Don't Summon Them

Carlos Ramos

Don't Summon Them

© Carlos Alberto Ramos Zúñiga, 2018

© Translated by Elizabeth Pickwell, 2021

© Tektime, 2021

www.traduzionelibri.it

www.traduzionelibri.it

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, or registered or transmitted by an information retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether mechanical, photochemical, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the intellectual property rights holders.

For all my deceased

Contents

Foreword

Don't Summon Them

Nothing Happens Around Here

Only My Grandmother

The Compadre

The Witch

Alone

Stories

The Peasant and the Old Lady

Messages

Our Days

Foreword

Don’t Summon Them is a collection of ten stories that talk about fear. Provoking fear is complicated because the genre is very broad. What is more, we are influenced by monsters and fantastic beings of all kinds, but those who are spoken of here are those we were told about when we were children, either to frighten us or because they are actually real. Who remembers those nights with friends or family telling these stories? Similarly, who remembers the fear of being alone after these stories? Because each of us has our own imagination and at some point, we are all left alone with these words.

These short stories encourage you, the reader, to remember your deepest fears and ask after reading: Can it be true? I want you to question each story, talk about them, and with your imagination, find an alternative ending or at least one that you believe in. Let yourself come to your own conclusion and choose between what we have called reason and logic, or, conversely, decide if they are nothing more than inexplicable, fantastical beings.

The aim of this book is to remember the stories that many of our elders still tell to this day, travelling by word of mouth through towns and neighbourhoods. Everyone has been told about the shape shifter, the witch, the devil, and other beings who are there lurking, waiting for night to appear. Almost everyone has had goosebumps reading these stories and again the doubts appear: Can it be possible? For some, they are just stories to pass the time, to frighten children or to teach morals, for others, they serve as idolatry, pretensions of magic and superstitions, and for the others, they describe things that happen but cannot be explained. It will be you, dear reader, who will decide how you interpret these words. Words, by the way, which are taken from the people and so they return, leaving you to take sides between what is told beyond our borders and our own myths and legends. Just to be clear, whether true or not, the stories which are narrated here, we make our own.

I invite you to read these ten stories, to enjoy them and to judge their truthfulness and possibility, or to simply entertain yourself. Don’t Summon Them is considered another book of the suspense genre, and so, if any of these stories make your hair stand up on the back of your neck, then we will have met the objective. Enjoy these words that are written very simply and speak of what Mexico is.

Of these stories that lie between reason and fantasy, you will decide. I do not bow to either of the two options, I only tell what I have been told.

Carlos Ramos

Don’t Summon Them

For Adán, Hugo and Ramón,

for that trip to Xicuco

What would I have been thinking about at that time? I still didn’t understand why or what had been the reason that made me go with them that morning. I had seen that hill countless times and they had told me of the devil and his cave, but that was nothing new; all hills have a cave and a devil that dwells in it.

We had walked a lot but weren’t tired and the summit from where we would be able to see the city wasn’t far off. Right there, I suppose we must have begun to look for the cave, because none of us knew where it was, to the point that we even assumed it was a story made up by the local people. I still don’t know exactly how, whether by instinct, curiosity or perhaps because it was in our interests, but we found the way.

The first thing that impressed me was the shape of the entrance, as if it were the hill’s most intimate zone, and the second thing, the abundance of witchcraft-like objects that were strewn about the place. Don’t summon them, please, I heard in that moment, but no one else heard it.

We walked on, trying not to step on or move anything, not noticing the messages written on the walls. I noticed a strange smell, but I couldn’t tell exactly what it was. We also felt the pressure of something that made us breathe more deeply and become agitated. I heard the voice again, don’t summon them.

Once inside and perhaps a result of our imaginations, someone said he felt dizzy, another that his head hurt, and the third said he felt a pain that shot up his leg at the very moment he realised that he was walking on what had been a campfire and what seemed like melted sweets. I didn’t feel ill like the others but now I felt tired, maybe even sleepy. I tried not to think about what was in the cave, because I was reminded of my grandfather who said that sometimes bad things that are in our path latch onto us, but we must distance ourselves from them, not think about them, nor name them.

In all honesty, we only entered the first chamber of the cave. We didn’t want to continue because, to keep going, it was necessary to climb, and it was very dark. Our trip had been so unplanned that we barely brought water or any food. No one thought of taking a torch. With the flash of the camera, we tried to light up the next chamber, but we didn’t manage to see much.

