Episode 402: Your Urban Legends XCV - Just Another Blood Curse
/Sometimes you record an episode from the middle of the woods in rural Canada, so you have to really up the ante. We taunt a malicious spirit, start a ghost story, and dive into the microfiche to investigate a haunting.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of child endangerment, panic attacks, and home invasion.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends stocking up your pantry with sick-day foods.
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
AMANDA: —stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyr.
AMANDA: Later, satyr.
[theme]
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And hey, it's hometown's time, baby.
AMANDA: So excited. Julia, I gotta be honest, like all the episode types are— are— are children, right? They're our favorite pets, et cetera, et cetera, but there's something about a hometown urban legend episode that hits different.
JULIA: I think it's just hearing from our ConSpiriters, our listeners, and having them tell us stories is a really beautiful kind of juxtaposition to what the show usually is, which is me telling you stories and also our listeners. And so having the ConSpiriters write in and tell us their own feels like a reunion almost in a way.
AMANDA: Feels like home, Julia.
JULIA: Feels like home.
AMANDA: When I look at you, I feel home. And that's a Big Brother reference.
JULIA: Oh. Oh, no.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Julia, would you lead us off today? Would you— would you tell me what urban legend absolutely grabbed you?
JULIA: Amanda, I have a follow-up email. Our favorite thing, let's be honest. We love a follow-up email.
AMANDA: It's like in a Reddit thread where there is, like, the question, and then you scroll down and you can see, like, eight or nine kinds of updates. That is honestly ideal.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Because, you know, op is in the comments, op is gonna tell you what's going on. Op is going to give you additional context that you didn't know you needed. And that is what it's like when you, ConSpiriters write in and then write in again.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, this email is from MaKayla, who you might remember from Stories from the Half-Perched House.
AMANDA: Also, Julia, the hottest name in Olympic drama right now, where there—
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: —is a very good MaKayla, and there is also a more problematic MyKyla. So I'm very excited to hear from this ConSpiriter.
JULIA: MaKayla, if you will remember, Amanda, sent in a story about returning home from school early one day and feeling a presence there that felt malicious, malevolent, I would say, referred to as The Man. And then spoke to her brother Jake about that later, and Jake made the wild assumption that The Man was actually there for him and not for her.
AMANDA: I was prepared to judge this Jake, but at the end of the day, I was like, "You know what? I think this Jake has some points." So I'm excited to hear—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —what MaKayla and Jake have to say.
JULIA: Yes. Okay. So she titles this Stories from the Half-Perched House Part Two, The Man Who Misses.
AMANDA: Aaah.
JULIA: "Hello, Spirits Podcast, I have been hesitant to write back after so long since my first message. But with your recent urban legend centering around revisiting and things that follow, I felt it appropriate to share. Hi. It's MaKayla with some details you might want to hear."
AMANDA: Always, always with the details.
JULIA: "In earnest, this is not my first attempt to write to you. Actually, it's not my second, third, or even 10th attempt. I'm currently typing this out on my work computer whose safety I have no qualms about. Talking about The Man has laid a thick fog of uneasy over me and my family ever since it was brought up as a hot topic of conversation. Phones have gone missing while chatting about The Man, only to be found mysteriously broken. Audio files of interviews with my brother have deleted themselves. Laptops have crashed while writing about him. And the dreams. Yes, the dreams, the repetitive vision of me standing at the open door The Man so kindly left for someone to find. Simple, symbolic, unsettling, just like The Man himself. You can't say the guy doesn't have a clear brand."
AMANDA: Holy shit. I— I— I feel responsible for bringing up this topic of conversation, because MaKayla, you're doing everything right. You're gathering first-person information. You are trying to get testimonials from your family. And I— I am like— The— The man from the dream should sort of, like, replace all your devices or get, like, tech insurance, if he's gonna be this rude to all of your devices.
JULIA: Have you considered asking him to pay towards some sort of insurance for you?
AMANDA: Jeez.
JULIA: "Here I am, the maiden of the half-perched house to give you the not so neat and tidy end to The Man and his dress shoes story. When Spirits Podcast told me to visit Connecticut, set up an audio recorder on the counter and pester Jake, my brother, about why The Man might be looking for him, I listened." Which, first off, incredible.
AMANDA: So incredible. I— I love the commitment to the bit. You're— you're essentially an honorary co-host of this podcast now, so thank you.
JULIA: "April, Jake's then fiancee now wife, gave me some scheduling updates, and I dutifully took a train up the northeastern corridor for my own homecoming. It was late November, and our small corner of the world had tucked itself into the cozy pocket of late autumn. One day after dinner, Jake and April and I set up two, yes, two forms of recording, and dove into the story. Like I mentioned earlier, both recordings are no more, but I remember a few very important things."
AMANDA: Incredible. I don't know if someone's like carrying an EMP in their pocket, if someone's, like, dropping a Faraday cage over you when you hang out. But like, we've talked about ghost, Julia, that will, like, you know, scroll TikTok, that will like music, that, you know, will mess with your computers, but never one that just, like, shuts down and erases all mention of it, which feels particularly sinister.
JULIA: Particularly demonic, I would say.
AMANDA: Indeed.
