Spooked - Playtime

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

When Caro saw a gift box in her kitchen, she knew she was in for a surprise. But some gifts come with a price. Thank you, Caro, for sharing your story with Spooked!Produced by Erick Yáñez, original score by Dirk Schwarzhoff, artwork by Teo Ducot Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

He paid me put the kettle on to make a cup of tea. I told him, pay me what you owe, for I don't work for free. He promised gold and silver if I could wait a day or three. But first he said that I should sit and he, then the room, but in the laugh, even more than her grin, more than anything. I remember the scent, her scent. The first time a woman tells me, she loves me. I'm 19 years old when she whispers, listen,

I just want you to know that I love you. Do say something back because I love her too. I do, and I breathe in that essence. Her signature smell. Ask her what it is, and she tells me a cologne called White She, shoulders, which is ironic because her shoulders are chocolate. It's not too much later, but I have to tell her that I'm planning to move away. The study abroad in Japan for a year.

And after this confession for a while, we pretend together that I haven't said anything at all. Even as I apply for my passport, purchase language, flashcards, and next to pairs of shoes. The night before I go to the airport, we hold hands. Then she takes out a silk scarf, presses her cologne, white shoulders into it, forces a smile and says to remember me when we're apart. I put that scarf that I mean to read The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth.

And between continents and time and life, this book is lost. Until yesterday. Yesterday, looking for an entirely different book, I pulled this one from a box, and there I see this tiny bit of pink silk sitting out between the pages. I bring it to my nose.

Inhale, buckle to the ground, tears burning my eyes, this tiny bit of fabric, tiny piece of magic. It snatched me back to that moment, to that I love you, like warm sunshine, like lemonade. Happy futures, laughing babies, even though I know, I know, the love is gone. All those choices, all those almost lifetimes are still pressed into the slip of claw,

animated by a story, our story. Some say that it's easier for objects to hold hate than it is for them to hold love. Even whole houses can be twisted into manifestations of rage. No more powerful magic than a small piece of silk that can transport you through parents in Watsonville, California. She's about to get a surprise. So one afternoon I'm walking home from school, and I walk up the stairs to the back porch. I open up the door that leads into our kitchen. My mom's usually there with a snack prepared for me.

But this afternoon, there was no snack. There was this big white, rectangular box on top of our kitchen table. At first, I thought it was a cake. But my mom says, one of your kids. your theas got you a gift. At first I was a surprise, I was like, they gave me something. My mother explained to me that my father had gone to visit family for a gathering and that one of my theillas had given him the box. I climbed on top of a chair and kind of leaned forward and saw that it was a doll. And I tell my mom, let's open it. Let's open it. So she opens it up for me and

fix her up, and she puts her standing up. Her eyes opened up, like right away. And they were these blue piercing eyes looking right back at me. I stand back and I see the full length of her, and she's pretty tall. She's almost as tall as me. She's blonde with red lips. She's wearing a white, kind of like ruffle collar. And then it's a blue dress. It's cinched at the waist, and there's white buttons in the front. And she had black, shiny Mary Jane's. And I'm just so excited.

She's so beautiful. This is my first doll. So I went to my room, and I went to my closet. I got my little tea set. I just started playing with her, pretended like I was having tea with a friend. And I played with her. Until my dad got home,

I put her in the corner right next to my vanity. I would play with this doll every day. I would dress up her hair. I would play tea party with her. I would say, oh, would you like for tea? Yes, I want more tea. I would put her arms out and I would get in the middle and I would hug her.

She was like my friend. A couple of weeks after getting my doll, I put her in her corner after playing with her like I do every day. And I go to bed. I'm laying in my bed and I start to wake up. and it's noises. I'm hearing noises in my room. I hear things being moved in my vanity. I had little lip glasses, little neckknacks, little perfumes,

and I could hear someone touching my thing. Maybe it's my mom, maybe it's my dad, and I hear something full. on my vanity. I looked around the room and there was nothing there. And I got brave enough to pull the string on my night lamp.

There's nothing there. And everything was in its place. I chalked it up to me just imagining it. I'm curled up. The lights are on. And I somehow fall asleep. After that night, it started happening every night.

I would keep waking up to noises in my room, things being moved, and I would be so scared. I didn't know where it was coming from. One night, I wake up again because I hear something very faint. I hear little shuffles on my carpet. It's a heavy, like a dragging shuffle. I got the sense that it was coming towards my bed. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, and then it stops. I start kind of slowly crawling to the edge of my bed.

