The Witch

Ghost, aberrations, witches, all seem to fall in the same paranormal grouping so here is a witch story.

Summer came like a wanted pleasure. The sun gently caressing down as dew began to absorb into a rich earth which began to spew forth hope. Blazing green shards of grass fought to cover the dying brown jilted lawns and the elliptical shaped buds unveiled organic hands outstretching to catch the golden rays. Yes, summertime. A beautiful time, a time of evil.

A child sees life through a different set of eyes and I was no different. My father had been very ill and was dying but I did not know. He was a pilot and was gone most of the time so when he came home to stay, I was happy and did not know there was another reason. Nor did I care, I had my dad home and that was all that mattered to me.

The adobe house we moved into was in a small Spanish village in northern New Mexico. Vallecitos, it was a town of about 320 people, all of which worked in the local lumber mill that was owned by my uncle. The house itself was two stories and had a wooden veranda on the back and the right side. The house was very old and still had a wood stove as a heat source and to cook on. There was no running water, so an outhouse was your only option and baths were in a claw foot tub that you would fill with pots of water you heated on the stove. The backyard was a tangled remnant of what used to be a beautiful orchard of apples and cherries.

You could tell by the scantly built houses that adorned the remainder of the town that the large adobe house was owned by someone of prominence and although times had been harsh to it, there was still a majestic beauty about its confines and I wondered why it had remained empty. Soon I would find out.

Old-school Spaniards are very devout in religion and also have a strong sense and belief in the occult, so it made sense when I was informed that a witch had owned the house and after she died no one would as much as step foot on the property, hence the lack of maintenance, even in the orchard.

The decaying once white wooden fence posts that staggered along the roadside in front of the house reminded me of small soldiers standing in some type of rag-tag formation, the rotting wood giving each one its own personality. A small creek ran along the left side of the house and was surrounded by dozens of small trees. The trees themselves reached across to grasp one another and formed a fissure where the sparkling water gurgled and splashed its way down only to reach a small river that cut through the center of the town, dividing north from south, poor from poorer. A small bridge leaped over the gap and looked as if it frowned with the sides of its mouth creased from one side to the other.

It was on the first night that we felt something was not right. There was a terrible scratching sound emitting from beneath the floorboards of the house and the lights would flicker on and off. My father assumed that a family of mice lived under the house and with this place being so old, the wiring was faulty. I accepted that and went upstairs, climbed into the top bunk of my old pine bunk bed, snuggled in and went to sleep. A strong smell of feces and rotten eggs assaulted me throughout the night, and I found myself pulling up the blankets back up multiple times as they seem to wander to my feet. An eeriness echoed with the scraping of limbs from the large tree behind the house and I felt as if I was being watched, the hair on my arms was raised and a brisk coldness lumbered in the air.

The next day my mother made fresh tortillas laden with melted butter and honey for breakfast. I had never had food cooked on a wood stove and it was marvelous, the memories of the night slipped away.

The tree behind the house had a rope descending from a large outstretched branch and I watched as it swayed back and forth in the warm summer breeze. A small green apple was visible just out on the branch and with the use of the rope, I was able to climb up to the limb. As I reached out for the apple, I felt a hard shove across my back. Clawing to save myself from certain doom, I was able to grab the rope to slow my fall and ended up with just a bruised leg. Still being young, I started to cry and was soon met by my mother and brother who ran out of the house to see what was wrong.

Other things began to happen, not just to me but to my family. My sister swears an old lady was looking at her in the bedroom mirror and our family dog suddenly attacked my brother. My mother could never find her keys and always yelled at me for playing with them, which I never did.

None of the kids would come to my house and play. They said their parents would not let them as the house was cursed and a witch lived there, so as a young boy I was hurt but something inside told me they were right, so I did not push the issue.

Everyone in the family knew something was wrong but we did not talk about it. Dad's health was getting worse and we really had nowhere else to go, so we just ignored the strange behavior in the house.

Summer was coming to an end and we had been at this house for several months. Besides the eerie things that had happened so far and the occasional sighting of an old lady in the mirror, life seemed rather usual.

That was all about to change.

It was late on a weekday night and once again I was having a tug of war with my blanket, when a loud scream came from downstairs. I could hear my father jump out of bed with my mother close behind. Suddenly the house seemed to shake, the bunk bed began to raise up and slam down, up and down, up and down. I began to cry and my brother yelled out, my sister was screaming for help in the other room, and everything started to twist.

Enter the witch.

The side door to the veranda near our bunk bed suddenly slammed open and a dark creature resembling an old lady had appeared. The smell of rotten eggs and death became strong, hair of putrid yellow seemed to glow and the eyes and mouth were darker then the night itself. This creature had a heavy raspy breathing that echoed in the room and made the hairs stand up on my neck. Then she screamed, "Get out!" The voice sounded like a thousand voices strewn together and resembled a growl. My father stood in the entryway on the opposite side of the room and the look on his face was of pure terror. He could not make a sound. My mother was calling out frantically to him but he just stood frozen, his already white sick skin, had now turned opaque. The book shelf had somehow fallen over and books were now flying about, slapping into the wall with a thud, only to start flying again. It was at that moment that my mother fell to her knees and started to pray.

Just as soon as she started, it stopped. We stared at one another for a long time utter disbelief at what we just witnessed. I began to cry as realization set in and we all huddled together. After my father had turned on all the lights and locked all the doors, my mother told us to grab what we wanted to keep because we would not be back. So we gathered our things and quickly ran to the car.

The next morning at my uncle's house, I remember listening to them talk, my uncle's voice quaked in disbelief, and I heard my aunt tell my father she had warned him. Had they known?

I never went back to that house until I was in my 30's. The house is still there but the lumber mill long since closed and the town seemed empty. A few still remained but they went inside and would not engage my conversation. The adobe house still stood at the top of the hill and looked just as I remembered it. I did go inside as it was obvious no one lived there. Besides the staggering amount of crosses, pentagrams and various graffiti on the walls the house looked the same, although somewhat smaller. My old pine bunk bed was still there with the name Frog scratched into its surface. Frog was my nickname when I was young. I could still smell feces and rotten eggs.

I have never been back...

Looking on Google for the correct spelling of the name of the town, I was shocked to see a listing and a YouTube video of an adobe house for sale. Although it was not the same house, the town is right. The house for sale belonged to a little boy named Sammy. His house was right before the bridge near the old church. We would get fresh milk from the dairy barn across the street. His parents never let him come to my house but we would play on the side of the main road leading into Vallecitos. Part of the mountain had collapsed and we would roll down the sandy side.

Hello to Tiny who ran the general store across the street from our house. She would give me free candy and a blessing as she knew how poor we were, even though I did not.

P.S I had almost forgotten this story as I was only eight at the time. My sister brought it up when I told her I put the story of my ghostly visitor on this site. So with vague memories and a little encouragement, here I post again.