JULIA: "Number one, Jake doesn't remember me telling him The Man story at all."
AMANDA: We have Jake's explicit reaction to the story. Oh, what do you mean?
JULIA: "This isn't really anything surprising. He has a notably bad memory, and it happened over 10 years ago. I believe he said something to the effect of, quote, 'spooky things happen all the time. You telling me a story wouldn't have stuck out.'"
AMANDA: Okay. Fair.
JULIA: "Very reassuring, brother. Because he didn't remember and I never told April, she definitely moved into the half-perched house without any knowledge of the previous otherworldly visitor. Though I doubt you can spend any time with my family and not realize there's something haunting afoot. She did not need specificities to have a vague idea of what to expect. And I believe she is her own spirit magnet, so nothing would be new to her. So no wonder she found my brother." Because if I recall correctly, Amanda, we were very mad at Jake for not telling his fiancee April at the time, before she moved into the house, about The Man.
AMANDA: Yes. He was like, "Come on, baby. Don't worry. You know, you can come over and— and live here and we can save some money, et cetera." BT dubs, it's haunted, is a very important thing to add.
JULIA: You have to add that it's haunted before someone moves in with you. You just have to. But apparently, Jake didn't remember anything about The Man, so he couldn't have warned April about it in the first place.
AMANDA: That makes a little bit more sense, because Jake otherwise sounds like a great dude.
JULIA: "Number two, I realized while being surrounded by my family members that honestly, any one of us could have invited The Man into the house. It could have been me, the young girl finding tomes in the library that promised to summon fiends." Oh, sorry, not fiends, friends. "That promised to summon friends from beyond the veil. It could have been my mom who believed in appeasing house spirits lest they begin to run amok. It could have been my father who survived curses and submarine ghosts. It could have been my brother who, despite insisting he didn't invite anything to follow him home, was playing around with blood curses at the time."
AMANDA: Julia, who hasn't done the, like, friendship palm to palm with your friends? Which looking back growing up in the' 90s and an era of a hyper fixation on blood-borne communicable diseases, not the greatest idea. But it— it is, in some ways, perhaps a slippery slope from the— the blood friendship pact to the blood curse.
JULIA: MaKayla writes, "Am I allowed to swear? If so, what the fuck, Jake? I wish I still had the recording so you can hear how he's so nonchalantly brought up that he casually used to throw spells at his friends like some petty wizard who has poor coping mechanisms for being annoyed. Over what, you may ask, World of Warcraft probably." The quote then comes from Jake from MaKayla, which says, quote, "My friend didn't think I would, so I had to. And his life is pretty unusual now, so I would say it worked." "I asked if he thought his friend ever sent one back. He shrugged, then evaded my prodding for specificity on how a teen boy goes about in finding an effective curse."
AMANDA: I love that the shit is just so quotidian and regular in Jake's life that he's like—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —"Sis, I can't remember the specifics of the blood curse." It's just like—
JULIA: Who can say what I blood cursed my friend about?
AMANDA: It's like asking a chef about, like, a particular version of a dish they made, like, seven or eight years ago, and most of the time, they're gonna be like, "I don't fucking know. It was like another pork chop. Like, what can I tell you?"
JULIA: MaKayla continues, "Are the spells my brother found while a teenager real? I highly doubt it, but if you try consistently, and you're already living in a haunted house, who knows what can manifest when you're praying over willingly lost blood? The walls of that house have proven time and time again that they listen, for better or for worse."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "The Man very well could have been a manifestation of all of my family members' tumultuous emotions mixing together to lay the perfect groundwork for a horror story. If you ask me, The Man was most likely a warning about what is willing to walk out from the veil with offerings of more than worldly desires if someone or a group of someones ask loudly enough. Unfortunately, I was the only one around to heed the warning. Leave it to the youngest child to be the sacrificial lamb. And lastly, the dress shoes. Dress shoes on the hardwood floor is a bad omen. My brother stated this fact surely, with a quiet confidence that only comes from someone who has learnt a lesson."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "Many times in his 20s, he has heard disembodied dress shoes walking toward him with the distinct clack of hardwood floor. The sound is always followed by something bad happening very soon after, death, ailment, accidents, for the people around him, but never him himself. It didn't take much dissecting to realize the clear through line here, or rather, how clear of a sought after but missed target Jake is. The Man walked away from me and has since then been walking towards him." I just got— I literally just got chills.
AMANDA: Oh, babe— I'm— yeah, like I'm— I'm stressed for Jake, baby. I'm stressed. I'm stressed.
JULIA: "It feels like The Man has an arrow of bad luck pointed at my brother, but always shoots too wide, leaving the shot to fall among those closest to Jake instead. It is sad almost to envision something so powerful and so concentrated to continuously fail at its mission. I do not wish my brother or his friends to be struck by anything negative, but I do wish The Man could come to find peace before he is consumed by his own Sisyphean pursuit, or before his aim gets better."
AMANDA: Aah.