And I'm preparing myself to see an animal like a rat. But when I look over, I see my doll. She's laying flat on her back with her arms beside her and her eyes closed. I said, huh, how did you get over here? The wall is over there. You're supposed to be over there. I picked her up by her shoulders and I put her to stand up and her eyes opened. And I'm looking right at her.

In my head, I'm thinking, I don't know what was making those sounds. but this doll is creeping me out. So I pick her up and I walk over to my closet. I slide the door open and I put her next to my desk. That's where I would keep my binders for school, my cram box, everything was there, organized. I close the sliding door and then I run and jump in my bed. The next day, I'm getting ready for school.

So I go back into my desk in the closet. And it's, it looks like a hurricane went through it. It looks so disorganized. My notebook was open. My binders were laying to one side. And there was crayons all over the desk. And that's not how I left it. The doll was right there.

there in that spot where I put her. I couldn't explain it, but I knew it was her. When she starts living in the closet, my mom, she asked me, she's like, how come you don't play with your doll anymore? And I just told her, I don't want to play with her. You can give her away. And my mom said, no, one of your things I gave it to you. That's rude. I thought, oh, she's going to to be with me forever. I really stopped going into the closet unless I really needed to. And I actually made it a point to be loud when I had to go into my room. I would be like, okay, I'm going to go get my krillian crayons. Yeah, I'm going to be right back, Mom. I'm going to get my shoes. They're in my room. I would almost announce myself because I was afraid to see her not where she's supposed to be.

There was one day I wasn't feeling very well, and my mom allowed me to stay home from school with my Uncle Rudy, who was fixing the granny unit in the back of our house. We call it the apartment. I was sitting there helping him, and then I got bored, and I had to go pee. I said, Uncle Rudy, I need to go to the bathroom, and can I get some of my coloring books and my crayons? and he goes, yeah, real quick though. I walk into my room and I realize that I didn't announce myself, but it's too late. So I try not to focus on anything other than quickly opening my sliding closet door and getting my crayons and my notebook and rushing right back out.

So I'm walking down the hall. and I go into the bathroom and I close the door and I lock it. I'm washing my hands really quickly because I'm like, I have to hurry up and go back. As I'm drying my hands, I hear the door jiggle. Like someone's trying to get in.

First, I'm thinking, that's my Uncle Rudy. Maybe he needs to use the bathroom. But then it does it again. More forcefully this time. I thought he must be mad. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to scare him.

I'm going to jump out, you know, and open the door and go, rah! I get on all fours by the door to see if he's still there, waiting for me. But I don't see anything. I'm about to pull away from the floor. But I see. little black shoes coming from the right side of the door. They're small, small feet.

It's my doll's shoes. Those are her Black Mary Jane's. And there's nobody holding her up. She's walking past the door. And she's just almost dragging her feet. I was like, this isn't real. My hands felt so cold. I was frozen.

This whole time I was like holding my breath. I gasped. Her feet stopped moving. Her right leg swings around to face the door. Like she's going to get in here. I have to get out. I stood up as quietly as I could do it. I gather all my courage and

I pull the door open and I run and I just scream I'm just looking at that front door I don't look to my right and I'm screaming screaming as I'm running to the back apartment

my uncle Rudy comes out of the little apartment and he's white he is so pale white And he just, like, puts out his arms and I jump into his arms. And he's just like, caro, carito, caro, caro, caro, it's okay. I'm right here. What happened?

What's wrong? And he's, like, kind of calming me, like, patting my back. And I'm screaming. La moniacca is moving, she's moving. She's getting me. She's going to get me. And he's all, I'm going to call your mom. She got home fairly quickly.

And she came up to me And as soon as I saw her, I ran to her And I was hugging her My mom was like, what happened I told my mom I was like, Mom, La Mano Tava Caminando

Mom, the doll was walking My mom looked at my uncle and she said, what were you doing? Are you playing a joke on her? Why would you do that? My uncle was like, I would never do anything to hurt her.

I was in the back this whole time. my mom, she knelt down to my level and she says, okay, calm down, calm down. Let's go into the house and sit down and talk. And I told her, I'm not going in there. That doll's in there. And she was like, okay, let me get the doll out of the house. So she goes in, she gets her out, she puts her in her car in the trunk.

I went into the house and we sat down on the kitchen table and she says, What's what's wrong with you? What happened? And I told her everything. And she just stayed quiet. And she didn't ask me anything else. She called my grandmother. And my grandma was like, I boy.

I'll be right there. I fell asleep on the living room sofa. My mom was next to me. And we were watching cartoons. And I just fell asleep. When I woke up, it was already nighttime. My dad wasn't home yet. But my grandma had come when I was asleep, and then she was gone.

