The road to the house was long and steep. In front of me, the mountain; behind, an abyss that revealed, through the mist, the back of the water. My grandfather Ramón had never seen the sea, and yet it seemed to him like a great beast, restless, breathing deeply.
He finally reached the house, a mansion of dark wood and wide balconies, perched on the tip of the mountain. It had been built by foreigners, they said, and now it needed someone to take care of it.
It was a place unlike anything I knew. The floor shone and lamps hung from the ceiling like glass fruit. In the center of the living room, a tall piece of furniture with transparent doors held plates and hand-painted cups: blue flowers, golden birds, a pair of sinuous deer, a distant scene. My grandfather approached to look at them. He had never been in front of a collection of such delicate objects. He was afraid to breathe.
Near midnight, the murmuring began: first he heard a lament, then laughter, and then a multitude of voices. Women’s voices, sharp and intertwined, interrupting one another, praying and laughing at the same time.
That night, just as they had ordered him, he checked the windows, closed the doors, turned on the outside lights, and turned off those in the hallway. He lay down in a small room, next to the kitchen. From the bed, through a crack, he saw the front of the house lit by a reflection of the moon. Outside, the sea beat slowly, testing the resistance of the mountain.
Near midnight again, he pushed the door and crossed the hallway. Nothing. He held the light over the sideboard. Inside, the plates shone like small tables. In one, the window was reflected; in another, the back of an armchair next to his own multiplied face. He felt that each plate showed a different world: a dirt road, a coffee plantation, the shadow of a house that no longer existed. And in one of them he saw the sea, but not outside—inside, shoreless, as if looking at it from within the glass.
Time became a single thing: the journey, the house, the children, tired steps over mud; everything was there, suspended in reflections, and in the middle of that silence, the air moved. A shadow crossed behind the furniture, light, playful. Something let out a cackle.
He returned to his bed. He turned halfway around, covering his head, and tried to sleep. Outside, the sea kept breathing. The voices faded and returned, farther away, closer, as if playing with him.
The flashlight flickered.
Then he heard the blow. A crash followed by another, and another. It seemed that something was rising from the ground and falling with all its fury. The sideboard; he knew it then. The cups shattered. The crack of the plates pierced his bones.
Then he understood that the witches were not seeking to harm him: they wanted to steal his sense of wonder. To destroy that fragile order that shone inside the glass.
He jumped out of bed and ran to the living room. The flashlight trembled in his hand.
The sideboard stood in its place, motionless. There was no blow, not a single broken piece. Silence weighed like a new noise. My grandfather felt that something was watching him from everywhere. Then, without thinking, he shouted:
—Enough, witches of the devil!
His voice came out rough, cracked, with an echo that was not his own. It rumbled on the walls, bounced off the glass, crossed the hallway, and went down the slope. Down below, the sea answered with a roar, as if it too had something to say.
After that, nothing. Only the rustle of his own breathing.
He stood still for a long time. Then the silence began to clear.
In the morning, he opened the windows. The sun fell on the water and made the house shine. The sideboard stood proud, and among the cups, one showed a thin crack, barely visible, like a doll’s mouth.
My grandfather never encountered the witches again. Not in that mansion he took care of for four nights. Nor in La Mansión Nicoya where my grandmother lived and his nine children.
Old men from Ojochal say that, when the wind stirs at night and the sea crashes against the mountain, it is my grandfather, the guardian of the mansion, who returns.