JULIA: "We think of him like some mysterious fae being more powerful than an average man, never human, but perhaps he is more like us than we realize. Maybe why he doesn't like the story to be brought up, why he continues to break computers and phones is simple. Embarrassment."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "Another petty wizard who has poor coping mechanisms. Perhaps we should change his name to The Man Who Misses, though it might be time to stop addressing him at all. Let his failures rest, as I hope he might. I also think some appreciation is in order. Thank you to whatever deflecting force, whatever whisper of wind that strays arrows, whatever sent me home early on the bus for keeping Jake safe."
AMANDA: 100%. I think a— I mean, to her point, like something that determined with that much staying power is not going to be unlucky. There's going to be— there— it feels like some kind of countervailing force protecting Jake.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Versus, you know, making this creature miss.
JULIA: Yes. And if I remember correctly, that was MaKayla's thought at the time, because if you'll remember the original story—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —no one remembers the fact that she got let out of school early. Everyone was kind of like—
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: —"Oh." And then, like, they glaze over their eyes and they're like, "Yeah. the— the school let out early for— oh."
AMANDA: You were home for a reason.
JULIA: And I think that is very much to MaKayla's point there.
AMANDA: Oh. So good. MaKayla, what a writer.
JULIA: She finish—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: She finishes with, "That's all I have on this story. Thank you so much, Spirits, for letting me share the goings on of my small family, and letting me bask in the niche celebrity of podcast write in fame. Honestly, sharing here has reinvigorated my love of writing, and I am ever thankful to Spirits for that. Perhaps, you will hear more from the maiden of the half-perched house." I would like that very much, MaKayla.
AMANDA: I would like that very much. I know that our names are not probably significant enough in book publishing to blurb your future book, but we sure as hell will pimp it out on the podcast.
JULIA: Yeah. If you need a forward written, we got you.
AMANDA: We absolutely got you.
JULIA: Incredible. All right, Amanda. I— I'm still reeling from the half-perched house stories, but do you have something for me?
AMANDA: I do, Julia. I have two urban legends that I'm very excited to get to today. The first one is actually also a follow-up, so this is a great time to put it in from patron—
JULIA: Yay.
AMANDA: —Lauren H. And she writes, "Hey, Spirits. Last summer, I wrote to you about my experiences with strange lights and sounds at my Midwestern summer camp."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Promised you another story about a camp ghost and karma, and here it is."
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: And Julia, I'm recording this in rural Canada, where my husband Eric went to summer camp. We're not visiting the camp itself, but this is the neighborhood where the camp was. And so I'm like, looking out toward my left at some trees and a lake, and someone going by on a jet ski. And so I'm just like— this is a very camp setting, and I'm very excited to tell the story.
JULIA: Very camp of you. I love it.
AMANDA: "The story takes place at a different camp from my other story, and honestly, is a tale of hubris. When I was about 11, I attended a new church drama camp. The campgrounds were owned and operated by the state branch of the Protestant church in which I grew up. The church oversaw the care and maintenance of the camp and hired the year-round staff, as well as all the financials, registrations, et cetera for the camp, but each session was run by different churches and pastors. So each week had a different camp director, set of counselors, different programming, et cetera."
JULIA: Seems like a lot of upheaval.
AMANDA: Sounds, yeah, like a lot of just, like, different stuff coming in. I imagine them— the people in charge of the campgrounds are like, "You can't just, like, put glitter everywhere, guys."
JULIA: It's very tumultuous, which I think does kind of cause some sort of chaos within the spirit realm as well.
AMANDA: Exactly. Julia, in addition to being the first year of drama camp.
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "This was the first year anyone had tried to do anything theatre-related, and I remember being so excited for it. Because it was so new and such an unusual camp theme, it was a fairly small group. I'm talking less than 20 campers. And because there were so few of us, we really only needed two cabins. There's one for boys and one for girls. This meant that cabin one, which was a double cabin and far too big for our needs, sat empty for our week of camp."
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: "Being a group of highly imaginative and dramatic tweens, this logical reason for an empty cabin did absolutely nothing for our imaginations."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Haunted.
AMANDA: "There had to be a better, more exciting and spookier reason that this huge cabin sat around unused."
JULIA: Haunted.
AMANDA: "One of the other girls decided we should make up a ghost story for cabin one and use it to scare the boys."
JULIA: See, this is where that one child made a mistake, Amanda. You don't say, "Ooh, we should make it up. You fucking say it with confidence, small child. You say, "I heard from the cook in the camp that—"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And then insert your horror movie here. Insert that ghost story.
AMANDA: Yeah. I think I'm— I'm really embracing drama in my older years. She says— just having turned 32. No, but the— the fact that, like, starting me saying a thing that makes people uncomfortable is sometimes worth it, and is often necessary. And so in this case, it is absolutely just for fun, but I'm trying to get way more comfortable with being like, "I disagree. That's rude." Or, "I heard," in the case of starting drama.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "One afternoon, while we were supposed to be cleaning our cabin, us girls banded together to create the scariest ghost story we could think of. What we came up with was the story of—" and Julia, I'm not making this up. This is straight from Lauren "The fatal panty raid of cabin one."
JULIA: No, actually, this is good. I was gonna say, "Hmm, not great, girlies." But no, I like this, because if you want to discourage behavior by boys in the camp—
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: —you say, "These guys panty raided and then died."
