“Be careful where you step … For on the night when the moon is dark, you must be able to see the difference between the dark water and the water that shines, for it is in the shiny places where your foot will land on nothing.”
The words come from the story, “The Bog Moon,” and it’s quite appropriate that award-winning storyteller Megan Wells tells that tale at Volo Bog in Ingleside. She’ll tell two hours of ghostly tales at the state natural area on Oct. 9.
The event, begins at 5 p.m. with tours of the haunted woods and the bog. Then at 7 p.m. when the sun is fading into the darkness, Wells begins. The first hour is devoted to children and families.
At 8 p.m., the stories get scarier, more sinister. Online reservations are required; participants can bring their own food and have a picnic after the haunted woods and bog tours and before Wells’ performance.
Wells, who grew up in Lindenhurst and Des Plaines, has been telling ghost stories at the bog for three years, and tales in general for more than 30 years. It’s all about rekindling imagination in adults as well as in children for Wells. She was hooked on theater when she was 7 years old and stuck in a room with her arm in traction. A traveling theater troupe came into her room.
“All of a sudden in walks a wicked queen with an apple. It was a story (‘Snow White’) I knew by heart. It had a great impact on me. It woke up my little calling,” Wells said.
Wells began performing with theater troupes since she was 8 years old, and began learning about storytelling when she was in her 20s.
“I honestly didn’t even know storytelling was an art form back then,” she said. “We had really lost touch with it in America during the Industrial Age.”
Today she tells stories mostly to adults, including performing historical impersonations of people such as Mary Shelley, who created Frankenstein.
She also tell stories to children, she said. “But adults really need it,” she said. “By the time we come out of college and we’ve started our careers, our imagination has been so long put away with practical business of learning how to make a living.
“When people have their children, they start to read books again and they wake up to this longing and craving to be back in a relationship with their imaginations,” Wells said.
Wells told her first ghost story 25 years ago when invited to perform at the Illinois Storyteller Festival in Spring Grove.
“A thousand people would come and sit on the grass and listen in the dark underneath the stars to ghost stories,” she said.
Wells was asked to tell a spooky story. She found the perfect one, a chapter from Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine.” It’s the chapter in which Lavinia Nebbs walks through a Waukegan ravine at midnight.
She said she received permission to turn the chapter into a ghost story. She doesn’t read the chapter, but rather uses it as a catalyst to tell an un-memorized story about ravines in the dark to an audience.
“I’ve walked through the ravine many times. We went there as kids,” Wells said.
As she honed her craft, she realized that “Storytelling creates movies in people’s minds. Ghost stories specifically allow human beings to practice being afraid in a completely safe environment We actually get braver.”
The concept of becoming braver through scary stories “was very important to Ray Bradbury,” Wells said.
Wells discovered and now tells different genres of scary stories. The literary genre includes the story of “Dracula,” written by Bram Stoker.
There’s also a genre of folk tales, which includes “The Bog Moon,” which she has told at Volo Bog. It’s an old English story handed down from generations, with each storyteller adding their own spin.
At Volo Bog, she stars the evening giving the youngsters “a little bit of a boo, but nothing too scary,” she said. Typically, she’ll introduce a monster or boogeyman.
“Kids really do like the monsters,” Wells said. “But they want to have a little bit of compassion for the monsters. They want to be on the monster’s side.”
At 8 p.m., she switches to stories for adults. “People can leave or stay and other people arrive later. Volo Bog is very flexible with that,” she said.
The later story often includes a hero or heroine who gets into trouble or in a very dark situation. “I just bring alive all the sounds of the night and the creaking floor boards and doors you can’t see that are opening. You bring the audience with your hero into a scary situation and their brains are electric. They feel like they’re really there,” Wells said.
Telling tales to make spines tingle or eyes well up with tears requires a specific voice and carefully chosen words, according to Wells.
She knows she’s working her magic when she hears the audience laugh nervously, gasp or hold their breaths.
After her program, audience members often tell her they were scared and will never go in the dark alone again.
But there’s also “smiles of delight and gratitude,” Wells said.
“They are grateful to have their imaginations awoken. It’s brain chemistry. It brings out the endorphins. You feel more whole.”
Volo Bog State Natural Area Annual Ghost Stories
When: 5-9 p.m. Oct. 9
Where: Volo Bog State Natural Area, 28478 W. Brandenburg Road, Ingleside
Tickets: $4 for children 5 years and older, $6 for adults, children under 5 are free
Information: 815-344-1294, friendsofvolobog.org/copy-of-2021-ghost-stories
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
