Chapter 5: Ghost Stories
I don’t believe in ghosts. I say that to keep them away, in case the secret trick of keeping ghosts away is to not believe in them, like in Peter Pan, or what’s the kids’ story that comes up in? I don’t figure they can open computer programs and read what I am writing, nor turn on computers, especially since any ghosts living in Las Rosas are probably at least fifty years old and old people are bad with computers. And it is probable that these ghosts don’t speak, much less read, a lot of English. I’m safe for now.
I have heard them all now, all the stories. Most are about the hacienda, a good safe twenty minute walk away. The only good one about here is that some guy came in one time with a pistol and killed everyone who worked at the general store, the downstairs part. I guess that must have been the early 1900’s, because it was definitely implied as being pre-revolution. More recently on the road to the hacienda people have claimed to see glowing, floating women who tried to kill two kids. At the bottom corner of the hacienda, where the current owners reside, use to be a cemetery. And in the corner of the cemetery is a huge tree where they used to hang people. The tree has to be as old as the hacienda. People say that they would hang someone and leave their body up for days. This is mostly true, I am pretty sure. I later met a buddy, Marco, whose grandfather had been the caretaker of the hacienda. His parents told me a lot about the hacienda and the cemetery and the tree. I actually would later eat a delicious torta in Marco’s restaurant, which used to be the original place where the workers would go to get paid.
Anyway the tree is still there, and we use it to hang a rope swing now, not people. “They” say that the tree has been lit on fire and tried to have been chopped down but it “won’t let them,” as I am told. Very vague language is used. Things like “the tree put the fire out.” I don’t know what that means, but that is what I am told.
Another time a worker supposedly saw a “troll” (not a true translation, but as they told me, “a real gross troll-like creature, not a person” or anything). He apparently told them about it and promptly left work and never came back. Another worker arrived to the kitchen one night completely white and foaming at the mouth and couldn’t talk for a few days. After he could he said that was walking along one of the outer walls and suddenly the wall groaned and “threw” or “spit” blood all over him. He didn’t have any blood on him when he arrived at the kitchen, but he said that’s what happened. He also left. A lot of people are scared to stay at the hac (pronounced “h-aa-ss,” long and drawn out. That’s the way the cool kids talk).
I’ll tell you what I’ve seen: I have not seen anything. Although I am generally terrified of any dark enclosed areas, thus having refrained from haunted houses my whole life. Now I felt like I live in a real life haunted house. But:
The craziest story is this (it’s not really that crazy): I am sick, in bed, and Kike is out doing whatever. I don’t really care what he is doing because I am sick. All I know is he comes in and says “were you out on the balcony and the old rooms?”
“Nooo.” The end trails up, almost a question.
“Were you out on the balcony and/or the old rooms?”
“Nooo. Why?”
“I heard someone walking around up there.”
“Oh…Kay…” I get up, the adrenaline allowing me to temporarily forget my sickness with my new-found fear, grab the metal pole (don’t you have one by your bed?), and a kitchen knife and my flashlight and peek my head out the door. Creeping towards the walkway, the four stairs, and the soft reflection of light off the three swaying, creaking, doors of the “old rooms.”
OK. Umm, it’s like…ok imagine this: you find an old cathedral, an old stone Mexican church that looks somewhat run down. You walk in and see that it is rebuilt but not like you would expect. You would expect it to be remodeled in the same style it was originally build in, but instead it is completely redone in very practical but somewhat modern ways. The paintings on the walls and ceilings have been recolored, but not the greatest job was done and some faces look rather silly. The arched doorways have wooden or smoothed cement supports now, in complete contrast to the textured original form. A room where they used to have some sort of pastoral scene set up is now a storage room used to house floats and other parade paraphernalia. Supports in the ceiling keep it together where you would have expected them to redo it in order to not have to see the beams in view holding it all up. It looks rather unsturdy.
This is a pretty good metaphor for all old remodeled buildings, but in this example you instead of a church you have to imagine a general store. Like the cowboy movies, but of stone. Sitting alone on a hillside. With three hotel rooms on the floor above it complete with grand balcony, a courtyard surrounded by animal pens on three sides and the store and rooms, and above that a large storeroom made of adobe bricks.
Now some years later it is not alone on the hill, and most of the animal pens have been turned into classrooms, workshops, a kitchen, and an office. The courtyard has a basketball hoop in it. And everything else is run down and full of death traps. Something that in the states you would never be allowed to touch, much less enter, much less live in.
I mentioned earlier that my favorite part is the actual original bar downstairs. That still exists in its entirety: the winding, bending bar, the ornate shelves behind it, the original cash drawer with secret compartment. It is probably the only thing that is still exactly as it was 200 years ago. It is a beautiful sight, one I love to go down and just stare at thinking of what is must have been like before.