AMANDA: Exactly. "So our story, many years before, cabin one had been a girl's cabin, and staying in this cabin was a girl named Minerva. This was the late '90s. A certain book chain made this popular."
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: "One night, the boys of this camp decided to stage a panty raid on cabin one. They stormed the cabin in the dead of night and wreaked havoc on the girls' belongings. The surprise of the attack was too much, and poor Minerva died from shock and had haunted cabin one ever since."
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: I love died from shock. That's just like, "Aaah." Expired.
JULIA: Hey, it's like, you know, all of the gothic novels where, "They're— they died of fright."
AMANDA: Yes, exactly.
JULIA: Basically, the same thing.
AMANDA: "I can't stress enough that every word of this story was dreamed up by us on the spot as we swept the floors and made up our bunks."
JULIA: Of course.
AMANDA: "And yet, later that night, after dinner in the mess hall and over s'mores, we begged our counselors to let us tell ghost stories. Eventually, they gave in, and the ringleader of our little group, her face lit up with mischief as she told our story of Minerva. She channeled every ounce of tween dramatics that we've been honing all week long to tell the story, nailing every dramatic pause and story crescendo."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Unfortunately, she may have done too good of a job, because when she reached the climax of the story, and Minerva vowed her revenge on anyone who ever dared to stay in cabin one again, another of our fellow campers got too scared and had a little panic attack."
JULIA: Aw. I was gonna say, "There's no way she did too good of a job." But I'm sorry for that little one.
AMANDA: Julia, this was one of the people who had helped make up the story.
JULIA: Girlfriend.
AMANDA: But don't you love that, that she was so into her friends retelling, that she's like, "Aaaah!" And she— she's, like, really into it.
JULIA: I mean, to be fair, they're at a drama camp. You're— you're—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —supposed to be, like, giving realism, you know?
AMANDA: Active listening. Yeah, you gotta—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —sell the hit in the stage combat. I'm so into it.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: This girl's a great friend. "So story time was at that point shut down by our counselors, and we all unceremoniously got sent to bed."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "The rest of the week at camp passed uneventfully. I forgot all about Minerva and the story of cabin one. The next summer, I returned to that same campground for a second year of the drama camp, but I was the only person from the original group to do so."
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Ideal. This is exactly what you want.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: "I continued to attend every year until I turned 18 and aged out of camp. I never again heard the story of Minerva passed around camp and seemed that it had died with our little group. That is, until I returned as a counselor."
JULIA: Okay. Good. Because I was going to say, "You should have been telling that story yourself. You have to be the vessel in which Minerva lives on."
AMANDA: Well, let's see what happened. "So the summer after I graduated from high school, the new pastor at my church announced he was taking his own session at the campgrounds and was looking for counselors. The camp wasn't going to be a drama specific one, just generic summer, but I couldn't sign up fast enough. One of my best friends signed up as well, and we were assigned to our own cabin of campers, in addition to our role of recreation directors." Doesn't that sound like a dream?
JULIA: Yes. It does sound like a dream. And I'm gonna go ahead and guess in my brain which cabin they got assigned.
AMANDA: "We spent our days leading a bunch of 11-year-olds in games of capture the flag and experiments in creating giant bubbles, and our evenings corralling the girls in our cabin through their bedtime routines and enforcing lights out. It was amazing."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "We had so much fun."
JULIA: Aw.
AMANDA: "Until one of the last nights of camp, our girls were inexplicably wound up after the evening campfire."
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: "All week long, they had been great, cooperative kids, and then all of a sudden, they fought us when it was time for lights out. They took forever to brush their teeth. They forgot their water bottles in the mess hall, anything they could come up with to prolong the going to sleep process. Even after everybody was in their bunks and the lights were out, we had to scold campers for whispering with each other and turning flashlights on under the covers. Finally, finally, we got everyone quieted down and went to sleep. This piece lasted maybe 20 minutes before the wind outside caused a tree branch to scrape against one of the windows, and half the girls started screaming."
JULIA: Nice.
AMANDA: "My friend and I threw on the lights, reassured the girls, tried to get them to calm down. And as we soothed the most upset ones, we asked the other ones what on earth had gotten into them. One of them finally told us, earlier that night, some of the kids had been telling spooky stories, and one of them was about this camp specifically, and they got scared. I assured my girls, I've been attending this camp since I was their age, and I had never heard a single ghost story about this place."
JULIA: Fully lying. Fully lying.
AMANDA: I mean, she originated a ghost story, but she hadn't heard one, I guess.
JULIA: Well, hmm.
AMANDA: "I asked them to tell me what they heard so I could explain to them how it couldn't be true. Imagine my surprise when they started telling me about a girl named Minerva who died in the panty raid many years before."
JULIA: That's so good.
AMANDA: "Now, some of the details had changed with time. Cabin one was no longer the big feature in the story, and Minerva's revenge on campers had gotten kind of extreme over the years, but there was no—"
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "—mistake that at its core, this was the story I had made up almost a decade before."
JULIA: Hell yeah, dawg.
AMANDA: "Sheepishly, I explained the origin of this story to our campers, and eventually, they all calmed down and returned to their bunks, and we were finally able to get some sleep."
