Way back in high school, some friends and I went to hang out at a coffee house that was only open on Saturday nights. They always had one local folksinger or another performing. It was in the basement of a convent.

A few hours after we got there, one of us went out for a bit of fresh air. A few minutes later, he came rushing back in, all oddly excited and perturbed. He said we had to go out in back, where the parking lot was, and look at the trees at the back edge of the property. He wouldn’t tell us what we were going to look at, he just wanted to see what we thought was going on. There was a good singer wailing away on his guitar so we said no. Our friend sat down and fidgeted until the song was done, and then compelled us to get outside.

It was dark, there was no moon up. It was summer, but no special day. We got to the back edge, where there were some trees. We all stood there quietly, looking at the trees, because our friend said that was where he saw it. It looked like a very dark grove of trees.

Gradually, though, the scene changed. Just past the trees you could see a meadow, with a pond in it. The area was lit up as though the moon was full and high. Wisps of fog drifted about. You could hear music playing, a bit like bagpipes, but much sweeter and enchanting. A drummer was playing, a medium quick beat, sounding a bit like an Irish bodhran.

A few minutes later, next to the pond, a circle of dancers appeared, not fully visible, but like a misty, foggy, circle of dancers, dancing in long diaphanous robes. The dancers and robes were indistinct, but had the glowing, blue-white color of the full moon. They appeared taller than us and slender.

We watched, gob smacked speechless, for maybe five minutes. I then started to walk down toward the dancers. Suddenly, a fear began to rise up in us. It felt like something off to the right of us, in very dense woods, just noticed us being able to see the dancers and was very pissed off about it.

We turned tail and ran to the car, jumped in, and hauled ass out of there. For several miles it felt like something very tall and dark was watching from the convent grounds, looming toward us, making unclear but very dire threats as to what would happen should we come back.

Now, we had only ever gone to the coffee shop after dark, so we never had really seen what the property behind the convent looked like. A few weeks later a couple-three of us convinced each other to go have a look at the forest and pond in broad daylight.

There was no pond. There was a narrow thicket of trees and then a farmer’s field. There was no dense forest off to the right, where the guardian of the fairy dance had stood guard.

First shared on the Squatcher’s Lounge Podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEYgLxAEH-M