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