JULIA: Okay, real quick, Amanda. Imagine you're 12, and you're at a camp.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And you just heard a terrifying ghost story about that camp specifically.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: And then you are scared witless, let's say, and you're sitting there in your cabin, and your camp counselor goes, "Oh, that's not real. I made it up several years ago."
AMANDA: Don't believe it.
JULIA: Would you don't believe them?
AMANDA: I don't believe it. Not for one second.
JULIA: Yeah, you simply wouldn't believe them.
AMANDA: Not for one second, Julia.
JULIA: No, not even a little bit.
AMANDA: As a kid, you cannot imagine that adults were once kids. So I'm like, " You were simply never a child, 18-year-old, who is, like, the most adult, adult I've ever interacted with."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And B, I would absolutely not believe that I explained something that scared me and that the person wasn't just trying to, like, reassure me or shut me up by being like, "Oh, that one is made up. That one's made up."
JULIA: Yes. 100%. On the same page then.
AMANDA: So to wrap up, Laura said, "The next morning, the camp director asked us if everything was okay because he noticed the lights on late. I explained to him, and when he stopped laughing, he said, "Well, that's karma." And then went on with his day. I returned to camp as a counselor a few times over the next few years, and had never heard the story of Minerva come up again."
JULIA: Aw.
AMANDA: "I don't have any idea how that story was carried forward and how it stayed dormant for so many years, only to pop up that one time my first year as a counselor. I guess that's the real mystery of Minerva. Stay creepy, stay cool. Laura."
JULIA: What do you think it was, Amanda? Do you think it was like another one of those theatre kid camps, like, went home, didn't come back the following year, but maybe told, like a younger sibling or something?
AMANDA: I have to imagine it's a younger sibling or, you know, theatre kids run in similar circles, we know this. And so maybe at, you know, a regional theatre at school, whatever, this got transmitted somehow, was like, "Oh, this, like, ghost story I heard at camp." And then, you know, you feel excited that you know something about camp when you bring it to camp yourself as a— a camper later on.
JULIA: True, true. Okay, cool. I think that's— that's the— I'm trying to think of it as, like, a family tree, almost.
AMANDA: Exactly, yeah. I think it's got to be that there was like a hanger on listening to the older kids tell ghost stories at some other theatre setting, and then either they returned as a camper or, you know, passed it along to the sort of, like, kids who attended that church, and therefore, that camp.
JULIA: That makes sense. That makes sense. Oh, I love it, though.
AMANDA: Laura also says, "PS, I met you at your Philly live show." Thank you, Laura, "And gave you acalypha plant propagation. How is it doing?" Doing—
JULIA: Yay.
AMANDA: —gorgeous in the office. I am loving her.
JULIA: Beautiful.
AMANDA: Thank you again.
JULIA: I trust Amanda to take care of any plant we're given. Amanda, why don't we tell a few more stories? But as soon as we get back from our refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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AMANDA: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the refill. Amanda here. I would love to thank our newest patrons, Miriam and Madison. I love when there's alliteration in our new patron names. Thank you both so much for making some room in your budget to support Spirits with your Patreon dollars. Thanks as well to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Hannah, Jane, Jeremiah, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Scott. And our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. If you would like to get thanked by name here on the show, if you would like to get the monthly bonus urban legends episode, the every other month advice episodes that Julia and I post, and so much more, like recipe cards and director's commentary for every episode, and even ICU, who have been going through the archives and listening to the Amanda poetry corner episodes from many years ago. All of that is there for you as a patron, so join now at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. This week's recommendation is twofold, and you'll see very soon why. So first, I recommend having sick-day foods on hand, the stuff that you want to eat when you're feeling sick. For me, that's Honey Nut Cheerios and light blue Gatorade. Okay? Arctic freeze come through. You know it. And having those things before I think I'll need them is the part where I sometimes struggle, where I'll think like, "Oh, I'm not sick. I don't need this." But then when I am sick, it's like, "Oh. Oh, no. I need to get out of the house and actually get it." So highly recommend having that on hand. And secondly, I highly recommend watching or listening to, or reading the most comfort of comfort shows when you are sick. I'm probably not the first person to tell you this, but I will tell you that the free Supermarket Sweep channel on Tubi is incredibly useful. I love it a lot, and that is the perfect sick day show. Now, here at Spirits, I know the weather is warm for us here in the northern hemisphere, but we're getting around to spooky season. Okay? Now we, of course, keep it spooky all year long, but you know, the— the folks who don't know as much about that, who aren't as dedicated to the spooky lifestyle as us, they are now starting to realize like, "Halloween is coming up," and as always, we— we try to make things a little special for you every October. And so we are asking for more hometown urban legends. We have plans. We want to do some exciting things, maybe another wholesome episode, maybe some more follow-ups, but we need your messages in order to do that. So if you've been thinking about it, if you're visiting somebody, or if you call a friend or a relative and say like, "Hey, what is that spooky story from way back when?" This would be a really great time to do it. So send them in now at spiritspodcast.com or directly to