Moreover, the people we had met on the way advised us to be careful, as several groups had got lost by choosing the wrong path. Those who didn’t get lost had even found money. Nevertheless, we preferred to return with everything, including the ailments we had.

We stopped to cut some branches off a peppercorn tree to brush over our bodies, as is customary, to ward off evil spirits. The others began to ‘cleanse’ themselves, but I didn’t end up joining them because I heard a truck passing very close and preferred to run after the noise. It was a pick-up truck that was carrying a whole family who were sat together in the rear of the vehicle. I explained where we had come from and asked them to take us to where they were going, otherwise we would have far to walk.

When we returned home, it was late and I was exhausted, so I had a bath and before long the tiredness overcame me. Just before I fell asleep, I heard a deep voice echoing in my ear that spoke to me in another language, but one that I understood: fuse with me. At that moment, my hair stood on end because at the same time, I heard a noise under the bed.

The next morning my dog didn’t recognise me, making it very difficult to take him for a walk as he kept running away from me. I had a strange sensation of being distanced from the world. I felt tired and was nostalgic for the hill. Sometimes I just wanted to sleep, that same feeling you get when you have depression, although I have never suffered from it myself. The second night after entering the cave, I woke up screaming. My parents spent a good deal of time by my side because I was unable to move about and again the voice, you’re here. I felt quite unwell. Dogs barked at me, terrified, the neighbour's cat bristled with fright when it saw me, and I noticed several shadows that were hovering around me.

The voices and noises under the bed continued, causing such desperation that I cried because my head hurt. I continued to have that feeling of not belonging to this world, of being taken little by little to somewhere I didn’t know. I didn’t eat. People who saw me said I was pale. I stopped seeing my friends with whom I had gone to the hill. I wasn’t myself or at least I had stopped being myself.

I was never superstitious, but in the condition in which I found myself, I began to believe that something had “stuck” to me, but what? It was contradictory, because in answering my question I would have to assume that there are beings, spirits or other things that go around doing evil, that there is life after death, that there is a whole, hidden world that can harm people. That confused me, but I still felt awful, and each day more I heard voices that whispered complete sentences to me. In places with light, I was afraid. I was terrified to look under the bed because there was a noise, a most chilling noise. I had the sensation that from that cave, several kilometres from me, someone had control over my life.

As the days passed, the nightmares continued. I saw shadows. I never saw their faces, but they told me to go with them. Then I began to see them while I was awake. My dog bit my hand because he was frightened to see me. I couldn’t sleep well, I was always restless, my hands were sweaty, and my body trembled.

I was taken to the hospital because it was getting worse day by day, but the pills didn’t work. It was unbearable to continue like this. Several times I tried to kill myself or kill what was inside me, which would be the same thing, but I failed. “Why?” they all asked me: when the world is uninhabitable, you will all understand why I think about suicide. They make me feel crazy when they are crazy. That’s why they took me to the psychologist, but he became bored with me; the voices in another language didn't convince him. My despair, my desire to stop this suffering caused him to distance himself from me. He ended the sessions and I continued in the same vein, between the shadows, anguish, and voices.

As it did not improve, they took me to a man who they said was healer. Upon entering his house, I was surprised by the number of jars and bottles, the smell, his clothes, his face. He made a circle of fire and there he began to ‘heal’ me. He told me that I carried four evils with me, one for each corner of my body, they were taking over me, making me disappear. But just at that moment, his trousers were set alight by a flame that had reached him from the fire. He told me that what I had brought with me was very strong and that it was starting to take over my body. He asked me to return because he had done well so far but he still needed to expel that evil; I had to go back at least four times.

I felt a little better, but at night that voice came again: There is no way out, you are one of us. And then, as if someone forced me, I went to the kitchen, opened the cutlery drawer, and took the first knife I found: Do it, don’t be afraid. I saw how the knife pierced my skin and opened a groove in my flesh. I felt no pain, but the blood ran all down my arm. Then it was the other wrist; I felt nothing. The floor had been painted red: You summoned us, here we are, fuse with us.

When I opened my eyes, I was on a bed tied up by my hands and feet. Everything was white, but it was not a hospital, it was a makeshift room with white sheets. Surely they would declare me crazy, suicidal, an incurable invalid. There was a lady next to me. She happened to be passing along the street just at the right moment and from there she saw what was going on inside. Along with my family, she stopped me from causing myself further harm and bandaged up my wounds. Before leaving she told me, "Go on now and bring a few flowers from your garden." She gave me an address and left.