Back to the scene. I as I stand outside my door with my steel pole, knife, and flashlight, I also hear the footsteps. Slow, hard, coming from the room in front of me. My heard leaped into my throat. I figured I had the advantage with my pole and knife and no shoes to make sound. I walk slowly up the four stairs, and towards the old rooms and footsteps. The old rooms were constructed so that you have to go up the stairs, and you enter the middle room of the three. The room to the left is used as a storage room for some carpet, rolled up in the corner, and some floorboards that you would fall through if you stepped on them. So you have to be careful. If you turn right and walk into the room on the right, you can go straight to a tiny balcony in front, another spare, but much smaller room to the right, or to the left out onto the main balcony. It is the only available door out to the balcony. So if something is here, and it is not in the left room, it has to get through me to get out. That is an assurance because I know nothing can sneak up on me from behind. That could be my biggest fear in the whole world. Driving at night, I have often stopped the car to check the back seats to make sure no one is there. If anyone ever snuck into the back of my car and I noticed them, I would crash the car as fast and hard as I could to at least kill the both of us. That’s how nervous I am about people sneaking up on my from behind.
I swing up into the first (middle) room and directly into the left room, scanning quickly to see that there is nothing. My biggest fear was that something was going to be in that room, which you really can’t walk through. There are two bats in the corner, and they kind of look at me except I remember that bats are blind so they must not be looking at me after all. I turn back to the right and take a huge breath. I go to the light switch on the far wall, and click it on. That is, the switch clicked on, because the light did not turn on. It was like an inverted scare, something I expected to be there not being there. Great. So I walk into the right room, look right into the small room. Nothing. These rooms are made out of wood, and the only thing left, the balcony, is made of stone. So this is beginning to make me wonder, but in a terrified out of my mind type of way. I take a step out onto the balcony and look around. I know I heard someone out here, so he has to be somewhere. The moon is out, the valley is completely black, but the lights in the distance give a comforting glow. I shine my flashlight around to see that there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. As I back up, the foot steps are right behind me. I turn, and run into the right room, into the middle room, down the stairs, down the walkway, turn left into the room slamming the door, scurry around Kike, drop the knife on the windowsill, the pole on the floor, and jump into my bed. I pull the sheets up to my mouth, breathing fast and remembering my sickness and feeling suddenly really terrible.
“What was it?” Kike moves over and picks up the pole.
“Who knows.”
What could it have been? I don’t know. I guess a ghost. Is that what you want me to say? I really don’t know.
There were other times. We heard what sounded like leaves being rubbed together, also coming above from the old room. We have heard whistling in the morning coming from down in the old bar. Another time two girls, Leti and Osvelia were going up to buy food from a small tienda above Las Rosas, staying late to fire ceramics, Kike was trying to fix the hot water heater in our bathroom, and I was in my room. In the stained glass storeroom, which is below to the left of the general store, the light suddenly for no reason turned on. Kike and the girls both saw it and when the girls came back we all went to investigate. The doors were locked shut with the padlocks, like normal, and Lety had the keys in her pocket. We had to unlock it all just to turn it off. I guess it’s an old house, but talk about creepy.
I have heard them all now, all the stories. Most are about the hacienda, a good safe twenty minute walk away. The only good one about here is that some guy came in one time with a pistol and killed everyone who worked at the general store, the downstairs part. I guess that must have been the early 1900’s, because it was definitely implied as being pre-revolution. More recently on the road to the hacienda people have claimed to see glowing, floating women who tried to kill two kids. At the bottom corner of the hacienda, where the current owners reside, use to be a cemetery. And in the corner of the cemetery is a huge tree where they used to hang people. The tree has to be as old as the hacienda. People say that they would hang someone and leave their body up for days. This is mostly true, I am pretty sure. I later met a buddy, Marco, whose grandfather had been the caretaker of the hacienda. His parents told me a lot about the hacienda and the cemetery and the tree. I actually would later eat a delicious torta in Marco’s restaurant, which used to be the original place where the workers would go to get paid.
Anyway the tree is still there, and we use it to hang a rope swing now, not people. “They” say that the tree has been lit on fire and tried to have been chopped down but it “won’t let them,” as I am told. Very vague language is used. Things like “the tree put the fire out.” I don’t know what that means, but that is what I am told.
Another time a worker supposedly saw a “troll” (not a true translation, but as they told me, “a real gross troll-like creature, not a person” or anything). He apparently told them about it and promptly left work and never came back. Another worker arrived to the kitchen one night completely white and foaming at the mouth and couldn’t talk for a few days. After he could he said that was walking along one of the outer walls and suddenly the wall groaned and “threw” or “spit” blood all over him. He didn’t have any blood on him when he arrived at the kitchen, but he said that’s what happened. He also left. A lot of people are scared to stay at the hac (pronounced “h-aa-ss,” long and drawn out. That’s the way the cool kids talk).
I’ll tell you what I’ve seen: I have not seen anything. Although I am generally terrified of any dark enclosed areas, thus having refrained from haunted houses my whole life. Now I felt like I live in a real life haunted house. But:
The craziest story is this (it’s not really that crazy): I am sick, in bed, and Kike is out doing whatever. I don’t really care what he is doing because I am sick. All I know is he comes in and says “were you out on the balcony and the old rooms?”
“Nooo.” The end trails up, almost a question.
“Were you out on the balcony and/or the old rooms?”
“Nooo. Why?”
“I heard someone walking around up there.”
