The Witches Tree
Some people do not believe in witches , they think that people who practice witchcraft are just superstitious people and prefer to ignore them, however, these people do not know all the evil that these beings can cause.
A few years ago, before I got married, I lived with my mother. Almost always in the summer, we used to visit the ranch where an aunt lived with my two cousins, whom I considered my best friends.
Every time we went we had the best time, my aunt and my mother took us camping , this thanks to the fact that the ranch is located in a wooded area of Zacatecas, near Garcia de la Cadena. I remember that we had a favorite place, it was between a stream and a small grove that had an interesting characteristic, right in the middle, it had a tree with strange roots, it was different from the rest of the trees . We liked to play in that grove, imagining that we were fairies.
There were two years in a row that we did not go there, my mother told me that in that area some children disappeared, panic reigned in the area, because there was a rumor that someone had kidnapped them.
When we went back, I was already a teenager and the issue of disappearances was forgotten . The ranch looked very run down, the fields were dry and there was hardly any cattle. My mom told me that her sister was going through a bad time.
Fortunately, the field looked as beautiful and green as she remembered it. In fact, as soon as we had the chance, we walked to our favorite grove, only to find, to our horror, that the tree in the middle had become sick and changed. It was almost dry, its brown color turned black and on its roots, the face of death was drawn. Maybe I sound very exaggerated, however, I swear that those roots were shaped like skulls. Also the ground around the tree was very dry and as black as the tree's bark. Standing in front of the tree, a feeling of melancholy invaded me and I started to cry for no reason.
We returned to my aunt's house, we would spend the first night at her house, and the next day, if we wanted, we could bring our tents and spend the night in the field.
My cousins and I were in a room that looked out onto a small corral where they had a cow. My oldest cousin was telling me that in the village a few years ago, strange things happened. According to her, people said that witches made children get lost in the woods by means of spells, and once they were desperate, the damned ones offered them help, but what they really did was take them into their lair to eat them and thus stay young.
I told my cousin that I didn't believe her at all, that they only made up those stories to keep the children from going out, because their parents were afraid. They were going to kidnap them. I told them that the reality was perhaps more terrifying, since children were kidnapped to sell their organs. My cousin insisted with her story, telling me that she saw two spheres of fire crossing the forest and that sometimes strange things happened in the surroundings.
We were so engrossed in the conversation , when two black dogs that guard the cattle ran in, stood in front of the window and barked angrily. My cousin and I were scared, but as soon as we realized what was really happening, we laughed.
We tried to calm the dogs down, but we couldn't, they looked angry. We looked out the window and didn't see anything, not even the cows were around.
The next day we set up camp early in the morning . We decided to set up camp in another area, one that was clearer , as several of the trees had been felled.
It was precisely on a fallen tree that I saw a witch.
It was morning, we had only been in the tents for a night, neither my mother nor my cousins had woken up yet . I decided to get out of my tent, because I had been awake for a while and I couldn't get back to sleep. I wanted to put the kettle with water on the fire to make myself some coffee. I looked in the direction of the fallen trees , and there she was , it was a woman with very peculiar clothing, a black dress, she had pale skin, she didn't look like an old woman, in fact, she looked about my age, she was wearing a kind of crown of spikes on her head, in one hand a stick and in the other a cage with a huge white owl. She stared at me , I rubbed my eyes a couple of times, hoping the strange woman would disappear, unfortunately she was still there, looking at me in silence, just like the owl. I shouted to my mother and my cousins to go out to see the witch. No one woke up, I only received their snores as an answer. I quickly turned towards my cousins' tent. They woke up upset, although the youngest one came out immediately. As if it had only been a dream, the woman with the cage disappeared.
They accused me of lying and scolded me for waking them up. I didn't want to fight, I was sure of what I had seen.
The rest of the day was quiet, we ate in the field. It was fun , I felt like we were kids again. Towards dusk, one of my cousins wanted to go back to the ranch house, since no one else wanted to leave, she got angry and went into her tent.
My other cousin and I started collecting firewood near a place where the trees were dry . I lifted a big dry log by myself, my cousin was surprised, she challenged me to carry it to the camp. I accepted the challenge, took the log again and ran, until I found something that forced me to throw it away.
It was a boy among the trees , he looked emaciated. My cousin ran up to me and saw him too. The boy hid behind a tree, as if he didn't want us to see him. I tried to tell him not to be afraid, that if he was lost, we could help him. The boy hid completely behind the tree, my cousin asked me to leave him and leave him alone. At that moment, he appeared again and next to him was a girl in a white dress, all torn and dirty, the boy looked at the ground and showed a sad face, while the girl wore a white mask , with long ears, she looked like a rabbit.
The girl's appearance seemed very strange to me, and no matter how much I insisted on talking to her, they did not respond, they did not even look at us . My cousin told me that the appearance of the children scared her. Then we heard a whistle, the children turned their heads quickly, and ran until they disappeared into the distance of the field.
We returned to the camp without talking about what my cousin and I saw. My mother split the trunk into four parts with a small axe and put them on the campfire, she also collected some firewood nearby.
I noticed something strange about my cousin, she was very quiet, as if thoughtful.
My other cousin had already gotten over her tantrum and was joking around.
When it was getting dark, we stayed in front of the campfire. My mother told us some stories about ghosts that my grandmother told her. According to my mother, ghosts always appeared with the clothes they were wearing when they died. She also told us that it was their emotions that tied them to the place where they died, for example, if they suffered a lot, or if they were murdered.
When my mother told us her explanation about ghosts, I turned to look at my cousin , she was all pale.
After a while, my cousin approached me and told me that she was very afraid of the children we saw when we went to get firewood, because as she remembered, when she was a child, some foreigners lost their children. They were a girl and a boy , both wearing small animal masks . I didn't know what to believe. I had never seen a ghost and although the appearance of both children was very strange, they looked as real as my cousin or me. The next morning, before we left, we wanted to take a walk through our favorite grove. My mother and aunt stayed behind. We approached the tree almost running. Once there, we began to hear the branches of the tree creaking, which forced us to raise our heads to see what was happening. Up there, among the branches, we saw something that to this day we cannot find a logical explanation for. Three terrifying women were stuck in the branches, they had completely white hair, and instead of talking or screaming, they made a horrible sound, similar to that made by vultures. My cousins began to scream that they were witches. I stared at them in astonishment, their bodies seemed to blend with the tree, and in turn, the tree seemed to bleed. My cousins pulled me along, because I was hypnotized. I remember that, on the way home, my mother, my aunt and my cousins screamed in sheer terror. I felt like I was numb. When we got to his house, he didn't remember much of what had happened, except that we saw something terrifying.
It took me a couple of days to remember everything.
I decided to write down all the strange things that happened to me during that vacation, although I couldn't understand how the events fit together, the witch in the tree, the lost children and the harpies in the bleeding tree .
During a New Year's celebration, I told my aunt everything and showed her my notes. She told me that all of this was the work of the witch I saw at camp, that probably something about my spirit attracted her. According to her, witches are capable of creating hallucinations, so that we lose our minds and get lost in the forest, so they can catch us. She told me that I was very lucky not to follow the children into the forest, otherwise we wouldn't be talking that night.
Currently, my aunt has passed away and my cousins went to live in Guadalajara, close to where I also live.
It is a shame when evil invades such a beloved place.
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