December 17, 2022 • 26 mins
A metaphysical twist; a poor Christmas; a witch who preys on discontent. Featuring the voices of Malcolm McDowell, Gina Rickicki, and Laura Lorena Morales. Written by Chris Alonzo.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Twelve Ghosts is a production of I Heeart three D
audio and grim and mild from Aaron Banky headphones recommended
listener discretion advised. In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind may
(00:23):
moan earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.
Snow had fallen, Snow on snow, snow on snow in
the bleak midwinter long ago. Uh right, you look quite surprised, Annabelle.
(01:26):
But you don't know how you ended up in these
woods so very far from home. I was confused. I
could have been hit on the head and wandered into
the night. I could be dreaming. It could be the wine.
The wine does not exist except in our heads. And
to be quite frank, our heads don't exist, at least
(01:49):
not in the way you're accustomed to them existing. Though
that doesn't mean they aren't real. But I expect you're
not up for a metaphysical debate at this late hour,
especially since suddenly learning that you're in fact very much
not corporeal in the classical sense. I don't believe it.
(02:11):
There's very little of existence that we haven't hung our
metaphors over. Frank consense and mer used for worship and
funerary practices going as far back as written history. Given
as gifts in the Nativity story precious and rare. Yes,
a good gift on its own. But of course we
(02:32):
add our layers of allegory to the action. Gold for
a king, frank consense symbolized worship, may're to symbolize the
sacred act of dying for another. We offer the sense
up to the gods and hope that they will be
pleased and have mercy on us. I just like the smell,
(02:55):
of course people attach meaning to it. It's deep, heavy, mystical.
All that to say, there are more things in heaven
and earth ratio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
We should be expecting our next guest at any moment. Oh,
(03:23):
who will it be? Welcome, my dear, coming from the cold.
My goodness, you're freezing. Come. We poured wine for you.
That would be very nice. Thank you. Where am I
(03:49):
at the end of things? Now you're safe in a
place of rest. Sit. I'm dead right. Nothing gets post you,
does it. I'm not surprised. I thought i'd come in
them all away. Did you tell me what happened? So
(04:17):
this is the original story or at least the way
they told us when we were kids. And the thing
you have to understand is Mexican ship changes. It's different,
like a whole different story, depending on where you lived
or who told it to you. There's no one version
(04:39):
of anything. And what I learned after everything that happened
is it doesn't matter ghost monsters, whatever you were told,
whatever you believe, they will find you. So the version
I was told growing up and West they has in
(05:01):
the late eighties, the version of my grandma told us
leading up to Christmas Eve. She say, be careful on
Christmas morning, Mi huh, because Santa Claus and your mother
and father will give you all the presents they can,
but you might not get everything you want. And if
(05:23):
you grow boss, if you complain la brue Halo, she'll
snatch you up and drag you away to the desert
and she'll fill your mouth with sand so no one
will hear you gry no more. And then she just
(05:43):
kiss us and put us to bed, just like that.
It's messed up, but it worked because my family was poor,
so our presents every year were scraps, total shit. But
did I say one word about it? Get La Bruja
into the house to take me away. You better believe
(06:05):
I sat there with a big, fake gass grin on
my face and said thank you loud and fled looking
over my shoulder, playing with some dollar store barbie knuckle
called Pretty Patty or whatever. Oh you bet, I pretended
to love that ship. As I got older, it became
clear La the Desert, which was just our version of
(06:30):
the Boogeyman, something to scare kids into behaving, and we
already had so many of those, a random spirits and saints.
Between Bruhia and and being Catholic, we spent like half
of our childhood lighting candles and cracking eggs under the bed,
dealing with my Lojo, inviting the priest over to bless
(06:53):
the corners of the house. Ghost everywhere, and who cares.
