October 30, 1921

It was past midnight when I decided to head home. The night had caught up with me, perhaps because it had been so long since I last spent time with this family. So by the time I realized it, the sky had already darkened completely, and the night watchman had long since finished his final round through the streets.

Of course, the Malvedos insisted that I stay and spend the night at their home. It was the natural thing to do, after all. What kind of lunatic would choose to venture out at such an hour? Even though my village wasn't that far away, it was still quite a stretch of countryside to cross in total darkness.

But I had an idea. One that turned out to be terrible, and which I would later regret, I should add.

The thought was that since it wasn’t raining that night and the ground wasn’t muddy, I could take a route similar to the one Herrero had traveled through those hills, perhaps to convince myself—and others, if the experiment went as planned—that there was indeed an element we hadn’t considered in that whole incident.

Now, when I said I wanted to travel through the same areas as our late friend, I didn’t mean I intended to do so under the same conditions or put myself in any real danger.

No, I wasn’t planning to patrol the vineyards in the dark. That would be suicide.

My idea was more based on the premise that, aside from carrying a lantern to light my way, I would not leave the road that cut through the mountains under any circumstances. This way, there would be no chance of meeting Herrero’s fate, slipping down a slope into a private property where, by all accounts, he shouldn’t have been.

Was it true that there were wolves in the area? I had heard them, even from my village, on some nights. But aside from sporadic stories of attacks on livestock when a careless shepherd left his flock unattended, I had never heard of any attacks on people. Moreover, it was a well-known fact that these animals never approached populated areas.

In any case, I had a revolver with me, just in case something unexpected happened. And with that, I felt secure enough to proceed with my little journey.

The Malvedos weren’t too thrilled with my idea of setting out alone past midnight, even though I didn’t tell them I planned to pass through Ribera instead of taking the longer but safer route that circled the mountains. But when they saw they couldn’t convince me, no matter what words they used, they finally agreed to let me go. Of course, not without first giving me a lantern and a donkey to hasten my journey, which I would have to return the next day.

Regardless, I thanked them for their expected kindness and proceeded to take the opposite path from the one I had used to arrive at the Malvedo house.

I have to say that for a good part of the journey, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, considering the terrain was somewhat steep and the road narrow, I had to make an effort to guide the donkey and ensure we didn’t end up in a neighboring field. But other than that, it could almost be said that the animal was more frightened than I was.

There wasn’t a soul in those vineyard-covered areas, and the only sounds were the chirping of crickets and the wind rustling through the vegetation, making its characteristic noise.

If there were any wild animals in the area, they must have been asleep or somewhere else. I saw nothing of interest. Not even the powerful current of the river running at the bottom of the valley disturbed the calm of that autumn night. At one point, I heard a howl, but it came from the other side of the mountain, perhaps even from the neighboring province; too far away to concern me. Certainly not enough to make me hurry my pace.

I couldn’t imagine how Herrero had crossed Ribera in the dark, but it was clear that something unexpected must have happened to him, prompting him to suddenly enter one of the properties just minutes before his fall: I had a light and was staying on the main road, which was the safest way not to get lost. Assuming he didn’t have a lantern, wouldn’t it have been reckless to intentionally take the most treacherous path?

But there were no witnesses, no lanterns, and no signs that an animal had attacked him, forcing him to change his course.

With all this in mind, and having confirmed that this road was not dangerous on any given night—if one could see perfectly where they were going—I exited Ribera without incident.

The problem arose when I least expected it, after more than twenty minutes of traveling, when I had left the vineyards behind and was slowly but surely approaching the first village that would welcome me after leaving that vinicultural paradise behind. Unlike Ribera, where the landscape was full of rugged cliffs, hills with countless vineyards, and the occasional isolated tree here and there, upon leaving that environment, forests and vast stretches of uncultivated land began to appear.

It was in one of these small forests that my donkey began to grow restless, and fearing that it might throw me from the saddle at any moment, I dismounted to calm it down.

How far was I from the village? I could make out the first houses about three hundred or four hundred meters in the distance, so after giving the animal a few pats and murmuring some words of reassurance—whether for him or for me, as I was quite tired of the whole adventure—I took the reins and proceeded to walk in that direction.

