by Chanel Smith
El Castillo was originally the home of Jose Tobon Uribe who had brought the plans for the castle from Europe. He occupied the castle from 1930 to 1943 when it was purchased by Don Diego Echavarria Misas and his wife, Doña Benedikta Zur Nieden, who he had married while studying abroad and brought to his hometown of Medellin.
A great benefactor in the development of literacy and the cultural arts in Medellin, Don Diego and Doña Dita, which is what he called her, remodeled much of the castle to make room for classrooms and cultural displays. After only thirteen years of existence, El Castillo was already being converted into a museum and cultural arts center.
In 1971, the castle and its gardens were turned over to the city and was no longer a residence, but only a museum and cultural arts center. It had an extremely short history without any color or controversy surrounding it; something very rare where castles were concerned. My skepticism was on overload until we arrived and watched the castle rise up in front of us. It really was a castle. It had all the features of a castle and a beautiful garden with stone statues and fountains to boot.
“Who would have thought?” I admitted in a whisper as I saw yet another intriguing vista in a place that, as a former member of law enforcement, I had labeled as dirty, dangerous and disgusting.
“It is a castle indeed,” Ellen looked at me with an “I told you so” look. “And a beautiful one too. Look at that garden, Monty.”
We parked the car in a staff lot, exited and began walking toward the large stairway that led up the slope and into the castle. My eyes were working double shifts as they tried to take in our surroundings. I was beginning to get the castle feel that I hadn’t been getting before.
“We will just take a quick tour and I’ll let the administrator explain what has been going on; translated, of course,” he grinned.
We were greeted at the front door by one of the most stunning women I’d ever seen. Her smile was wide, with crimson lips and straight, white teeth. Her eyes were dark with long, thick lashes and at least double those of normal size. She reminded me of a Bambi. Her long, black hair reached down to her waist and glistened when she moved. She was dressed immaculately, showing off a curvy form with slender legs and heels that were at least 4” long. The most stunning aspect about her, however, took place when she opened her mouth.
“Welcome to El Castillo,” she said with a thick accent.
“Thank you,” I replied, hoping that I would receive the same greeting from her that Ariel had given Ellen at the airport. She, who was introduced to us as Jovani, however, was much more formal and extended a slender, perfectly manicured hand to each of us.
Ellen’s smirk when she looked at me was more than enough to inform me that she had already read my mind.
The music of her voice, as she spoke to us about all of the features of the castle and gardens during our tour, was mesmerizing and I was a little disappointed to have to listen to Ariel’s translation. I recalled one of the lines from a country song: “I don’t know what she said, but I sure like the way she said it.” I received a lot of “looks” from Ellen while we were on our tour, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t touching, I was just looking.
As the tour wound down, Ellen was ready to get down to business. “Tell us about the paranormal activity that has been taking place here.”
As Ariel translated, Jovani’s eyes and smile changed slightly. She started into a musical discourse of some length, pausing every few moments to allow Ariel to catch up in his translation.
“We began to experience some light haunting at midnight on November 25th of 2013. It was mostly some items being tipped over without anyone being around, some odd sounds and some paintings being knocked down from the walls or easels. It happened every night at midnight, according to our security officers. The activity lasted for a week and then stopped at midnight on December 1. It was bothersome, but it was soon forgotten.”
“Exactly one week?” Ellen asked.
“Yes. No one saw any spectral forms or anything like that. Had it continued, there might have been more concern, but it was dismissed as coincidence until the same things, but with a great deal more violence, began happening again on November 25th of 2014. When that occurred, we brought in some local people, but they weren’t really professionals. They could feel a presence here and they attempted to communicate with it, but it only seemed to make it angrier and more violent. We were forced to open late every day during that week so that we could clean things up. Many of our exhibits were severely damaged. Just as it had the previous year, it all stopped at midnight on December 1.”
The fact that it was November 23 wasn’t lost on me. They were expecting it to happen again and they were preparing for it in advance by bringing us in.
“You are expecting the same to take place this year,” Ellen said, voicing my thoughts.
“We are. Judging by how things escalated from 2013 to 2014, we are expecting it to be even worse this year. We hope that you will be able to identify our problem and help us to resolve it. It is a great sum of money for El Castillo to put out; however, given the destruction that is predicted, it is a very small price to pay.”