I asked my mom, I was like, where's the doll? And she says, don't worry about it anymore. I took care of it. She kind of just left it at that. I think it was probably the next night that I hear my mom and my dad talking about the doll. They're in the living room and I'm in the hallway, kind of trying to hear as much as I can. And I hear my mother very upset. She's just like, I want to know which one of your cousins gave Carito this doll.

I want you to tell me, who was it? Who was it? And my dad is just like, I don't know, no, ma's ta me in la mesa. It was just on the table and had a little tag. And I said, para caro. So I took it. I didn't even think to ask him. My mom's like, I want you to call them and I want you to ask them each individually.

Just say, oh, did you give her that doll? Because I never got to say thank you. If someone says, yes, I gave it to her. She says, you let me talk to them and I will tell them exactly how I feel. And he did. He called around and everyone's like, no, I didn't give her a doll. No, I didn't. Some of them would even say, like, I don't even buy my own kids' dolls.

Nobody accepted the responsibility. I never had another doll. I would get scared when I would see one at, like, a yard sale, or, you know, a Halloween store. There's a bloody doll on display. I'm still uneasy around them. I always wondered who gave me the doll, but I couldn't think of anyone.

The only one I could ever ever. really think about or assume was my Tia Olis. She would call me a little nina faya. She called me a little moccosa and all these things. Maybe she thought I was a spoiled kid. Maybe she didn't like my mom. My mom was very outspoken. But I don't have any real proof that it was her.

It was at Thanksgiving. this one year that we had started talking about it. I told my brothers the story of what I had seen, and they made fun of me. And my mom's like, but I believe her. I believe she saw it, and I got rid of it. And that's what I asked her. I was like, what exactly did you guys do to the doll? She said, I told your grandma what you had seen.

She came over right away, and then she says, okay, well, we got to cut it up. Take the legs off, take the arm off, take the head off, put them in different bags, and throw them in different dumpsters. My brothers were making fun of my mom. Like, oh my God, you just remembered a doll. Why would you do that?

We did that because we didn't want the doll to go home to another little girl. Somebody could have been passing by and been like, oh, this is a perfect gift to give so-and-so. And then it's going to repeat the cycle. I thought it was kind of morbid. And I told her, I was like, damn, you guys got crazy.

on that poor doll. But then I thought about it and I was like, no, she scared me. That doll deserved it. For sharing your story was spooked. That original score was by Dirk Swartzoff. It was produced by Eric Yannias. Magics mentioned in our most ancient scraps of text is healing. And there's long been such a thing as doctors.

physicians, medicine, nursing a person back to health. And then there's something else. People claim to have gifts, that they have the powers to remove infirmity, not over time, not with vitamin C and chicken soup, but instantly employing methods that we don't have a good name for. And I wonder if you have a story of such a healer or pretends you yourself are a healer.

A fix it right now, make the bad stuff go away type of healer, then best believe I'm not the only one that would love to hear your story. Please tell me about it spooked at snapjudgment.org and do not play with me. Because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof spooked at snapjudgment.org. You can also send a note if you wish to spook. We recently received this one from Sally in upstate New York. Dear Glenn, I performed the bloody merry ritual you suggested, and now my home has become uninhabitable, with scores of demons and monsters streaming out of the bathroom mirror.

Glenn, do you think Sage will work? Whoa. First of all, thank you for your questions. and Sally, but um, no, I do not think Sage will work. Spook is brought to him of a team that knows instinctively whether there is a full moon except for Mark Ristich, but no matter, he doesn't care what the moon is up to. He just hows at the moon whenever he feels like it. There's David Kim, Zoy Fregno, Ann Ford, Eric Yannias,

Tale de Kott, Versa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Paulina Creeky, Elizabeth Z. Pardue, Adithi Amatu, Lulu, Lula, Jemima. The spooked theme song is by Pat Massidi Miller. My name is Gunn Washington. And there are those that marvel and proclaim that this time of technical wonders, man-made satellites, talking machines. This is the age of wonder. the land of magic. They celebrate that at long last, we travel the path of God and their others

that see our collective library burning. And they weep at the loss of so much of our knowledge. Our traditions, our understanding, at our blindness. They wail that we have traded gold for sand. But perhaps both things are true. It sometimes feels to me, the one thing we can't seem to create is a machine that captures and holds the wisdom pouring through our fingers like water.

Their machines can recall a story. Live a story. They might stumble upon an ancient piece of wisdom that has emerged independently from countless forgotten cultures around the globe. What is this beginning of knowledge? What is this morsel of mystic truth? Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never. Ever.