It's all make believe, right, but it's not. It shows
up smelling of roses and rips, lives to pieces after
(07:14):
what happened. I've tried to learn about her, but it's
hard with all the different stories out there, the version
of my brother Joaquin and I. The one most kids
heard is that her son pitched a fit on Christmas
morning because he didn't get what he'd wanted, and he
ran away, and she ran off into the desert to
(07:35):
find him and died out there. In some versions, she
learns to cast spells. Some kids heard she asked the
Blue for help, and the magic turns on her. Sometimes
she gets you because she thinks you're her son. Sometimes
she's doing it as revenged for all mothers everywhere. Whichever
(07:57):
story you believe, the one can instant is in the end,
when you break your mother's heart, La Bruja is there
to take you away. I'll be real. The story of
La brue how was always hard for me because I
didn't have the best relationship with my mom. We got
(08:22):
on okay, but it was cold. I always felt like
she was stuck in between, Like she grew up with
this idea of what a good little Mexicana girl was
supposed to be, how we were supposed to act, but
by the time I came up, it wasn't a thing anymore.
I didn't want it anyway. She even straight up asked
(08:42):
me when I was a little girl if I wanted
a quintana, and I told her, Nah, I wanted a
car instead. She tried and share my little brother were unit,
but that wasn't us. I know now that that's on
me that I should have been there for my mom.
After my dad died, I was just mad all the time.
(09:08):
I wanted him back. It was hard enough before he
died because we were dirt poor, I mean a literal
dirt middle of nowhere West. They has just all we
knew was these tiny little houses with window a C
units fighting for their lives in a highway and desert
(09:29):
and nothing's fucking brown everywhere you look, nowhere to go.
But my dad made the most of it. My dad
was the best, and he wasn't even showy about it
or anything. He didn't need to show out, spill a
million words to you, talk over you. He just kept
(09:52):
to himself. So when he did something small like put
a hand on your shoulder, it felt like you were
getting approval straight from God and the Holy Ghost themselves.
Mm hmm. My mom and I just didn't get each other.
But my dad, that ship was locked down. I was
(10:14):
Daddy's girl. He loved us so much. Traveled all the
way to Fort winn to work in some unaired conditioned
factory six days a week just to put food on
the table. And by the time he got home. He
was so tired. He just sit in his good chair
and smiled when we came running to him. I think
(10:37):
he might have been embarrassed about not speaking English too good,
but they decided not to speak Spanish in the house
so we could grow upo aut Real Americans or whatever,
so he stuck to it. He'd use little Spanglish words
that felt okay, like me, hed I told you to
leave until your mother and ship like that. But that
(11:00):
was it. I remember everything. Joaquin didn't. He was too young,
but I was almost eleven when it happened. I remember
everybody all panicked after the phone rang, my mother rushing
out to the hospital. They never told me exactly what
(11:22):
the machine did to him, but the casket was closed,
and for years, anytime his name came up, my aunts
would cross themselves and say, Santiago. That was my dad's name, Santiago, Boba, Santiago,
and then they shake their head. After that, my grandma
(11:43):
moved in with us to take care of my brother
and I, while my mom started pulling morning and lunch shifts.
At this dinner off, I tend closer to the base.
My mom never dated, as far as I knew, I
could tell she was lonely all the time. The family
martyr just go into work and being with us, talking
to the pictures on my dad she kept on the table.
(12:06):
So all these years passed, and now I'm fourteen, and
that's when my mom comes home with ed I never
met anybody like Edgar before. Tall and clean and skinny.
Everybody I knew lived rough, but Edgar looked like he'd
never been outside. I thought maybe he was Spanish at first.
(12:30):
When he came around, she was always calling him my
friend Edgar. But I knew better, and he seemed real nice.
But I couldn't help but give him a hard time.
Mostly it was small stuff. He'd take his shoes off
when he came over, so I'd filled them with bugs
and rocks and stuff. He tried to play catch with us,
(12:53):
but I just throw the football as hard as I
could at his head. And he never made a joke
about me not throwing like a girl. But I kept
wishing he would so I can go off on him
like I did when he sat in my dad's chair.
Weird thing was every time I did something like that,
I catched the smell of roses on the wind. Here,
(13:14):
this pleasant little rattle like castanets or shells clicking against
each other. It felt like a reward. Maybe want to
keep doing it. Joaquin wasn't about that. He loved his
new buddy, Edgar, loved having somebody to play with, loved
getting taken to do stuff because my mom had always
(13:38):
been too tired and my grandma had too much to
do around the house. I don't think he understood what
Edgar was doing there, but he liked having somebody new.
