dancing flames were still a result of the draft inside the basement, or due to Winston’s otherworldly presence. He tried to listen if some sort of sound colld be heard, but it was just as silent in the cellar as it had been when he arrived there, as if the entire space was completely cut away from the rest of the world, wrapped in by the darkness and silence.

Then, without any warning, one of the candles near Albert died out. It was as if someone had blown it out and soon another candle from Albert’s other side was also snuffed out of light. Albert shivered a little, feeling how his heart rate was going higher once more as he looked at blown out candles.

“D-did you do that, Winston?” he gasped, his hand still resting on top of the wooden planchette.

“YES” the board spelled.

Albert felt like Winston was almost smug about what he had done, even though he had no way of telling. Nevertheless, Albert could just imagine a boy older than him, smirking in front of him after performing a creepy trick to scare the younger one - almost like a big brother, even.

“That was a little scary,” the boy finally admitted, but didn’t forget to add: “But also really cool! You’re a really strong spirit, aren’t you?”

“T-H-A-N-K-Y-O-U”

“I’m not afraid of you, even if you were an evil spirit, Winston! Just please tell me if you accept to be my friend or not,” he finally found himself whimpering, unable to wait for the answer any longer. He had hoped to sound brave and heroic while speaking out the words, but instead his voice was weak and shaky, and above all tired as his stamina was slowly running out.

The board went eerily silent, and for a good minute there was no answer. None of the candles moved, there were no odd noises and the room’s ambience was exactly the same as before, making Albert certain Winston was still present; just silent.

Finally, the board spelled:

“F-R-I-E-N-D”

And then it continued with three words: “A-L-B-E-R-T”, “W-I-N-S-T-O-N” and “F-R-I-E-N-D-S”

“Would you really?!” Albert gasped in awe.

“YES” Winston replied.

“Thank you Winston! You’re my first friend!” Albert found himself tearing up a little, and with his bandaged right hand he wiped away the tears from his eyes.

“I hope you aren’t tired. Do you want to talk more with me tomorrow?”

“W-H-Y-T-O-M-O-R-R-OW”

“I’m starting to get a little exhausted… I should go to bed or I’ll faint here,” he admitted somewhat sadly, head hanging low. The rapid heartbeat was still there, and it didn’t do good for him to get this excited.

“T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W”

Albert smiled from ear to ear, taking this answer as a yes.

“Bye then, Winston! See you tomorrow!” he grinned tiredly.

“GOODBYE” the board replied, and all the candles were suddenly blown out, leaving Albert into the dark basement without a single source of light.

He dug up a matchbox out of his pocket and set fire on one of the candle, and Albert couldn’t help but notice a shadow moving fast from the corner of his eye, hiding into where the candle’s light didn’t reach. The presence of Winston still lingered in the room, and for a short moment Albert felt something akin to fear crawling up his back.

“No,” he told himself firmly and then shook his head. “Winston is my friend. There is no need to fear.”

But even then, when Albert finally left the basement and returned to his own room, he couldn’t push away the lingering uneasiness in his body - and rightfully so, as he had just talked with a spirit. Albert’s whole body shivered, and when the coughing fit started, he blamed himself for getting too worked up over the events of the past few hours; the iron taste of fresh blood in his mouth was the price of making his very first friend.

Albert couldn’t help but wonder if this would remain as the only payment for what he had done. After all, nothing in this world came for free, and fatigue and blood were hardly the equivalent of a bond formed with a spirit.

Hearing the sound of his parents fighting outside his room, however, reminded Albert there wasn’t much to lose anymore at this point.