Maybe You Will Remember – Alvin Schwartz

Friends, as I write this article we have a severe thunderstorm closing in on my neck of the woods – while I’m not feeling threatened or the like – it does make the perfect weather to listen to a scary story. With Maybe You Will Remember it is indeed a scary story as it was collected in Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell’s third volume of urban legend and campfire tales entitled Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones – originally published on September 1st of 1991. In fact this last volume also contains among the other 24 stories – Harold, The Dream, as well as The Red Spot, which were all used in memorable moments of supernatural revenge in the 2019 film adaptation. A film that the Projectionist and myself tackled in a non-spoiler review for the Saturday Frights podcast a couple of weeks after the film was released.

For tonight I thought you might enjoy Maybe You Will Remember – which presents a tale involving a Woman and her Daughter on vacation in Paris. Mrs. Gibbs is able to locate a nice hotel for the night but grows ill and after being summoned, the Hotel’s Doctor asks the young Rosemary to fetch some medicine from his home. So why does it seem like those trying to help the young girl get the medicine back to her Mother are lying or hampering her efforts to return to the hotel?

At the end of Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones – Alvin Schwartz mentions that there is an alternate version of this story, which involves Mrs. Gibbs and Rosemary having separate rooms. The Mother passes away in the middle of the night while the young Woman is sleeping – which results in the staff removing the corpse and not only repainting the room but refurnishing it as well. The results however are the same – Rosemary feels like she is losing her mind and the hotel staff and citizens of the town keep the dark secret. In addition the story was published as an actual event in the Detroit Free Press back in 1889 and the London Daily Mail 22 years later!