So about a year has gone by since we met Edgar,
and I'm getting used to him being around. And now
it's Christmas Eve, which was usually when Mayawata would be
(13:59):
telling thing us about La Blue Jab But we're too
old for all that now, and Edgar's there, which feels
a little weird. But we do dinner and we play
Notteia with beans on the cards and all that. And
later Edgar takes me outside and he tells me, Amiliana,
I know this is your house and I care about
(14:20):
your mother, but I could never replace your father, and
I would never try. I know what he meant to you,
and I promise you I will honor his memory no
matter what happens. And we shook hands and just like
that we were cool. So now it's Christmas Day. We
(14:41):
wake up early and it's just like every year, pretty patty,
thank you, socks and pencils, thank you. And then Edgar
rose up and all of us, even my mom, looked surprised.
We didn't think we were going to see Edgar today,
but here he comes, stressed on nice and he gave
is my Boilah a big hug, and he's all excited
(15:02):
to see everybody and gives me and my brother these
huge gifts. And mine, I told him a few weeks
earlier how I wanted to learn skateboard. So mine is
this sweet deck with the trucks all high and everything
pink helmet, but I'm not mad about it. And my
brother he gets this big hot wheels track with Ramsey ol,
(15:26):
so he immediately starts opening it. And then Edgar goes
one more present and he moves in front of my
mom and he gets down on one knee and he
starts in. I know it's only been a year, but
ever since the day I met you at the dinner,
(15:48):
I've blah blah blah blah, and at this point I
don't hear nothing, just ringing in my ear, just just noise,
and I can feel my heart and my adrenaline and
starts to go, looking at my mom smiling. She's starting
to cry, while Edgar pulls out this tiny box and
starts to open it, and and just as I'm about
(16:10):
to say something, there's this big crash, and we all
turned to look because Joaquin has thrown his present against
the wall as hard as he can, before anybody can
do anything. He's screaming, no, no, no, you're not my father,
You're not my father, and and we're stunned. I've never
seen this kid yelled once in his life, but he's
hollering and stomping his foot and trying to grab the
(16:33):
ring away, and Edgar's up now keeping the box out
of rage, trying to laugh it off. But but now
Hawkin is crying, and he runs to my grandma, while
Edgar says, I told you, I told you this was
a bad idea, and he goes to leave, and my
mom chases him outside, all this yelling, my brother hauling
with my grandma trying to console him, and I could
(16:56):
smell his roses, and I feel like I'm gonna pa
us out. We hear Edgar drive off, and and my
mom comes in, guns blazing, yelling at Joaquin, what got
into you? What are you thinking? Those cassinettes? The clicking
growing louder, and my head And she spins around to
where I am and points her finger in my face
(17:19):
and say, you you're the one who did this. You
poison his mind. And she goes running into her room
and crying, with my grandma chasing after her. I'm left
there with Joaquin, and I'm like, why did you do that?
(17:39):
And guy's a good guy. He's crying and saying I
don't know, I don't know, and and we're both crying
at this point, and I'm so worked up I don't
even notice. The ground underneath us is shaking. Now there's
a rumbling, this huge sound all around us, and all
the light bulbs and how's explode all at once. Then
(18:02):
the wall, the one facing away from the street into
the desert, rips away. It's it's ten o'clock in the morning,
but the sun it's completely gone, clouded over, this sandstorm
whirling all around us. Walking yells for me. I don't
know what's happening. I don't have time to pray, I
don't have time to cry. I just think about my
(18:24):
mother and how I wish she would come back and
save us. She doesn't save us. Instead, something I can't say,
snatches up walking and drags him into the desert. I
go chasing after them. It's not hard. All I can
hear is the sound of my baby brother screaming like
(18:45):
he'd never scream in his life. After a while, I
can hear they've gone up over this ridge. And when
I'm finally able to climb down and I find them
in the clearing, there she is and all her glory.
