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A few weekends ago, I was up in the Western NC mountains guiding cars into a parking lot for a 3-day music festival. In my columns, I know I typically delve into a story from my teenage years or childhood, but I’m not going to take you back that far today.

So picture it: three weeks ago. I’m in Highlands, NC, with three of my closest friends; Tats, Josue, and Austin. It was Friday night, and we’d just worked an entire day outside. My allergies were attacking me. Austin had a killer migraine. We finished up at the festival at 1 a.m., got in the car, and started to type in the address for our Airbnb that the boss lady booked for us. But of course, there’s no cell reception in the valley between those mountains. There was no wi-fi, and no receiving calls or making them.

So we made our way down the mountain in search of cell reception. Meanwhile, Tats was getting carsick in the backseat. Finally, I got a single bar of cell reception on my phone, typed in our address, and we popped a U-turn and shot straight to the comfort of our rental.

The instructions given for when visitors arrived were simply “Look for the moon.”

The four of us kept our eyes peeled for some sort of “moon” to guide us, and after many wrong turns, an encounter with a locked gate, and an old lady in a white robe, we arrived at the house. It was a tall cabin, and just as we parked at 1:30 a.m., relieved and exhausted, a black cat darted across the driveway.

One of us made a joke: “Oh, boy, better watch out, guys!” We laughed it off.

“Haha, bad luck, blah blah. Alright, let’s head in.”

We climbed the creaky stairs and made our way inside. The four of us spread out, muttering things like, “Oh, yeah, this is nice.”

“Mmm, she really hooked us up.”

“I bet this place cost a fortune.”

“This is. . . wait. Wait, this is weird.”

“Um, guys come here. This is freaking me out.”

“Whoa, whoa, um, you guys?”

We all gathered in a bedroom to look at the big picture of a tarot card with a pentagram. And then we traveled to the living room to see little skeletons scattered all over the place, only to find an Ouija board and a stack of tarot cards surrounded by gemstones.

Now, listen. . . I respect other religions and beliefs, but as a Jesus-lover myself, (and with my friends also being very faithful Jesus-lovers as well) we had to get out of there ASAP.

Tats was shaking. Josue was freaked out. Austin wasn’t about to mess around with witchcraft. And I, personally, could sense a dark presence. Was the cabin haunted? I’m not sure. Maybe it was haunted by demons. But above everything, we had no cell service.

So we came up with a few options. We could pray over the house and all cram into a queen-sized bed and hardly get any sleep, we could ditch that place and start looking for cell service again and book a hotel, or we could head back to the festival grounds and sleep in the car.

Our 2 a.m., sleep-deprived decision was lucky winner #2. We booked a hotel down the mountain, left that rental in the dust, and we were asleep in beds of our own by 2:30.

It was a bad night, but a fun night. We definitely got a story out of it. And some free bagels. Tats’ carsickness went away. Austin’s migraine also went away. Josue kept up awake with humor. And I said a prayer.

And now? Well, now for the rest of my weekends. . .