Show Transcript

Girl Behind the Door

Narrator Well, look who's back. Creeping around my haunted old house again, are you? I get it. You just love spooky things. Well, so do I. It's probably why I've stayed in this house for so long. I'm all by myself for most of the year, but my amorous adventurers always arrive in autumn. Visitors like you, hoping to catch a glimpse of moi. But where are you the rest of the year? You don't think the poltergeists press pause just because you've put your pumpkins away, do you? This time, why don't you stay for a while, and hear a true ghost story from a friend of mine. Her story is set in a different season and setting. Not a gloomy October and a creepy old house, but instead in a hot and humid summer in the city of Kyoto, Japan.

Emi I grew up Buddhist, or at least I grew up going to a temple and did the chanting and they would talk about spirits and stuff, casually. There's temples, there are shrines that look so creepy, there's so many creepy looking places. Tokyo is way more international. But back then, Kyoto was so not and it was like such a traditional place. And we never left Kyoto for some reason.

Emi It's really human because it's like a valley. Need surrounded by mountains, so there's the bug.

Emi In Japanese, they imitate like "mem, mem, mem, mem". Cicada, yeah. All you hear is Cicada. I just like talked to my best friend who's in Tokyo right now and she answers like "hi!" and then I hear Cicadas in the background. It's nice. It just reminds you of summer, but they're so loud sometimes and they die in like three days. But somehow there's so many, all the time.

Emi You know, I play scary movies during Halloween time in Japan. When you play scary movies is when it's summer time because they think watching scary movies make you cold.

Emi So you can cool down in the hot summer.

Valerie While would watching scary movies make you cold?

Emi I mean, you get the chills.

Emi There's definitely like a neighborhood community. Some are things you do for like the neighborhood and the kids and you play bingo and then you eat shaved ice and some neighbor will bring out a hose and like spray everyone with water because it's like so hot.

Emi Oh, and there is actually a horror walk thing that you do at those festivals.

Emi So you like walk around the neighborhood and the adults would dress like a ghost or like a scary character, and it's they will hide in the bushes and they will scare the kids.

Emi So there's like a map that they will hand out to the kids and then the kids will go out, like two kids at a time.

Emi And you will like walk through whatever small streets and they would be hiding behind the bushes or in the bushes, and they'll pop out of nowhere and it's supposed to scare the kids. And that's like a summer night thing to do for the kids in Kyoto. That's kind of like Halloween, I guess.

Emi And then in August, there is this time period for like a week when you welcome back the deads, like the dead spirit.

Valerie Like Día de los Muertos. Mexican have that day.

Emi Yeah. Like the Day of the Dead, right? It's similar. Yeah, so it's called Obon.

Emi We will all go to the cemetery and then we will bring like, whoever is dead, we will bring them what they liked, and kind of just celebrate the deads, or just an opportunity to think about them and thank them and whatever. But in a way, like I feel like that and like the summertime horror movie thing is more of Japan's Halloween then like the costume part of it.

Emi Costume part was just like a fun thing to do. My mom, I was on the phone with her earlier and she said, oh yeah, like carving pumpkin is such a like expensive thing to do in Japan. Like, you have to purchase a pumpkin, which is like fifty dollars to carve it.

Valerie Oh my goodness.

Emi And you join like this contest or whatever. But she was like, this is how much I wanted to do Halloween to pay fifty dollars to carve a pumpkin, even though it's so cheap here.

Emi I mean, I actually experienced like a scary... thing.

Valerie What happened?

Emi When I was in middle school. There is this girl like always following me. She's this little girl. She's probably like eight, or something. Very traditional, almost wearing like an elementary school or a Japanese uniform, like a blunt cut bangs and stuff. And she was not a human. Well, she's not a physical human. She's a...

Valerie A ghost?

Emi Ghost, I guess.

Valerie Spirit?

Emi Yes, a spirit, I guess.

Emi It's very specific when she was show up, it's like mainly when I'm going down the stairs. Like that was I think the first time. I was going up the stairs in the bathroom, there's the stairs and in the bathroom, like, right before you go up the stairs, so you're going up the stairs and then I see the door, like, cracked open and... It's more like that creep, like chill feeling, like opening the door, and I already feel her behind me and I look back.

Emi I would just see like half of her face from the bathroom door behind me and she's just like, floating around basically. I don't think, it sounds really typical, but I don't think I saw her legs.

Emi At first, I was confused and I wanted to... I don't know. I was like, trying to figure out what exactly is happening, because you keep doubting your eyes. It's like, oh, my God, am I going crazy or am I seeing something? I think it was freaking me out how often I would see her. Once a week, or like two times a week. Usually I wasn't really paying attention to class, so I was just looking outside to the hallway and she was just walking. And I saw her walking through the hallway and I'm like, "holy shit, what? She followed me to school.".

Emi Sometimes I'd tell my friend, like, oh my God, she's outside. Like, she's in the hallway. And then, like, my friend would be like, "No way. She's not, you're going crazy.".

Emi I mean, it just made me realize I'm only one seeing it. For sure no one saw her. She just always like followed me to the point where I had to tell my Grandma.

Emi "This girl is totally following me to school and I'm like in class and I see her waiting outside in the hallway. I'm walking, I go home, and she comes home with me. And I don't know, like I feel like she is lost or like maybe she needs to go back to whatever world she's supposed to be in.".

Emi So she was like, oh, like, let's um.. it's like energy clearing, I guess. But it's like a more traditional Buddhist way to do it. I think sometimes if you feel like you're cursed or like something, you will go to a temple and a monk will do that for you.

Valerie Okay.

Emi So it's like similar thing. And then she, I guess, communicated with someone, and then she was not following me anymore. But that was creepy.

Emi I mean, sometimes they say, like, if you have -- I mean, I guess here, too -- like if you have regrets in your life, then you your spirit tends to just like hang around the world still.

Valerie Would you... are you open to dealing with spirits now, would you say? Like if I wanted to play Ouija board, would you play?

Emi Totally.

Valerie You have no fear with that?

Emi I'm so curious, I wish I could see more.

Narrator Emmy doesn't live in Kyoto anymore. And her story might seem distant, but the spirit world is always close by. And if you're ever lucky enough to encounter one of us, I mean them. Don't be afraid. Most of us. Then don't bite.

Narrator Stay a Spell is made by Valerie Ramos Mills and Steve Nelson, with story editing by Alexis Ettner. See our show notes for additional credits. Thanks to Emi for her ghost story, and to Larissa Mills for working the night shift. Again.