She's more horrible than I could have possibly imagined when
(19:08):
we were told the stories. I've always pictured like an
old lady, gray hair, long fingernails, and she is that.
But then there's a smell, the roses putred, rotting, overwhelming everything,
making me gag. Ears filled with the rattling the cassinets
(19:33):
chattering NonStop, piercing into my bones. And she's floating, commanding
everything around her, her big white eyes glowing with no pupils.
And then I saw him floating there in the circle
near Joaquin. It was my father, but it wasn't him.
(19:57):
It wasn't a ghost, like the way they look so
nice and clean in the movies. He looked like my father,
but he wasn't complete, all these pieces of him missing
his head. I knew it was him, but his head.
I heard his voice loud for the first time, feeling
(20:22):
the whole night sky walking me hole. I told you,
always be a good boy, always mine your mother. It's
a goody. You did what you could, and now you
(20:46):
can leave with us over here in the sun forever.
The ground began to rumble again, and the earth underneath
Labruja opened up for them to descend. I cried out, no,
take me, it was me, It was me. La Bruja
(21:10):
in an instant, was face to face with me, still
holding my brother up. She bared her teeth and his back,
and these were the only words she spoke the whole time.
(21:32):
And just like that, Walking and my father and La
Bruja disappeared into the earth, and the sand washed over
everything like it had never happened, Like it was just
as God had left it. I ended up in Virginia,
(21:56):
lots of mountains, trees, about as far away you can
get from the desert without falling off into the ocean.
You get used to the cold, he told everybody. Walking
ran away from home and they believed us. The police
barely looked for him. Then we left, and as far
as I could tell, nobody missed us when we were gone.
(22:19):
My grandma died shortly after that. Then we lost my
mom a few years. Hugo. Cancer sucks. I've got kids
of my own, now, boy and a girl. She's starting
fourth grade this year. It's crazy. I haven't told anybody
would happened, not even my husband. I just hold it in,
(22:45):
you know, keep it here. Nobody else needs it. I
feel like if I started talking about it, I never stopped.
I just keep screaming. She can't do that. They take
you away, and I can't let them take me away.
My mom has been dead for years, and I'm still
(23:05):
afraid to cross her, still afraid I might break her heart.
Wherever she is. I'm afraid of whoever is watching from
whatever distance, those white hot eyes. So I'm I'm good
to everybody. I'm afraid not to be, because I've got
to protect the people around me. I light my candles,
(23:26):
I look over my shoulder. I'm so tired. It's too much,
it's too much to bear. But then I suppose that
doesn't matter. Now, now that I'm here. I'm so tired
of the worry. La brush can't get you anymore. Would
(23:53):
you like to sleep? Yes, very much. This key belongs
to a door up those stairs, fourth on the left.
You'll find everything you need there. Rest now, Thank you.
(24:24):
I saw something in your face as you listen to
her story. Just now, What do you mean? What do
you think you saw? I'm not sure. If I were
to guess, I would call it a recognition, Something struck
a chord. There was something that felt familiar to me. Well,
(24:50):
perhaps you'll get it out of you before the night end. Yeah,
everything eventually comes to light here here at the end
of things. Twelve Ghosts starring Malcolm McDowell as the Innkeeper
(25:21):
and Gina Rikiki as Annabelle. Episode four, La Bruja del
Dasierto written by Chris Alonso with additional writing by Nicholas Takowski,
Editing by Chris Childs and Stephen Perez. Featuring Laura Lorreina
Morales as Ameliana. Directed by Nicolas Takowski, Original score and
sound design by Chris Childs. Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,
(25:46):
Alexander Williams, and Nicholas Takowski. Supervising producer Josh Stain, Producers
Chris Childs and Stephen Perez. Casting by Sunday Bowling c
s A and Meg Mormon c s A. Per aduction
coordinator Wayna Calderon. Recorded at Lantern Audio in Atlanta, Georgia,
engineered by Chris Gardner Aeros Sound and Recording in Ojai, California,
(26:10):
engineered by Ken Arrows. Twelve Ghosts was created by Nicholas
Takowski and is a production of I Heeart three D
Audio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Learn more
about the show at Grim and Mild dot com and
find more podcasts from my heart Radio by visiting the
i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Twelve Ghosts is a production of I Heeart three D
audio and grim and mild from Aaron Banky headphones recommended
listener discretion advised. In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind may
(00:23):
moan earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.