spiritspodcast@gmail.com. There is always something fun going on here at Multitude, and this week, it's Join the Party, an actual play podcast with tangible worlds, genre-pushing storytelling and collaborators who make each other laugh each week. DM Eric, Julia, myself, and our co-player Brandon welcome everyone to the table, whether you have never heard of Dungeons & Dragons or whether you used to play and kind of fallen off over time. One of my favorite compliments people give us about the show is that it feels like they are kind of scratching that itch of having a home campaign, even though their friends have moved or have kids, or, you know, no longer have the time to make DND campaigns weekly like they used to. So we make it easy for you to learn how to play, and we even have Afterparty episodes where we answer your questions about the show and how we play the game. So truly, what are you waiting for, y'all? Pull up a chair and join the party. Search for Join the Party in your podcast app or go to jointhepartypod.com. We are sponsored this week by Marley Spoon, which is a meal kit company that is actually very personalized, which I really like. I really enjoy cooking, and whenever I've gotten meal kits in the past, I've sometimes been a little disappointed by, like, the variety of recipes, or it'll be, like, a lot of stuff that's based on, you know, dishes I don't love. Like, I'm not a huge pasta person. I know, I'm sorry. And so when there's lots of pasta meals, I'm like, "Oh, it's not really"— you know, it just really hasn't done it for me before. So I am very excited that Marley Spoon has created the best tasting meal kit money can buy, and with the code Spirits, you can get up to 25 free meals. With Marley Spoon, you can choose from over 100 delicious recipes every week from Cajun spiced chicken to poached salmon to butternut squash gnocchi, that sounds amazing. To my recent favorite, a vegan burrito bowl, because I can chuck in whatever else from the fridge that I want to use up. It's so delicious. They're totally customizable. So whether you're looking for vegetarian meals, family-friendly dishes, low-carb options, whatever. They even have a registered dietitian in house to assess every recipe. I think my favorite thing about Marley Spoon is that it gets me to try new recipes without dropping, like, 30 bucks on a takeout dish that I am gonna feel meh about if I don't love it. So I know I can, like, customize a recipe I'm cooking for myself, but also I'm getting to try something that I wouldn't otherwise try. So it's a really good idea. I'll know when I'll be coming back from my vacation in a couple of weeks, I'll make sure I have a Marley Spoon order delivered so that I have, you know, kind of saving myself that pig grocery haul post vacation, nothing like it. So experience the most personalized meal kit today with Marley Spoon. Head to marleyspoon.com/offer/spirits, and use code Spirits for up to 25 free meals. That's right, folks. Up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. One last time, that's marleyspoon.com/offer/spirits for up to 25 free meals. And make sure you use promo code Spirits so they know we sent you. And now back to the show.
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JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And I know you are on vacation right now, and you were talking about a brewery that you were very excited to visit while you were up there. Have you gone yet?
AMANDA: Julia, we were able to go to the one and only Genesee Brewing Company in Rochester, New York, creators of perhaps my favorite beer of all time, the Ruby Red Kolsch that they make every summer. It is so delicious. It's both like the crappy, cheap beer kids drink at parties at New York state schools, and also like a absolutely lovely taproom restaurant brewery that was so much fun to visit. So shout out Cece and Jackie, their wife who went along with Eric and me to the brewery. It was everything I dreamed of and more.
JULIA: Amazing. I love that for you. I have— I've been doing not as many local beers lately, but I will say, I was at my beer distributor the other day to restock our Miller High Lifes for band practice, and I saw that my favorite beer, like my favorite summer beer, which is the SeaQuench Ale from Dogfish—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —had rebranded, and it looks so cool now. I'm super into it. Yeah, it's got like a octopus with a little hipster hat on, and I love him.
AMANDA: Oh, my God. Oh, you're so right. Oh, what's a cutie.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: This beer is so good. It's a beer that made me like sours and Gozas. It's so tasty.
JULIA: It's so good. And they're so crushable during the summer. They're the perfect beach beer, in my opinion. I just love them so much.
AMANDA: Yeah. They're what made me love beemosas, so adding a bit of OJ or grapefruit juice into your beer. So good.
JULIA: I like OJ. That's fun.
AMANDA: Now, Julia, normally, we— we try to do at least two urban legends per person, but this second one is so chunky and exciting that I want to dive right into it. Is that okay with you?
JULIA: Oh, my God. Yes, please.
AMANDA: Okay. So my next email comes from Katie, she/they, and it is titled The Little Girl Crying in the bathroom.
JULIA: Uh-oh. Uh-oh, Katie.
AMANDA: "My name is Katie, and I've been listening to in loving Spirits since 2021. I've thought about sending in my urban legends and ghost stories many times, but wasn't convinced that what I had to say was interesting enough."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "Recently, I felt more inclined to share, so I thought I'd start with this one."
JULIA: Good. I can't wait to hear about it.
AMANDA: You love to hear it. Thank you, Katie. "When I was about 18, we moved from my small hometown to an even smaller— well, best to call it a village. The kind of town where there's only one stoplight, everyone knows each other, and outsiders are not welcome."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: "Now, while this town was of horror of its own, what was worse was the house we moved into." It— again, I'm in rural Canada right now driving through a very no stoplight, one stoplight town, so—
JULIA: Enjoy.