I found myself in such a bad state that the next day they took me as far as they could to the place they had told me about. To our surprise, the same woman opened the door, but on greeting us we noticed her voice was different. She asked me to sit down on a wooden chair, just under a ray of light, the only light that entered the small room. From there, it was possible to see the hill in the distance, the one with the cave. She addressed me with a voice that was not that of the previous day, nor of this morning. She told me that she had spoken to the hill and it told her that I ignored it. That voice was his, don’t summon them, please, then he put several plants in my path to escape from the evil, but I didn't do it and that's why I found myself like that, because there were bad things in that place. With another voice, she told me that the hill where we found the cave, Xicuco, was willing to help me and that they had called upon neighbouring Elephant Hill to have more force in the battle.

I can’t exactly describe what happened. I was in a trance; everything was very confusing. Around me the shadows passed, the noises came and went, those voices didn’t stop, they either screamed expletives at me or begged. I lost all notion of time, nor did I know at what moment I stood up and repeated what the lady told me.

The last part of the healing process was the flowers I had taken from my garden. She brushed them over my body, again and again, and when she finished, she told me to throw them into the river. When I left that place, everything was different; I felt refreshed, I could walk alone, and I had no pain. I went to the river and there, in the flowing water, I left the flowers. When I raised my head, I saw the three elders who had healed me disappear in a flicker, only the hills were left. In my mind I heard, come, but don’t summon them.

Tláhuac, Mexico City

16 March 2016

Nothing Happens Around Here

To Claudia for opening our eyes to what we see

The story I’m going to tell you began when Claudia saw that person standing between the laundry sink and the fig tree, wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and carrying a black backpack. My neighbour can’t remember seeing any feet. She called me so that I came out to see who had said to her, “Good afternoon.” We found no one. We looked in the courtyard, down the stairs, to the rooms at the end, in the small, run-down bathroom, up the tree, but nothing. Nobody came out of the big door, but someone had definitely been there. We had that strange feeling of being watched, but of not seeing anyone.

The tenement block we live in is very old, comparable to any you might find in the city. Because of the rain, the walls are green with moss, and lack a fresh coat of paint. There are age-old cracks, caused by the many tremors, and a large, quite unkempt courtyard. In short, it is falling apart. No one really knows who the owner is. The person who rents it to us says that the owner is a widow, who must be very rich because this isn’t the only tenement block she owns. Digging deeper into the origins of this place, someone once told me that where we live now, many years ago, something bad had happened, but they didn’t give any further details.

Life in the tenement block remained the same, busy, people coming and going at all hours. It was quite common to see new people who only came in to visit someone or have a look at what could be stolen.

Another neighbour told me that just yesterday she had invited her friends over to have a few beers - a common occurrence. There were five friends gathered in her room: three men and two women plus my neighbour. She has only been living here for a month and therefore does not know all the neighbours yet. She still hasn’t settled into the pace of life, because the majority of us who rent here are from the middle of the country and we arrive alone to the city, looking for a totally new life.

They were already several beers in when one of their friends went to the bathroom which was only a few steps away. He found the light on, a sign that someone was inside and waited for it to go out, wanting whoever was inside to hurry up. The light went out and a slim young man with big eyes, short, straight, black hair, light skin, and wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, said, “Good evening”. The one who wanted to enter answered mechanically because he couldn’t wait any longer. He found the toilet lid as if it had recently been lowered and the water from the flush was still running, but while he was waiting, he had heard no noise.

When he came out, he bumped into the young man who was still standing there, his face thin and pale as if he had not seen sunlight for many months. He said nothing, just looked and the man who had just relieved himself said to him, “Want a beer?” and to that, he said he did. They entered the room and the friend who had returned from the bathroom raised his voice and told everyone that he had invited the young man. They asked for his name, but no one heard because his voice was very low, the music was very loud and everyone was drunk, so they didn’t take much notice.

The party continued, the beer flowed, and very little notice was taken of the newcomer, aside from the fact that he was also frightened and so kept himself to himself. When he finished his beer, he got up, said goodbye to everyone and left. Later that night, my neighbour’s friends asked her if she knew him, but she had never seen him and didn’t know if he was a neighbour or a visitor. My neighbour finished telling me her story and then I told her what had happened to Claudia. She said nothing but turned very pale.

