The Hand That Haunts You

Order of the Tile quote card: It is not bad luck to touch her rack. It is bad manners.

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Issue No. 33 · OCTOBER 2026

The Hand That Haunts You

“Something at this table is cursed.”

My Fellow Table Guests,

It is nearly Halloween, and Prim has lit the good candles. There is a particular pleasure in a game played on the one night of the year when a little dread is welcome, when the porch light is on for the children and the bowl of candy is by the door and, between hands, somebody tells a story that makes the whole table lower its voice. Prim adores it. She has always thought the mahjong table was faintly haunted anyway, and this is simply the week we admit it out loud.

Because every table has its ghosts. There is the beautiful hard hand you fall for the moment the new card arrives and somehow never once lay down complete, the line you reach for the way you reach for a light switch in a dark room, out of sheer hope. There is the card itself, which turns over every spring and quietly rewrites the whole game. And there are the small spells we all cast without quite meaning to, the tile turned just so, the seat nobody will take, the rack a woman will not let you touch. Prim has opinions about all of them, and this week she is going to share every one.

A friend of the table