AMANDA: "It was a small house with just two bedrooms, a living room, and a small kitchen. The bathroom was between the two bedrooms, so each bedroom shared a wall with the bathroom. " Important to note for later on.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "The house was built in the late 1800s and had stayed in the same family the entire time. In fact, some of that family still live next door. They began renting it out for some extra income, since the house was too small for anyone in the family with their own family to use."
JULIA: Makes sense.
AMANDA: "So the story really starts on the one weekend where my parents went out of town together, leaving me and my dogs alone with the house for the weekend."
JULIA: Oh, I want to know how old you are and what the dog situation is like. I have so many questions.
AMANDA: Yeah. So Katie was 18 when they moved, so I would imagine 18—
JULIA: All right. This is an adult then.
AMANDA: —at the oldest 19, yeah. "Now, I'd always gotten weird vibes from the house, but I hadn't seen any ghosts or spirits. When I was younger, I saw a lot of them."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "So I figured everything would be fine."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: So Katie's like, "Okay, well, I mean, this is not hitting, you know, the normal ways that this goes bad for me, so we're fine." "Nothing at all was wrong or unusual, that is, until my sweet and very timid dog, Lucy, started to act weird."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "She was trying to come into my bedroom, but kept stopping outside the bathroom, which she had to pass by to get into my room from the hall."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "She would tuck her tail and run back to the couch every time she tried. After the third time this happened, I walked over, rolled my eyes, just picked her up, carried her into my room. Now, Lucy was a small and frankly weird dog, so I didn't really think much of this, but things kept getting weirder."
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: "As I snuggled into bed with both dogs now in tow, for a second, I could have sworn that I heard a squeaking sound, almost like an old faucet being turned."
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: "At this, I paused the show I was watching and listened carefully, shushing my dog who was growling at the wall that was adjacent to the bathroom."
JULIA: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Also, Amanda, do you do that often where you're, like, listening to something or watching something, and then you hear a weird noise, and you're like— and then the noise stops as soon as you pause the thing?
AMANDA: I will sometimes have trouble differentiating between what I'm listening to in my headphones and what's going on in the house. And so if I like— I'll often, like, pause, listen to the house, unpause, listen to the show. Like, see if it's something in the background of the show I'm watching. But, yeah, no, it's— what absolutely happens to me, Julia, is I'll have a problem with my computer, and then when I show it to Eric, it won't replicate itself. And I'm like, "Goddammit."
JULIA: It might be The Man from earlier.
AMANDA: It might be The Man. Oh, God.
JULIA: No, I do that a lot, but I don't wear headphones around the house very often. So when I pause it, I'm like, "All right, is this coming from my phone or is it atmospheric?" And then I'm like, "Okay, is it inside the house, or is it outside the house?"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And it's— it's just like a— you know, it's a game that I play with myself to make myself very scared.
AMANDA: Yeah. Well, that sounds regular. I do that, too.
JULIA: Totally normal and cool thing to do.
AMANDA: So Julia, like you, Katie continues, "When I paused and listened close, and the dog had stopped growling, the house was silent. I would have been able to hear a pin drop."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "And it was almost eerie how silent the very old house had become. I tried sort of shaking off the feeling of being watched that I was now feeling, and just to be sure, I made sure that the front door was locked and all the blinds closed."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Not much longer after that, I was able to convince myself I imagined the strange sound, and finally fell asleep."
JULIA: Oh, we're— we're so kind to our brains sometimes, huh? We're like, "You probably didn't hear anything. Just go to bed, sleepy."
AMANDA: Shh, shh, shh, shh. You're fine. You're fine. "Now, that's when I woke up from a dead sleep to the sound of water rushing from a faucet."
JULIA: Oh, a bad sound even if it's not ghosts. A bad sound.
AMANDA: A bad sound no matter what the explanation is. "So I stood up and quickly walked to the neighboring bathroom, and sure enough, the sink was on. Now, I knew for a fact that I didn't leave the sink on, and I was assured of this because both the hot and cold taps were turned all the way up."
JULIA: What the fuck?
AMANDA: "And whenever I used that sink, I used the hot water only because it wasn't that hot." Also, that's two faucets, Julia, not just one. Like—
JULIA: I know.
AMANDA: —we're— we're getting into more and more levels of what the fuck here. And you don't even have a cat, you have dogs. I feel like dogs can't turn on faucets as easily as cats could, potentially.
JULIA: No, no.
AMANDA: "I turned the water off and the hair on the back of my neck was standing up like heck."
JULIA: You know what makes it worse, Amanda? They described it as one of those, like, turn-y ones. Like, I'm picturing, like, it's a circle and it's got, like, the knobs around it, instead of, like, just the paddle?
AMANDA: Yeah, like old time-y hotel. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So the idea— that's much harder for, like, an animal to— to turn—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —than, like, you know, a cat goes, "Pshh, pshh, pshh," on a paddle one, and then it's wide open, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah, you can't just, like, push a lever and the water's on. You have to, like, turn a— a screw.
JULIA: No. I hate this.
AMANDA: "The hair on the back of my neck was standing up, and I felt a little puff of warm air, like someone was breathing too close to me."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "I looked up into the mirror, and nothing was there, but frantically, I ran back into my room and slammed the door behind me."
JULIA: I mean, same. Big same, big same.
