Mystic Grove promises an “immersive paranormal experience” to anyone with a credit card and a high tolerance for candle wax and nonsense. So naturally, I booked the town’s most theatrical offering: a private evening ghost tour with Mariah St. James, self-proclaimed medium, ghost hunter, spiritual intuitive, and costume jewelry enthusiast.
Mariah met me just after dusk in front of the old courthouse, backlit by fog and softly glowing from the waist up, thanks to an unreasonable number of battery-powered fairy lights sewn into her shawl. She looked like a tarot card come to life: moon-patterned skirt, a cascade of bangles, a pendant the size of a doorknob, and a smile so knowing I briefly wondered if she’d read my browser history.
She began with a warning, of course. They always do.
“The spirits here are active tonight,” she said, with a hushed tone better suited to reading bedtime stories to Victorian children. I nodded solemnly and resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
We walked through town as she pointed out “energetic hotspots” that included the post office, a bakery, and a bench near the bus stop. I asked if any of them had reliable Wi-Fi. She didn’t laugh.
According to Mariah, Mystic Grove is crawling with phantoms: lonely widows, grieving soldiers, tragic children, and one particularly emotional librarian.
Now, to her credit, Mariah is excellent at the cold read. She has the cadence, the timing, the artful pause. She whispered vague yet eerily pointed things about my past, my family, and a very specific scar I got in college. She stared at me with those laser-focused eyes and said, “You have problems sleeping, don’t you?”
I do, for the record. But I also wrote that two years ago in a blog post about astral travel. So either she’s psychic, or she’s scrolling.
The tour ended at the gates of an allegedly haunted cemetery, where she lit a bundle of something that smelled like expired potpourri and murmured a few incantations under her breath. Then she looked me square in the eye and said, “They’re drawn to you. The skeptical ones always are.”
I blinked. She smiled.
Mariah St. James is a walking cold read with a flair for melodrama. Her ghost tour is a dimly lit ramble through Mystic Grove’s most boring alleys, narrated by a woman who either has a supernatural gift… or a background in competitive Googling.
Still, if you like your pseudoscience with a dramatic flair and your ghost stories served with a side of sandalwood smoke, Mariah’s your woman.