The Diary of Paige Kelly
It was supposed to be a nice trip. That’s all I keep thinking. It was supposed to be a nice trip. I had arranged everything — down to the last detail.
We were to set out at around 7:30 A.M., and we’d arrive at the campgrounds by 11:30. We would set up, and by the time the tents were staked into the ground and Dan and the Boys had gotten everything ready to make a fire for dinner, it would be nearly 1:00. At that point, we’d all go down to the lake. The boys would want to fish with their father, and Sarah and I would walk the shoreline. She loves to wander, and fishing would bore us both.
At 2:30, we’d all meet back at the camp and eat the sandwiches and chips that I packed for lunch. By the time we were all done, it would be around 3:30. The boys would go off with Dan, maybe hike up one of the trails or maybe back down to the lake, and I would lay Sarah down for her nap and read as she slept.
When the boys came back and Sarah woke up, it would be time to make dinner. Fish would be cooked in tin foil over the campfire. It would be store-bought, of course. Dan, for all the things he is, is not the best fisherman, and I wasn’t going to risk the kids not having dinner.
Once we finished, we would roast marshmallows and make s’mores. Dan would tell the kids a scary story, one that would scare the hell out of the boys and lead to a litany of questions from Sarah, who would be unfazed by the stories of hook-handed madmen and creatures in the forest.
After some amount of protest on the part of the boys, we’d all crawl into our tents and go to sleep. Dan would sleep with the boys, and I would sleep with Sarah.
At 9 A.M., we would wake up, maybe have a quick little hike, break down the tents, load up the car, and we’d be back on the road by 11 at the latest. I was going to have a nice, family trip.
And I almost did.
Everything went along exactly as I had planned — exactly as I had imagined — until we went to bed. About an hour after we had all settled in, I was woken up by the cold. I sat bolt upright in my sleeping bag to see that the tent was open, and Sarah was gone.
At first, I wasn’t too worried, thinking that maybe she had gone to one of the portapotties that were stationed near the edge of the campgrounds. I knocked on both doors, and when no one answered, I opened them.
She wasn’t there.
I turned back to the tents and called out her name, but there was no reply.
I unzipped the boys’ and Dan’s tent to peek inside, see if she had crawled in with her father, but I only saw Dan, sleeping in the center with the boys on either side.
Where would she have gone?
I looked around and saw the entrance to a hiking path, the one the boys and Dan had gone down earlier — the one she had wanted to follow when she was supposed to be taking her nap. I had promised her we would go in the morning.
I started down the path and grew anxious in the darkness. If she had gone down this way, then she was even more fearless than Dan or I could have ever imagined.
“Sarah!” I called out into the darkness.
No reply.
I moved forward down the path about thirty more feet.
“Sarah!” I called.
Again, no reply.
Just as I was about to turn back and wake Dan, I heard a laugh down the trail. I wasn’t even sure that it was Sarah’s laugh, but I ran towards it, half-crazed by the darkness and my own fears.
The darkness gave way as I ran. There was a light, bright and getting brighter, coming from where I had heard the laugh. Whoever was there, even if it wasn’t Sarah, may have seen her. I ran faster.
As I came closer to the light, I heard the muffled sounds of music and laughter. Someone played a string instrument that I could not place. The sound was like a cross between that of violin and that of a banjo.
Speech flowed into the laughter and music. The words were English, but their echoes carried through the trees and broke off into syllables that I could not understand. I rounded the end of the path, and my stomach dropped.
People danced around in a circle, laughing and drinking. They were dressed for a ball, and from head on they looked like socialites, but when they moved into my periphery they morphed and shivered into something else.
At the center of this procession, there was a man dressed in a blue suit. It was embroidered with swirling glyphs and images that danced along with the guests. His hair was like spun gold, and his eyes, to my disbelief, were the source of the light. They were the torches that lit the circle and cast shadows across my path.
I watched him, and as the other dancers made way, I saw Sarah, stood on his black, dress shoes, her hands in his as she danced with him like she had done with her father at my sister’s wedding.
“Sarah!” I cried, unable to stop myself. In an instant, the dancers were gone, and only the man and my daughter remained.
He turned his radiant eyes on to me, and though they were as bright as the sun, they did not blind me. He pulled Sarah into his arms and approached the edge of the circle.
Without hesitation, I ran to her. The man whispered something to Sarah — something I could not understand — before placing a small object in her palm and wrapping her fingers around it. He held her out to me, and I pulled her into my arms.
“You’re gonna want to keep a close watch on her,” he said. His tone was tender, fatherly.
When I opened my mouth to speak — to ask him who he was — all of the dancers reappeared. The beautiful faces — or the masks they wore as faces — were gone, and the shivering silhouettes that I had seen out of the corner of my eyes took form.
There were horrible creatures that walked on goat’s legs and some that squirmed on the ground as miserable slugs. There were others still, one who was welded to his mount and another with the snarling face of a lion. The music went in and out, switching between the jovial strings and the sounds of far-off screaming.
Sarah clapped her hands at the commotion, and I ran faster than I ever had. I ran into the tent and zipped it shut. I spent the night holding Sarah, huddled into the corner, unable to cry or to speak or to process what I had seen.
When morning came, I woke Dan and told him that I wasn’t feeling well, which was not a lie. I felt terrible and almost like I was in shock. I told him that we needed to leave early. He believed me, of course.
He woke the boys, and we got to work breaking down the tents. Sarah stood and stared at the entrance to the path as we packed the car. By 9:30, we were on the road and headed home.
Twenty minutes into our drive, Jackson turned his head and began watching Sarah in the backseat. He smacked his brother.
“Look,” said Jackson. Alex turned his head.
“Where’d you get that?” Alex asked Sarah.
“Where’d she get what?” I asked, watching them in the rearview mirror. Jackson looked at his older brother, waiting for his orders. I shook my head. “What does she have, Jackson?”
Alex shrugged. “One of our matchbox cars,” he answered.
“So?” I said. “It won’t hurt you to share with your sister.”
“I thought you put it in the circle,” whispered Jackson, not thinking that I could hear him.
“I did,” said Alex. He turned back to Sarah, watching her as she drove the car across the window.
“What circle?” I asked.
Dan sighed. “I told them not to mention it to you,” he admitted.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s just a small-town legend, honey.”
“What are you talking about? What circle?” I asked again.
“The path, the one beside the campground, it leads to the clearing out in the woods. It’s about — I don’t know — a thirty or forty foot circle, and nothing grows on it. There’s just this old legend that says if you leave something in the circle, by morning it will be kicked out.”
“Why would it be kicked out?” I asked. Dan didn’t reply. He was too busy trying to switch lanes. “Boys?” I said.
“Dad said it was because he needs room to dance. The Devil kicks out everything that could get in his way.”
My stomach turned. “The Devil?” I said.
“Yeah, the Devil,” responded Alex on behalf of his brother. “It’s called the Devil’s Tramping Ground. Dad said that the Devil dances there at night, and that if you leave something in the circle, it’ll be kicked out my morning.”
“But we forgot to go check this morning,” Jackson added.
“It’s just a legend. I was just having some fun with the boys,” Dan assured me.
I looked back into the rearview mirror to see that the boys were still watching Sarah. Jackson turned to Alex.
“How’d she get it?” he asked. Alex shook Sarah’s leg.
“How’d you get our car, Sarah? Huh? Tell us.”
Sarah did not reply.