“Oh…Kay…” I get up, the adrenaline allowing me to temporarily forget my sickness with my new-found fear, grab the metal pole (don’t you have one by your bed?), and a kitchen knife and my flashlight and peek my head out the door. Creeping towards the walkway, the four stairs, and the soft reflection of light off the three swaying, creaking, doors of the “old rooms.”
OK. Umm, it’s like…ok imagine this: you find an old cathedral, an old stone Mexican church that looks somewhat run down. You walk in and see that it is rebuilt but not like you would expect. You would expect it to be remodeled in the same style it was originally build in, but instead it is completely redone in very practical but somewhat modern ways. The paintings on the walls and ceilings have been recolored, but not the greatest job was done and some faces look rather silly. The arched doorways have wooden or smoothed cement supports now, in complete contrast to the textured original form. A room where they used to have some sort of pastoral scene set up is now a storage room used to house floats and other parade paraphernalia. Supports in the ceiling keep it together where you would have expected them to redo it in order to not have to see the beams in view holding it all up. It looks rather unsturdy.
This is a pretty good metaphor for all old remodeled buildings, but in this example you instead of a church you have to imagine a general store. Like the cowboy movies, but of stone. Sitting alone on a hillside. With three hotel rooms on the floor above it complete with grand balcony, a courtyard surrounded by animal pens on three sides and the store and rooms, and above that a large storeroom made of adobe bricks.
Now some years later it is not alone on the hill, and most of the animal pens have been turned into classrooms, workshops, a kitchen, and an office. The courtyard has a basketball hoop in it. And everything else is run down and full of death traps. Something that in the states you would never be allowed to touch, much less enter, much less live in.
I mentioned earlier that my favorite part is the actual original bar downstairs. That still exists in its entirety: the winding, bending bar, the ornate shelves behind it, the original cash drawer with secret compartment. It is probably the only thing that is still exactly as it was 200 years ago. It is a beautiful sight, one I love to go down and just stare at thinking of what is must have been like before.
Back to the scene. I as I stand outside my door with my steel pole, knife, and flashlight, I also hear the footsteps. Slow, hard, coming from the room in front of me. My heard leaped into my throat. I figured I had the advantage with my pole and knife and no shoes to make sound. I walk slowly up the four stairs, and towards the old rooms and footsteps. The old rooms were constructed so that you have to go up the stairs, and you enter the middle room of the three. The room to the left is used as a storage room for some carpet, rolled up in the corner, and some floorboards that you would fall through if you stepped on them. So you have to be careful. If you turn right and walk into the room on the right, you can go straight to a tiny balcony in front, another spare, but much smaller room to the right, or to the left out onto the main balcony. It is the only available door out to the balcony. So if something is here, and it is not in the left room, it has to get through me to get out. That is an assurance because I know nothing can sneak up on me from behind. That could be my biggest fear in the whole world. Driving at night, I have often stopped the car to check the back seats to make sure no one is there. If anyone ever snuck into the back of my car and I noticed them, I would crash the car as fast and hard as I could to at least kill the both of us. That’s how nervous I am about people sneaking up on my from behind.
I swing up into the first (middle) room and directly into the left room, scanning quickly to see that there is nothing. My biggest fear was that something was going to be in that room, which you really can’t walk through. There are two bats in the corner, and they kind of look at me except I remember that bats are blind so they must not be looking at me after all. I turn back to the right and take a huge breath. I go to the light switch on the far wall, and click it on. That is, the switch clicked on, because the light did not turn on. It was like an inverted scare, something I expected to be there not being there. Great. So I walk into the right room, look right into the small room. Nothing. These rooms are made out of wood, and the only thing left, the balcony, is made of stone. So this is beginning to make me wonder, but in a terrified out of my mind type of way. I take a step out onto the balcony and look around. I know I heard someone out here, so he has to be somewhere. The moon is out, the valley is completely black, but the lights in the distance give a comforting glow. I shine my flashlight around to see that there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. As I back up, the foot steps are right behind me. I turn, and run into the right room, into the middle room, down the stairs, down the walkway, turn left into the room slamming the door, scurry around Kike, drop the knife on the windowsill, the pole on the floor, and jump into my bed. I pull the sheets up to my mouth, breathing fast and remembering my sickness and feeling suddenly really terrible.
“What was it?” Kike moves over and picks up the pole.
“Who knows.”
What could it have been? I don’t know. I guess a ghost. Is that what you want me to say? I really don’t know.
There were other times. We heard what sounded like leaves being rubbed together, also coming above from the old room. We have heard whistling in the morning coming from down in the old bar. Another time two girls, Leti and Osvelia were going up to buy food from a small tienda above Las Rosas, staying late to fire ceramics, Kike was trying to fix the hot water heater in our bathroom, and I was in my room. In the stained glass storeroom, which is below to the left of the general store, the light suddenly for no reason turned on. Kike and the girls both saw it and when the girls came back we all went to investigate. The doors were locked shut with the padlocks, like normal, and Lety had the keys in her pocket. We had to unlock it all just to turn it off. I guess it’s an old house, but talk about creepy.
posted by Patrick McEvoy at 2:28 PM
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