I had barely taken a few steps when I heard the faint jingle of bells approaching.

They weren’t the bells of a nearby church. Their sound was much softer and higher-pitched, and they didn’t remain static in one place but seemed to be moving, slowly coming closer to where I stood. Could it be a flock? That was the first thing that came to mind when I heard such a clatter, for the bells didn’t sound like two or three, but more like a dozen at least.

But again, a flock at such an hour? No shepherd, no matter how new to the trade, would make the mistake of leaving his livestock loose until dawn!

I stopped to listen more carefully and, in doing so, tried to figure out where the noise was coming from. It seemed to originate somewhere to the northeast, along one of the paths parallel to the one I had been using. Which was odd, because I hadn’t come across anyone, and until that very moment, I hadn’t noticed anyone following me. In fact, I hadn’t even felt like I was being watched at any point. Yet now I felt chills, as if something terrible and perhaps inhuman was about to appear among the trees.

No, I didn’t see anything in the darkness, not even when I pointed my lantern toward the spot where I was certain the sound of the bells was coming from. The light didn’t reach more than ten paces ahead, and, to be honest, I didn’t really want to see.

All the calm I had felt while passing through Ribera now began to dissolve, exploding suddenly. Not only did the jingling of the bells intensify, but within a few seconds, I also realized those cursed instruments were not the only sounds I was hearing.

Footsteps. Dozens of them, like a procession in the dead of night.

I didn’t want to fool myself into thinking this was something entirely normal, as if there might be some fanatic who, after making a promise to a Virgin Mary, decided to embark on a pilgrimage to a distant chapel without stopping to sleep. No, despite my generally rational approach to legends, this gave me a very bad feeling, and whether it was supernatural or not, I didn’t want to stay to find out.

I was about to take a step forward, perhaps intending to get back on the donkey and hurry to the nearest village, where my childish fear told me that those souls—or whatever was following me, for at that point, all I had was the intuition that something horrible was about to happen—would not dare enter. But I found I couldn’t move.

My feet were rooted to the ground, and my legs refused to respond, no matter how much my brain screamed that it was time to leave without looking back.

It was cold, freezing even for that time of year, but I felt like I was sweating profusely when I finally began to see what had been unnerving me for what felt like eternal minutes, to the point of near panic: Yes, it was a procession, but not as I had imagined.

The people in it weren’t wearing everyday clothing, not even what you’d expect to see at Sunday mass. No. These people were dressed in ecclesiastical robes from head to toe, their monk-like hoods covering their faces entirely, and the little I could make out of their silhouettes in the dark was thanks to the candles they each carried in their hands.

I couldn’t see any bells, but there was no doubt the sound was coming from them, as it grew louder the closer they got.

At the front of the procession was a woman. She was the only one dressed in ordinary clothes, with nothing remarkable about her except for her pale expression and the wooden cross she held, as if it were a beacon, leading the march.

The whole scene was nightmarish. I couldn’t understand how what I was seeing could be real. The young woman seemed like a flesh-and-blood person. The closer she got to me, the stronger that impression became. But what was behind her… What followed her was nothing short of a ghostly procession. I couldn’t see it clearly from afar, but once the light reached those beings, I could see plainly that they weren’t people of this world.

I’m not sure how to explain it, but if I focused on the ends of their robes, I could detect a slight transparency. Though their footsteps echoed clearly through the vastness of the forest, I couldn’t see their feet.

I still wanted to run. If it were up to me, I would’ve fled minutes ago, forgetting about the donkey and anything else in my path to home. But it was physically impossible. Not only was the procession moving toward me, it seemed to know exactly where I was—even without looking at me—and was heading straight in my direction.

I wanted to say something, maybe scream. But my throat was closed, and not even the faintest sound escaped my mouth when the woman finally reached me and, without saying a word, handed me the cross.

That was when I realized she was the only one who wasn’t a spirit.

I knew this because, at the moment she passed me the cross, her face twisted into a grimace of panic. As if she had suddenly realized what was happening. And then, in just a couple of seconds, the panic turned into a kind of nervous relief, as if she had been freed from what seemed like a curse.

Still silent, she did what I couldn’t: she ran toward the village until she disappeared from sight, leaving me alone to face a danger from which I knew I wouldn’t be able to escape.