“It is such a beautiful facility,” Ellen responded. “And the displays are priceless. We certainly understand your concern. It is a small window for a full investigation, but we will do our very best to get to the bottom of whatever or whomever it is that is causing this problem.”
“Who?” Ariel asked. “It’s not just a spirit?”
Evidently, Ariel was as skeptical as I had first been about ghosts and such. I’d had plenty of opportunities to change my mind about it. Unless I missed my guess, Ariel would too.
“We’ve found that once we discover who we are dealing with, we can do some background history and figure out how to communicate with him or her. We’ve been very successful in that area. I do need to inform you of one thing, Ariel,” Ellen smiled. “Since you will need to be with us in order to help translate, that you will be very surprised and perhaps even terrified by what you witness.”
I could tell that his Latino machismo doubted what she had just said. I held back a laugh and winked at him. “You’ll see soon enough, buddy.”
Having finished our tour and gotten the gist of our case, there was no point in sticking around any longer and we said our goodbyes. Much to my delight, Jovani’s goodbye was much more personal than her hello. The traditional hug and kiss, though Ellen got the same treatment, put a smile on my face that lasted all the way up until Ellen and I were alone in our hotel room.
What I began to notice as we traveled about in Medellin was that there seemed to be thousands of Jovanis everywhere. Ellen was no slouch and we enjoyed a happy and satisfying marriage, but, as Ariel had pointed out to me in a private moment earlier, “Paisa women are the most beautiful women in the world, no?”
“I saw you checking out our hostess, Don Monty,” Ellen said, breaking into my reflection. “You just try to keep your eyes and your tongue in your head, mister. And that’s not all that you need to keep to yourself.”
“Oh my God, Ellen,” I responded. She’d opened it up and I was nailed, so I might as well come clean. “There are gorgeous women everywhere.”
“Yes, there are,” she replied. “Including the one that you are married to.”
Chapter Four
In the darkness, before midnight would transform the date from November 24 to November 25, El Castillo took on a completely different feel. Though it had all of the features of a castle and I had been fascinated with it during our earlier tour, the real spooky feel didn’t arrive until we were wandering through the silent halls and I was manning my spectral equipment.
To my disappointment, Jovani wasn’t there to greet us when we arrived at shortly after 11:00 p.m. to start preparing for the arrival of our otherworld guest or guests. I was trying to behave myself and act professional, but as I passed through each of the rooms watching the needle for even the slightest flicker, I was reminded of her voice a
s she talked about the items that were present.
As was typical, we remained silent, even Ariel, so that Ellen could concentrate on whatever spirits she could feel moving about. One of the drawbacks to living with and being married to a psychic was that she could also read my thoughts.
“Stay focused, Monty,” she whispered. “It’s almost time.”
I glanced at the glowing hands of my watch and noted that it was five minutes until midnight. At almost the same instant, I felt a cool wind pass me and I saw the needle peg on the K2 meter.
“Did you get that, Monty?” Ellen asked.
“I did,” I replied. I wasn’t thinking about Jovani any longer. “Temp registered way down there too. We’ve got something.”
“I felt anger. Not just any anger, but raging, violent anger,” she responded. “He was headed that way.” She pointed in the direction of the Hall of Decorative Arts and we started in that direction.
Before we arrived at the hall, we heard the racket beginning; by the time we arrived, nearly every item on display in the room had already been tipped over or moved out of place. However, our angry guest wasn’t quite finished and framed pictures came flying off of the walls, like someone was running along with a big stick knocking them all down.
“Who are you?” Ellen called out in a loud voice. “Why are you destroying these things? Why are you destroying the culture of your people?”
For a moment, she froze and stood very still. In the next instant, she squealed and put her hand to her cheek. “The bastard slapped me!”
It was stupid of me to get angry, what could I do to a spiritual presence; however, I didn’t particularly care for the fact that he slapped my wife. “Show yourself, you son of a bitch!” I braced for his appearance, but, of course, he didn’t show himself.
“So, what kind of readings did you get?” Ellen asked, trying to recover our professionalism. We’d both lost it for a moment, probably because of the sudden shock of actual, physical contact with Ellen.
I looked at my instruments. My frustration was put on hold for a moment as I concentrated on analyzing the data that had been gathered in the preceding couple of minutes. I’d figured out how to rig the data to transmit to my smartphone—well, okay, I didn’t figure it out. I got the idea and then had a computer geek write the apps to make it happen. With that new bit of technology, I could look at a continuous track of data. “High energy and really, really cold. Like, in the 20s.”