AMANDA: Also, props to you, Katie, for looking in the mirror. Not— not a million dollars to get me to look in a mirror at the dead of night when I think something's behind me.
JULIA: Simply couldn't. I'm not gonna live a horror movie.
AMANDA: "Back in my room, I could feel my heartbeat and my ears pumping loudly. There was no rational explanation for what I had just seen. Finally, after about five minutes, I'd calm my breathing. The house was quiet. I sent a panicked text to my mom, who replied, "You probably just forgot to turn it off. It's fine."
JULIA: Bitch, I know. I know what I did and didn't do.
AMANDA: Bitch, I never used the cold water. "Now, even though I know I didn't leave it on, I tried to listen to my mom and feel reassured and convince myself of this possibility. So just as I'm lying back in bed, settling in with the dogs, I hear the creak of a faucet turning and once again, water rushing out."
JULIA: Fuck this. Fuck this. Not only because the water bill is gonna be higher than it needs to be, but also that's terrifying.
AMANDA: Also, like I have— to your point, Julia, I have never heard of like an old timey faucet with, like a top you have to turn and turn, opening on its own. Like, you— you close it all the way.
JULIA: I'm gonna ask Jake about this. Like, if there's some way that, like, the pressure could turn it, or something like that, but—
AMANDA: Or, like, even if the thread is loose, like, you can— you can tighten it manually.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Like, five minutes later.
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: And again, we're assuming that it is going full blast.
AMANDA: Katie took a deep breath, opened the door, and as soon as she did, she says, "I hear a little girl's giggle emanating from the bathroom."
JULIA: Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
AMANDA: "Every part of me was screaming to run, but instead, I headed right back into that old bathroom. And wouldn't you know it, the water was running. Here's the worst part, though, this time, as I entered the bathroom, my Bluetooth speaker turned itself on, and Lana Del Rey's rendition of Once Upon A Dream starts playing."
JULIA: Oh, ghosts. I don't like when you have a sense of humor. I'm not— not a fan of that.
AMANDA: "I shut off the water, and abruptly, the music stopped. I heard another giggle from behind me and—
JULIA: Girl.
AMANDA: "—the distinctly whispered phrase, 'Let's play.'"
JULIA: I would say, if we're gonna rank terrible things a ghost can say to you, get out, pretty fucking high.
AMANDA: Get out's bad.
JULIA: I— I think "Let's play" is maybe second or third. It's pretty bad.
AMANDA: I mean, maybe my own name, but I think— I think just someone saying my name would make me instinctively want to, like, burn that house down, less than a whispered, "Let's play."
JULIA: "Let's play." No! Fuck that. Fuck that.
AMANDA: No. No, fuck that. Fuck that. Never play with me. Never.
JULIA: No, don't talk to me.
AMANDA: "Before I could really think about it, I just replied, "Let's not," voice shaking.
JULIA: Quality, quality response. I love it.
AMANDA: Shut up. "The giggling stopped, and I felt like I had been freed, like there was no longer anyone watching me. I spent the rest of the night curled up in as many blankets as I could, with my dogs terrified to go to sleep."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "I told my parents about the event that they are convinced I just had a very vivid bad dream."
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: "And I started to believe them, until I did some research at the library."
JULIA: Like a true horror movie character.
AMANDA: Katie, this bitch is at the library. I love her. I love her.
JULIA: I love when we're Googling things, when we're going through some microfiche. I love that for you.
AMANDA: I was gonna say, "This bitch is at the microfiche. She is like figuring out the old newsprint. She has got this."
JULIA: Katie knows what they are about.
AMANDA: Katie, I love this for you. "I found out at the library that way back in the 1800s, a little girl had drowned just up the street while playing in the creek. Now, I think she was lonely, knew that I was alone too, and came for a visit, along with plenty of water."
JULIA: Okay. Sure. If you say so.
AMANDA: "Hope you liked my story. If you did, I have a few more, including one with the blue man and the witch's curse."
JULIA: I want both of them. I want both of them.
AMANDA: "Thank you so much. Stay creepy, stay cool. Katie. Thank you so much, ConSpiriters for writing in. This has been a very good, very wholesome follow-up. And by wholesome, I mean like fills the hole in my heart that needs a scary urban legend for being alone in the woods tonight.
JULIA: I mean, Amanda, I'm sorry, but also you're welcome, I think is how I'm feeling about that.
AMANDA: I'm so excited. I already asked Eric if we can, like, drive around to look at the stars, because I don't often get to be in a rural enough place that there isn't light pollution.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And so we are, in fact, planning, Julia, on being quiet in the dark, ideally alone, looking up at the sky, and I'm gonna try to listen at the same time.
JULIA: I feel like you're just asking for ghost children to push your car, like, near some train tracks.
AMANDA: Oh, boy. I'm not gonna leave it in neutral under a bridge, lights off, A, because that's very dangerous.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And B, because I— I'm not— I'm not fitting to get— get handprints on the back of my car.
JULIA: Fine. I guess that's okay.
AMANDA: Well, I hope this hometown urban legends episode went down as well for you all as it has for us. But listeners, next time you find yourself getting scared by a little girl asking you to play, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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