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.
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 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. 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 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. 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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? 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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, 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. 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, 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 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, 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 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. 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, 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 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, 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, 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.