Snow had fallen, Snow on snow, snow on snow in
the bleak midwinter long ago. Uh right, you look quite surprised, Annabelle.
(01:26):
But you don't know how you ended up in these
woods so very far from home. I was confused. I
could have been hit on the head and wandered into
the night. I could be dreaming. It could be the wine.
The wine does not exist except in our heads. And
to be quite frank, our heads don't exist, at least
(01:49):
not in the way you're accustomed to them existing. Though
that doesn't mean they aren't real. But I expect you're
not up for a metaphysical debate at this late hour,
especially since suddenly learning that you're in fact very much
not corporeal in the classical sense. I don't believe it.
(02:11):
There's very little of existence that we haven't hung our
metaphors over. Frank consense and mer used for worship and
funerary practices going as far back as written history. Given
as gifts in the Nativity story precious and rare. Yes,
a good gift on its own. But of course we
(02:32):
add our layers of allegory to the action. Gold for
a king, frank consense symbolized worship, may're to symbolize the
sacred act of dying for another. We offer the sense
up to the gods and hope that they will be
pleased and have mercy on us. I just like the smell,
(02:55):
of course people attach meaning to it. It's deep, heavy, mystical.
All that to say, there are more things in heaven
and earth ratio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
We should be expecting our next guest at any moment. Oh,
(03:23):
who will it be? Welcome, my dear, coming from the cold.
My goodness, you're freezing. Come. We poured wine for you.
That would be very nice. Thank you. Where am I
(03:49):
at the end of things? Now you're safe in a
place of rest. Sit. I'm dead right. Nothing gets post you,
does it. I'm not surprised. I thought i'd come in
them all away. Did you tell me what happened? So
(04:17):
this is the original story or at least the way
they told us when we were kids. And the thing
you have to understand is Mexican ship changes. It's different,
like a whole different story, depending on where you lived
or who told it to you. There's no one version
(04:39):
of anything. And what I learned after everything that happened
is it doesn't matter ghost monsters, whatever you were told,
whatever you believe, they will find you. So the version
I was told growing up and West they has in
(05:01):
the late eighties, the version of my grandma told us
leading up to Christmas Eve. She say, be careful on
Christmas morning, Mi huh, because Santa Claus and your mother
and father will give you all the presents they can,
but you might not get everything you want. And if
(05:23):
you grow boss, if you complain la brue Halo, she'll
snatch you up and drag you away to the desert
and she'll fill your mouth with sand so no one
will hear you gry no more. And then she just
(05:43):
kiss us and put us to bed, just like that.
It's messed up, but it worked because my family was poor,
so our presents every year were scraps, total shit. But
did I say one word about it? Get La Bruja
into the house to take me away. You better believe
(06:05):
I sat there with a big, fake gass grin on
my face and said thank you loud and fled looking
over my shoulder, playing with some dollar store barbie knuckle
called Pretty Patty or whatever. Oh you bet, I pretended
to love that ship. As I got older, it became
clear La the Desert, which was just our version of
(06:30):
the Boogeyman, something to scare kids into behaving, and we
already had so many of those, a random spirits and saints.
Between Bruhia and and being Catholic, we spent like half
of our childhood lighting candles and cracking eggs under the bed,
dealing with my Lojo, inviting the priest over to bless
(06:53):
the corners of the house. Ghost everywhere, and who cares.