A few days later, on my way to the bathroom, I bumped into the block’s drunk who appeared to be speaking to himself. This was not entirely unusual since he is always high on something, and perhaps already so much so that he was at the point of hallucinating, causing him to converse with his imaginary friend. My other neighbours told me that on several occasions they had also seen him speak to himself, at the same time as he had in his hand a cleaning rag soaked in paint stripper.

When I saw him, he and I spoke a little about the weather, the sudden downpours, and the suffocating heat, but then he took me by surprise by asking me about his friend… He didn’t know what room he lived in, but he had already chatted with him many times and they had already drunk together. Taken aback, I asked him who was talking about and he replied that he was a skinny boy, with short, straight, black hair, and light-coloured skin and that he always wore a white t-shirt with jeans. I broke out in a cold sweat and my mouth dried up. I said I didn’t know anything and bid him farewell.

I couldn’t believe it, several had seen the boy, but no one knew who he was. Maybe it was someone who came into the block and left without us having noticed or he jumped the fence and here he was, but for what or why? What I know for certain is that he did not live here.

Of all the neighbours, I was the one that was most bothered by this, because I wondered what would happen if I found him? What would I do, could I speak to him, at least? They had told me about their experiences, but what would my own experience look like? I was getting worked up about meeting him, because I was convinced that he was not real.

I didn’t know how to explain what was going on. One sleepless night, I sat in the old armchair in my room, just thinking. I didn’t know if I was asleep or awake. I left my apartment to go the bathroom and found him there, standing silently, with the same clothes as always, and the same expressionless face. I had finally seen (or dreamt about) him. He said nothing to me. He was as they had described; there was no doubt, it was him. I composed myself and entered the bathroom, but when I came out there was no one, as expected.

Time passed and I began to investigate who or what it was. All I knew was that this land on which the tenement block was built was once a milpa, a cultivated field used to plant various crops at once, and then it became the famous Albarrada estate. I asked the older neighbours, but they had nothing bad to say, and it was like that until I asked the landlord.

When we were alone, with great caution he told me about the great mystery, but even he could not make it fit with his beliefs. He asked me not to tell the other neighbours what he was about to reveal to me because he did not want anyone to be frightened. He finished with a sigh of nothing happens around here.

On one occasion, the landlord called an urgent meeting because a dimmer switch had been stolen. Of course, it was forbidden to steal things used by the whole community. That afternoon everyone came, including the widow. After listening to the main agenda of the meeting, I steeled myself to talk to her. In secret, I told her what had happened to my neighbours and without looking at me, she said, “Well, let's see where he is.” She went towards the laundry sink and the fig tree and I followed her. I asked some neighbours to accompany us. Upon arrival, the old lady pointed and with a shaky voice said, “There he is.” We all turned around but saw nothing. “Yes, there he is,” she continued saying, “He’s called Carlos. Many years ago, he died.” That was not the strangest thing; what my neighbours told me was worse…

Claudia said she had never told me to go and see if someone was hiding between the laundry sink and the fig tree. Someone else commented that the block’s drunk never existed. They said that no one saw the widow, and the one who rents the apartments to us said that she does not exist. Everyone told me that I was talking to myself, that I was in the middle of the courtyard babbling and pointing toward the fig tree and laundry sink and there was no one there either.

Iztapalapa, Mexico City

8 February 2009

Only My Grandmother

For Alvara Prado, thank you for being my grandmother

For many years, my grandmother has dedicated herself to healing people. Although she’s not a doctor and she didn't even study, she says she cures the soul. In her home, she has many images, herbs, and symbols. She is a kind of healer. Some say she is a witch, but that is not true.

One time a man arrived, to whom they had supposedly bewitched. They had given him a herb that is only found in the desert which left him unable to think for himself. He did everything his wife asked for, even if his own life was put at risk. He was completely at her beck and call; foolish, some might say. It was his brother who brought him to my grandmother, but almost at gunpoint because the man refused to come willingly. When they arrived, I heard the commotion and hid so that I was able to spy on them. When she saw him, my grandmother said, “Son, they’ve put a spell on you, but I will heal you.”

