My name is Maggie, and I believe that the spooky stuff is real. Boogey Man? I’ve heard him. Flying haints? One lived outside of my bedroom window. Witches, Warlocks, spells and alternate dimensional beings, I can see how that can be. So when my family elder befriended a woman that had all of the markings of a person who is into all of the above, I decided that I needed to stay close. We’ll call my elder Aileen and the woman, Dina. This story is real, their names are not. I decided to share this because my husband told me that this is one of the craziest stories about my life that he’s heard over the years. I’ve also decided to conceal everyone’s identity but mine so that I don’t have to argue about what happened. This is how it went down from my vantage point.

Dina and Aileen became close friends over a short period of time. Their husbands were co-workers and that meant that all company events put them in the same spaces. Outside of those events the two would link up to go shopping, or hang out for weekend lunches with other ladies.

Dina had a distinct undernote scent of garlic. Just past the garlic, she would smell like a variation of herbs depending on the day. I used to make the assumption that she smelled like whatever work she was doing in the spooky space. I couldn’t prove anything because I wasn’t old enough, hadn’t read enough, and this was before Google. Yet, in my spirit, I knew exactly who she was. I had watched enough Sci-Fi fantasy with my aunt to have an idea. So apply this menagerie of scents to every interaction described below, because her kids smell like her too.

One day Dina called Aileen and told her that she was heading to to women’s retreat as a day trip and had another spot. Aileen tried to tell her that she was watching me that day, but Dina insisted that she was bringing her kids and that there was a rec center that we could enjoy while the ladies attended their sessions. Dina’s kids were older than me, and not much fun so I wasn’t excited to go, but I decided to make the best of it. I packed my bookbag purse with things I thought I might need like my Sega Gamegear, cd player, a couple mix CDs, extra batteries, lip gloss, some loose change to go with my allowance money, and a journal to write in once we were out of Dina’s van. Aileen took us to Dina’s house and left her car there.

The first red flag past the invitation itself was the car ride to the woods. I listened in on the potential distance and believed we were only going to drive for roughly 40 minutes according to the city name provided. I wondered why Aileen didn’t just take her own car. “Just outside of Dayton” when you’re in Cincinnati is not a long ride, and it also doesn’t require you to drive to Indiana. We crossed he border into Indiana, drove for hours then crossed back into Ohio.

The second red flag was the weather. It was raining that day unlike any other day before. Imagine a summer storm and nobody watched the news to know to pack an umbrella. There’s two adults in the car, and one of the kids was almost there, not a single person checked the weather. I started pleading the case that maybe we should just go home once I saw the windshield wipers weren’t sufficient for a part of the storm.

Red flags be damned we pull into the park/camp grounds. I usually remember details, but the sign for those grounds won’t form in my head no matter how much time and energy I put into trying to recall the name. I made a mind map of the way out once we stopped at the Rec Center. Down the long driveway, past the two turn off paths and the highway is to the right once we hit the main road.

I want to pause and make sure you know that this is during the early phases of cell phone technology. The adults were the only ones that could afford phones. The plans of the late 90’s early 2000’s weren’t family friendly. So I was at this rec center with a combination of old technology (land lines) and Aileen had a phone that she promised to keep on her.

Once all of the adults arrived only about 3 other children were dropped off, so we were left to our own devices. One of Dina’s kids was in charge, but Aileen knew that I was going to tell on anybody acting crazy because I was afraid. I asked for a copy of the agenda, watched the direction that the retreat vans drove away from the center. They took the first turn off. I called Aileen in about 5 minutes, she told me that they were in a chapel and everything was fine.

Time passed so slowly. There’s only so much ping pong and foosball that kids can play. There was a television, but it didn’t have cable so the best we could do were network stations. There was a vending machine, but I had to decide between snacks and a backup escape plan. I don’t know how far I could get with my few dollars, but I knew that there was a pay phone at the gas station on the way to the highway.

I watched the clock along with the agenda and there was supposed to be a break. I assumed that the break would bring the adults back to the center, but I was wrong. I called Aileen and she didn’t answer. The break wasn’t long, but not seeing her made me nervous. When I called for the second time, she picked up and hung up. At that action, I put my purse on my back and headed for the door. Dina’s kid tried to tell me that everything was alright, but I felt like they were in on it. I started walking and refused to stop. The kids followed me out of fear that they would get in trouble if I got hurt.

Rounding the curve of the turn-off I see the white chapel and all of the vans outside. I start to smell the place immediately. There’s incense, garlic and smoke coming out of the door. I walk up to the door and when I pull it open, there’s a hand on the other side keeping it closed. I raise my voice. “I’m looking for Aileen!”. The door opens and a lady peeks out of the door and asks for the name again. I repeat myself and Aileen is called to come outside. “Hey, everything is ok, we’re on our way back in a minute.” She has a look in her eye that tells me not to start arguing my case. I nod and make my way back to the Rec Center.

I notice that when I turn around to see which kids are with me, I don’t see anyone. They apparently were afraid and had turned back once I opened the door. I knew where I was and I made it back to the center to wait. When I got back inside, nobody wanted to play the games anymore so I started playing my game gear. Some kids gathered to watch me play, the rest watched TV until about 3 adults returned and started asking us for help.

Apparently it was dinner time and everything just needed to be heated up because it was already in the refrigerator. We all start working pulling things out and setting up tables. I put myself on placesetting duty, because that’s always my dining job at that age. I’m finishing up my task when Aileen walks in with everyone else. I try to give her a summary of how boring it was and how she never needs to bring me to anything like this ever again and the group calls for prayer in the back area of the kitchen.  

I’m going to pause again. Different people believe different things, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, in this timeframe I’m Super Baptist (minus actually being baptized) and my nerves are on edge the entire prayer.

The prayer was long and participatory with different people saying things, and I didn’t hear anything specific about the food. I kept one eye open and watched how everyone in the space started clapping and saying things that didn’t seem to match what was happening and I look up to notice Aileen was looking at me looking at everyone else. They get to the end, some people say Amen, others say other definitive exclamations including the familiar Ashe and other things that I had never heard. I let everyone file out of the kitchen, grabbed Aileen’s hand and said a new prayer over the food and included our safe return home free from harm.

The meal was spaghetti, salad and house salad. There’s nothing wrong with that menu, but if you are a kid that grew up digesting the nuances of all things spooky with family from the superstitious corners of the south, you’re going to avoid that sauce. We ate bread and salad. Conveniently Dina had the same thing claiming to be vegetarian, but I maintain my suspicions that the sauce simply wasn’t for her.

The ride back was nearly silent save some old school tunes, and by some miracle it didn’t take us 3 hours to get back to the city, just the normal 45 minutes I anticipated at the beginning. Well into the darkness this journey comes to an end. Aileen and I get a chance to debrief on the ride back from Dina’s house. According to what she shared with me, we wouldn’t have to worry about attending anything like that again.

That night I prayed before I went to bed like how I had heard my grandmothers praying. I got specific about keeping me away from Dina and anything that they had going on in the woods. We didn’t hear from her for a while.

Some months later during the cold months Dina needed a ride. Aileen had me in the car when it was time to pick her up. I sat in the back out of a combination of respect and preference to not have Dina behind my head. That day she smelled like more garlic than i had ever experienced before and it was unrelenting. I begged Aileen to roll the window down because I was having a hard time breathing and it was giving me a headache.

Time has gone by, and Aileen still talks to Dina, but Dina has never seen my face since that chain of events.

                                                            The End.