It's all make believe, right, but it's not. It shows
up smelling of roses and rips, lives to pieces after
(07:14):
what happened. I've tried to learn about her, but it's
hard with all the different stories out there, the version
of my brother Joaquin and I. The one most kids
heard is that her son pitched a fit on Christmas
morning because he didn't get what he'd wanted, and he
ran away, and she ran off into the desert to
(07:35):
find him and died out there. In some versions, she
learns to cast spells. Some kids heard she asked the
Blue for help, and the magic turns on her. Sometimes
she gets you because she thinks you're her son. Sometimes
she's doing it as revenged for all mothers everywhere. Whichever
(07:57):
story you believe, the one can instant is in the end,
when you break your mother's heart, La Bruja is there
to take you away. I'll be real. The story of
La brue how was always hard for me because I
didn't have the best relationship with my mom. We got
(08:22):
on okay, but it was cold. I always felt like
she was stuck in between, Like she grew up with
this idea of what a good little Mexicana girl was
supposed to be, how we were supposed to act, but
by the time I came up, it wasn't a thing anymore.
I didn't want it anyway. She even straight up asked
(08:42):
me when I was a little girl if I wanted
a quintana, and I told her, Nah, I wanted a
car instead. She tried and share my little brother were unit,
but that wasn't us. I know now that that's on
me that I should have been there for my mom.
After my dad died, I was just mad all the time.
(09:08):
I wanted him back. It was hard enough before he
died because we were dirt poor, I mean a literal
dirt middle of nowhere West. They has just all we
knew was these tiny little houses with window a C
units fighting for their lives in a highway and desert
(09:29):
and nothing's fucking brown everywhere you look, nowhere to go.
But my dad made the most of it. My dad
was the best, and he wasn't even showy about it
or anything. He didn't need to show out, spill a
million words to you, talk over you. He just kept
(09:52):
to himself. So when he did something small like put
a hand on your shoulder, it felt like you were
getting approval straight from God and the Holy Ghost themselves.
Mm hmm. My mom and I just didn't get each other.
But my dad, that ship was locked down. I was
(10:14):
Daddy's girl. He loved us so much. Traveled all the
way to Fort winn to work in some unaired conditioned
factory six days a week just to put food on
the table. And by the time he got home. He
was so tired. He just sit in his good chair
and smiled when we came running to him. I think
(10:37):
he might have been embarrassed about not speaking English too good,
but they decided not to speak Spanish in the house
so we could grow upo aut Real Americans or whatever,
so he stuck to it. He'd use little Spanglish words
that felt okay, like me, hed I told you to
leave until your mother and ship like that. But that
(11:00):
was it. I remember everything. Joaquin didn't. He was too young,
but I was almost eleven when it happened. I remember
everybody all panicked after the phone rang, my mother rushing
out to the hospital. They never told me exactly what
(11:22):
the machine did to him, but the casket was closed,
and for years, anytime his name came up, my aunts
would cross themselves and say, Santiago. That was my dad's name, Santiago, Boba, Santiago,
and then they shake their head. After that, my grandma
(11:43):
moved in with us to take care of my brother
and I, while my mom started pulling morning and lunch shifts.
At this dinner off, I tend closer to the base.
My mom never dated, as far as I knew, I
could tell she was lonely all the time. The family
martyr just go into work and being with us, talking
to the pictures on my dad she kept on the table.
(12:06):
So all these years passed, and now I'm fourteen, and
that's when my mom comes home with ed I never
met anybody like Edgar before. Tall and clean and skinny.
Everybody I knew lived rough, but Edgar looked like he'd
never been outside. I thought maybe he was Spanish at first.
(12:30):
When he came around, she was always calling him my
friend Edgar. But I knew better, and he seemed real nice.
But I couldn't help but give him a hard time.
Mostly it was small stuff. He'd take his shoes off
when he came over, so I'd filled them with bugs
and rocks and stuff. He tried to play catch with us,
(12:53):
but I just throw the football as hard as I
could at his head. And he never made a joke
about me not throwing like a girl. But I kept
wishing he would so I can go off on him
like I did when he sat in my dad's chair.
Weird thing was every time I did something like that,
I catched the smell of roses on the wind. Here,
(13:14):
this pleasant little rattle like castanets or shells clicking against
each other. It felt like a reward. Maybe want to
keep doing it. Joaquin wasn't about that. He loved his
new buddy, Edgar, loved having somebody to play with, loved
getting taken to do stuff because my mom had always
(13:38):
been too tired and my grandma had too much to
do around the house. I don't think he understood what
Edgar was doing there, but he liked having somebody new.