She put him in the centre of the room and rolled some chicken eggs all over his body, followed by a few branches of a peppercorn tree and then she sprinkled alcohol on him. As she did this, you could hear her incantations. When she finished, she lit the fire and the coal burned and crackled. She gave him a glass filled with a black liquid and told him to drink it in one gulp. A few minutes passed and he was overcome with nausea. He approached the fire, saying he was going to vomit there and what I saw next chilled me to my bones...the man vomited a living spider. My grandmother instantly threw it into the fire, “This is what was hurting you.” The man left her house relieved, the sun shone again for him and he thanked my grandmother very much.

Over time, I saw more strange things such as this, and the time came when they became normal, everyday occurrences for me. I was learning from her because she explained what she did and how she did it. She told me the names of the herbs and how to use them, the prayers that had to be recited and even the animals that had to be killed, but she only told me, so others thought she was crazy. I realised that sometimes the evil that she cured from others stayed with her, which is why she had such a short temper. You could see that she was not of right mind, until a mixture of roots and tree bark was prepared and with this she returned to normal.

On one occasion, a lady came to see her who said that she was the victim of evil; she had an unbearable headache and from her nose she was bleeding profusely. She had gone to see many doctors, but no one had been able to cure her. My grandmother did what always did, but this time she didn’t kill any animal. She told the woman that it had been successful and advised her to take a mixture for fourteen days and until finally she defecated a viper. She had to kill it instantly because if not, she was not going to be cured of the evil. The woman left confused, not believing anything, but she did what my grandmother told her anyway.

A few days passed and the lady excreted a viper, but the horror she felt was so great, that she just pulled the chain, and the reptile went down the toilet. The evil fell on my grandmother; she no longer ate, was sick, and could do almost nothing. I spoke to her, tried to help her, but she didn’t respond, until she finally told me what to do. I had to go and find a ‘male’ root and a ‘female’ root. I brought them together very carefully, crushed and ground them and added more things to the mixture. As best I could, I fed it to her. A full week went by and she recovered little by little. On the last day she went to the bathroom and finished with that animal. She returned to reality.

She explained to me that there are very powerful people who have allies, who know how to perform evil with purple corn and other objects, who know how to find power, who become animals, who are able to control their dreams as if they were awake, who are warriors.

She taught me all the mysteries, the good and the bad. When I learnt them and everything she told me made sense, she confessed something that she had never told anyone, she could become an animal, a turkey. I believed her because I had seen her do surprising things and because she had made me realise that ‘reality’ as a common person sees it, is only a part of what is possible; it is only an interpretation, but it is not the only one that exists.

There were times when we were both alone in the room where people were cured and for no reason at all things fell over or there were noises, giggles and footsteps. The things that had their place appeared somewhere else, as if someone was bent on making my grandmother angry. One day she got tired of this situation when everything that was on a shelf fell off even though there was no one there, or at least I didn’t see anyone there.

My grandmother was not surprised. She said to me, calmly, “Those scumbags are back again.” “Who?” I asked. She said, “Those who like to play.” From a box she pulled out some powders, chillies, and other things. She lit the fire inside the room and threw the items onto the flames. She left some glass jars and bottles on the floor as traps, told me to go out and shut all the doors, and with the smoke, we were going to catch them. While we waited, we went to the hill to cut plants and to plant the roots that we had previously removed, because she said that we had to return to the earth what it gives us.

Almost five hours later we opened up the room. My grandmother quickly grabbed the bottles, closed them very well, and showing them to me, said, “Here are the scoundrels.” Of course, I didn’t see anything. For me, the bottles were empty. She threw them in a bag, and we walked again up towards the hill. After a long walk, she pulled them out and put them on the ground. She looked at them and said, “I will set you free, I forgive you, but if I see you again, I will kill you, so be gone with you.” She opened the bottles and something or someone was supposed to come out, but I didn’t see anything. Then, we returned. On the way home there were some lights swinging in the treetops. From her skirt pocket she pulled out some powders, threw a little over me and some more over her, then she said to me, “We must make ourselves invisible; I don’t want these animals to see me.” I didn’t really understand what she meant. It was so dark that I guess even without the powders we were already invisible.

My grandmother knows many things. She is a knowledgeable person, but she is already very old. She has defeated all the natural enemies, but her last enemy is winning the battle. I am only an apprentice, and she has taught me a lot, but she says I have taught her more. I don’t know what I can teach her, if I can’t even master it myself, but I would like to know more about myself. I don’t know how, and I don't even know what I am like, nor can I hear my voice. The odd thing is that my grandmother is the only person in the world who can see me.

San Marcos, Hidalgo

26 December 2008

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