I was born and raised in the city. My grandparents lived in the outskirts, but then decided to move back to a small mountain town my grandmother’s family used to live in. By small I mean it has less than 20 houses, and everyone knows everyone. It is an old little place, perched on the side of the mountain, with buildings made of stones. Right under it, there are fields, and then the woods.
The first time I visited (more or less 7 years ago) my grandomother was very careful to warn me not to go out when it’s dark. She’s the same woman who taught me about myths and legends, and told me that there are things wandering around. We don’t know who they are, or what they are, but they like to stroll through the town when they know it’s quiet. Usually they are calm, but sometimes they try to get people to come with them back into the woods. They make you see things, imitate noises and voices. They won’t let you come back.
I was skeptical, but I obeyed.
Fast forward to 3 years ago.
I was spending the month with my grandparents, and it was only the three of us since my family decided to stay in Rome. One day around 9 pm (the sun had just set) I was in the kitchen on the second floor, reading at the table, when I my grandmother called me from the garden. The window was open, so I clearly heard her shout “Giorgia! Can you come down a second?”
It wasn’t the first time it had happened: my grandmother had a dog who was pretty old and had trouble walking, so she’d call me down into the garden from time to time to help her move him back inside. But she never asked me to go out at night.
“Is everything okay?” I yelled, still sitting at the table “You need help?”
“Can you come down a second?” she repeated.
I just thought “Meh” and stood up to go downstairs to the lobby and reach the garden-
-and I met my grandmother in the hallway.
I asked her “You don’t need help anymore?”. She just stared at me, so I explained that I heard her call me from the garden.
“You didn’t look down from window, did you?”
I shook my head, and she calmly walked into the kitchen and closed the window.
“You shouldn’t go out, it’s dark.” she told me, getting a bottle of water from the fridge. Like nothing had happened.
That’s when I fully realized that it wasn’t my grandmother who tried to get me to go out in the night.
And that’s why I don’t fuck with the unknown.