So about a year has gone by since we met Edgar,
and I'm getting used to him being around. And now
it's Christmas Eve, which was usually when Mayawata would be
(13:59):
telling thing us about La Blue Jab But we're too
old for all that now, and Edgar's there, which feels
a little weird. But we do dinner and we play
Notteia with beans on the cards and all that. And
later Edgar takes me outside and he tells me, Amiliana,
I know this is your house and I care about
(14:20):
your mother, but I could never replace your father, and
I would never try. I know what he meant to you,
and I promise you I will honor his memory no
matter what happens. And we shook hands and just like
that we were cool. So now it's Christmas Day. We
(14:41):
wake up early and it's just like every year, pretty patty,
thank you, socks and pencils, thank you. And then Edgar
rose up and all of us, even my mom, looked surprised.
We didn't think we were going to see Edgar today,
but here he comes, stressed on nice and he gave
is my Boilah a big hug, and he's all excited
(15:02):
to see everybody and gives me and my brother these
huge gifts. And mine, I told him a few weeks
earlier how I wanted to learn skateboard. So mine is
this sweet deck with the trucks all high and everything
pink helmet, but I'm not mad about it. And my
brother he gets this big hot wheels track with Ramsey ol,
(15:26):
so he immediately starts opening it. And then Edgar goes
one more present and he moves in front of my
mom and he gets down on one knee and he
starts in. I know it's only been a year, but
ever since the day I met you at the dinner,
(15:48):
I've blah blah blah blah, and at this point I
don't hear nothing, just ringing in my ear, just just noise,
and I can feel my heart and my adrenaline and
starts to go, looking at my mom smiling. She's starting
to cry, while Edgar pulls out this tiny box and
starts to open it, and and just as I'm about
(16:10):
to say something, there's this big crash, and we all
turned to look because Joaquin has thrown his present against
the wall as hard as he can, before anybody can
do anything. He's screaming, no, no, no, you're not my father,
You're not my father, and and we're stunned. I've never
seen this kid yelled once in his life, but he's
hollering and stomping his foot and trying to grab the
(16:33):
ring away, and Edgar's up now keeping the box out
of rage, trying to laugh it off. But but now
Hawkin is crying, and he runs to my grandma, while
Edgar says, I told you, I told you this was
a bad idea, and he goes to leave, and my
mom chases him outside, all this yelling, my brother hauling
with my grandma trying to console him, and I could
(16:56):
smell his roses, and I feel like I'm gonna pa
us out. We hear Edgar drive off, and and my
mom comes in, guns blazing, yelling at Joaquin, what got
into you? What are you thinking? Those cassinettes? The clicking
growing louder, and my head And she spins around to
where I am and points her finger in my face
(17:19):
and say, you you're the one who did this. You
poison his mind. And she goes running into her room
and crying, with my grandma chasing after her. I'm left
there with Joaquin, and I'm like, why did you do that?
(17:39):
And guy's a good guy. He's crying and saying I
don't know, I don't know, and and we're both crying
at this point, and I'm so worked up I don't
even notice. The ground underneath us is shaking. Now there's
a rumbling, this huge sound all around us, and all
the light bulbs and how's explode all at once. Then
(18:02):
the wall, the one facing away from the street into
the desert, rips away. It's it's ten o'clock in the morning,
but the sun it's completely gone, clouded over, this sandstorm
whirling all around us. Walking yells for me. I don't
know what's happening. I don't have time to pray, I
don't have time to cry. I just think about my
(18:24):
mother and how I wish she would come back and
save us. She doesn't save us. Instead, something I can't say,
snatches up walking and drags him into the desert. I
go chasing after them. It's not hard. All I can
hear is the sound of my baby brother screaming like
(18:45):
he'd never scream in his life. After a while, I
can hear they've gone up over this ridge. And when
I'm finally able to climb down and I find them
in the clearing, there she is and all her glory.
She's more horrible than I could have possibly imagined when
(19:08):
we were told the stories. I've always pictured like an
old lady, gray hair, long fingernails, and she is that.
