Bloody Mary

  The other day my niece came home from school talking about a few of her classmates. They apparently played the “Bloody Mary” game at a slumber party. She said it sounded lame and she didn’t know why they thought it was scary.
   My sister told my niece that she played Bloody Mary at a slumber party when she was about 10 and it scared her so bad that my Dad had to come and get her and take her home. Well, my niece is starting to get this excited look in her eyes. She loves being scared even though she claims she's not.

    So I tell her about playing the game with my cousin. In my defense, I was seriously like 5 when we played and, of course, it scared me. My niece is begging to play now, so finally I agree.
 
Before we play, I look up the history of the game and read it to her.

Here is a brief description of the game, for those of you who have never played.
From castleofspirits.com
  Bloody Mary is the children’s game of summoning an evil and vengeful witch through a mirror. The person (or people) stand in front of the mirror with a candle or flashlight. They say “Bloody Mary” three times in a row to summon her.

   The belief is that by summoning her, she will appear in the mirror and try to pull the person (or people) into the mirror with her. Of course there are many variations of the game, with different things that happen when you say the name.

   By now my niece is really excited to play. She loves being scared, so this is something she knows she will like. On the other hand, she is 12 and asked before we played if I thought it was real. I laughed and told her no.

   So we go into our small bathroom. I tell her that I am going to turn off the light so her eyes can get used to the dark and then turn on the flashlight (we thought it was safer than a candle lol) just so she can see what it looks like.

   I do this and when I turn on the flashlight she has a death grip on the hand-towel hanging on the wall. Well, now I know this is going to be fun, so I turn off the light.

   “Are you ready” I ask her.

   I can barely see her nod, but she is silent.

   “You have to say it, or she won’t show up.” I prompt my niece.

   She is still silent and I can hear her breathing. Oh yeah, she is scared.

   I lower my voice and say, “Bloody Mary. Blooooddddy Marrrrrryyyy. Blooooooooodddddddyyyyy Maaaaaaarrrrryyyyyyyy!”

   And then I turn on the flashlight. When the light comes on, she is standing with her hands covering her face so she doesn’t have to look at the mirror. (She later explains that she figured if she couldnt see Bloody Mary, then she couldnt be trapped in the mirror lol)

   I think I am being funny, so I let out a little scream.

   My niece starts screaming at the top of her lungs and swings around, knocking the flashlight out of my hand. Then she shoves me back so hard that I almost fall into the shower.

  I am laughing so hard at this point that I can barely stand up to turn the main light on.

   By this time, my niece is starting to calm down (and uncover her eyes). She sees me on the floor and starts laughing, too. Then she tried to play it off, like she wasn’t scared, but we both know the truth.

Oh the “Bloody Mary” game. Traumatizing children from one generation to the next.