But then there's a smell, the roses putred, rotting, overwhelming everything,
making me gag. Ears filled with the rattling the cassinets
(19:33):
chattering NonStop, piercing into my bones. And she's floating, commanding
everything around her, her big white eyes glowing with no pupils.
And then I saw him floating there in the circle
near Joaquin. It was my father, but it wasn't him.
(19:57):
It wasn't a ghost, like the way they look so
nice and clean in the movies. He looked like my father,
but he wasn't complete, all these pieces of him missing
his head. I knew it was him, but his head.
I heard his voice loud for the first time, feeling
(20:22):
the whole night sky walking me hole. I told you,
always be a good boy, always mine your mother. It's
a goody. You did what you could, and now you
(20:46):
can leave with us over here in the sun forever.
The ground began to rumble again, and the earth underneath
Labruja opened up for them to descend. I cried out, no,
take me, it was me, It was me. La Bruja
(21:10):
in an instant, was face to face with me, still
holding my brother up. She bared her teeth and his back,
and these were the only words she spoke the whole time.
(21:32):
And just like that, Walking and my father and La
Bruja disappeared into the earth, and the sand washed over
everything like it had never happened, Like it was just
as God had left it. I ended up in Virginia,
(21:56):
lots of mountains, trees, about as far away you can
get from the desert without falling off into the ocean.
You get used to the cold, he told everybody. Walking
ran away from home and they believed us. The police
barely looked for him. Then we left, and as far
as I could tell, nobody missed us when we were gone.
(22:19):
My grandma died shortly after that. Then we lost my
mom a few years. Hugo. Cancer sucks. I've got kids
of my own, now, boy and a girl. She's starting
fourth grade this year. It's crazy. I haven't told anybody
would happened, not even my husband. I just hold it in,
(22:45):
you know, keep it here. Nobody else needs it. I
feel like if I started talking about it, I never stopped.
I just keep screaming. She can't do that. They take
you away, and I can't let them take me away.
My mom has been dead for years, and I'm still
(23:05):
afraid to cross her, still afraid I might break her heart.
Wherever she is. I'm afraid of whoever is watching from
whatever distance, those white hot eyes. So I'm I'm good
to everybody. I'm afraid not to be, because I've got
to protect the people around me. I light my candles,
(23:26):
I look over my shoulder. I'm so tired. It's too much,
it's too much to bear. But then I suppose that
doesn't matter. Now, now that I'm here. I'm so tired
of the worry. La brush can't get you anymore. Would
(23:53):
you like to sleep? Yes, very much. This key belongs
to a door up those stairs, fourth on the left.
You'll find everything you need there. Rest now, Thank you.
(24:24):
I saw something in your face as you listen to
her story. Just now, What do you mean? What do
you think you saw? I'm not sure. If I were
to guess, I would call it a recognition, Something struck
a chord. There was something that felt familiar to me. Well,
(24:50):
perhaps you'll get it out of you before the night end. Yeah,
everything eventually comes to light here here at the end
of things. Twelve Ghosts starring Malcolm McDowell as the Innkeeper
(25:21):
and Gina Rikiki as Annabelle. Episode four, La Bruja del
Dasierto written by Chris Alonso with additional writing by Nicholas Takowski,
Editing by Chris Childs and Stephen Perez. Featuring Laura Lorreina
Morales as Ameliana. Directed by Nicolas Takowski, Original score and
sound design by Chris Childs. Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,
(25:46):
Alexander Williams, and Nicholas Takowski. Supervising producer Josh Stain, Producers
Chris Childs and Stephen Perez. Casting by Sunday Bowling c
s A and Meg Mormon c s A. Per aduction
coordinator Wayna Calderon. Recorded at Lantern Audio in Atlanta, Georgia,
engineered by Chris Gardner Aeros Sound and Recording in Ojai, California,
(26:10):
engineered by Ken Arrows. Twelve Ghosts was created by Nicholas
Takowski and is a production of I Heeart three D
Audio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Learn more
about the show at Grim and Mild dot com and
find more podcasts from my heart Radio by visiting the
i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
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