“That tracks with what I felt, but are you sure that’s right?” Ellen responded. We’d already theorized that super cold tended to go along with super angry. Not that the many of the hauntings that we were called in to deal with were warm and pleasant, but in the particular instance of our castle ghost, we were seeing readings down in the 20s. 30s was common, but 20s was unheard of.
“Pretty clear,” I replied, turning the screen of my smartphone toward her. As I moved it so that she could see the screen, I happened to look at her and noticed a reddening handprint on her face. “Jesus, Ellen, you’ve got a handprint.”
“I told you that he slapped me,” she said.
I heard someone gasp and suddenly remembered that Ariel had been with us. Once the action had started, I had pretty much tuned him out. I looked at him and saw that his face had turned extremely pale. “You alright, buddy?”
“Is that really from a hand?” he asked in a trembling voice.
“Sure is,” I replied.
Ellen smiled at him. “I told you that you’d see some pretty frightening things if our spirit showed up.”
“This is nothing, dude,” I laughed.
“But…” The rest of whatever it was that he wanted to say wouldn’t come out.
“Don’t sweat it. You’ll get used to it,” I responded. “Although, that sort of contact is a rarity; even for me.”
“Ghosts can do stuff like this?” He waved his hand in a circle indicating the trashed exhibit hall.
“There was a very strong, very angry paranormal presence here,” Ellen replied. “And, yes, they can do this sort of thing.”
“So, Honey, I saw you freeze and stand really still for a moment,” I said, turning back toward her and to the business at hand. Ariel would have to learn to shake things off if he was going to be any good as our accompanying translator; something that seemed to have become a regular habit. “Tell me what happened.”
“After I shouted at him, I felt him come really close. He circled around me, like he was checking me out. I could feel his anger…”
“Don’t you mean it? If you couldn’t see him, how do you know it was a he?” I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to make sure that she really meant that the spirit was that of a male.
“He was a male. I could feel it. When he was checking me out, it was a combination of creepy, angry and violent, like I was something that he wanted, but that he thought of me as less than human; like an object to be had. That was right before he slapped me.”
“He was checking you out? Like a perv or in some other way?” I asked. I wasn’t too pleased with what she had already told me. We’d dealt with a lot of different types of ghosts, but a violent and perverted one was a new one.
“Yes, like a perv. It was like he was trying to undress me. I’m ready to take a shower.” Ellen shivered.
I’d seen her get a little bit unsettled a time or two before, but not because she was creeped out. “Not much else we can do here,” I said, surveying the damage that had been done. “He didn’t leave much of anything in place.”
Ariel, having recovered from his shock, walked silently through the exhibit, stopping to set a few items back in place. “Jovani isn’t going to be very happy about this.”
“We didn’t stop much from happening,” Ellen responded. “If what I felt was any indication, this is going to be a tough nut to crack.”
“You couldn’t pick up any thoughts from him?” I asked. Ellen could read a paranormal presence like a book. It seemed strange that she got nothing else from him.
“Just that creepy, leering feeling and violent, violent rage.”
That was at least the fourth time that she’d mentioned violent rage. I didn’t like hearing that. I knew what came of violent rage. I’d seen both the results of what they did and felt that disconnected mindset in the actual perp. Ironically, it was my experience as a law enforcement officer that surfaced at that time; something that I hadn’t used much since I’d taken up the job of head ghost hunter flunky for my wife.
“I can take you back to your hotel now, if you like?” The look on Ariel’s face told me that he was eager to be away from El Castillo. “That is, if you’re finished for the night?”
I looked at Ellen.
“I could really use a shower,” she replied.
“I will fill Jovani in on what happened here tonight. I know she was anxious for some sort of resolution.”
“There will be a resolution,” Ellen responded with some force in her voice. “But it’s going to take some time. I hope that a week is enough.”
Chapter Five
Our first encounter with the ghost of El Castillo didn’t give us much to go on. Our quick trip from New Orleans, back home and then on to Medellin hadn’t left much time for studying ahead like I usually did. I had reviewed the things that I knew about what had taken place in the 80s and 90s in Medellin, mostly because I was concerned about what we might be getting ourselves into, but I hadn’t really studied much about Medellin and what had taken place since the 90s.
My law enforcement background had versed me well in what was going on in the drug trade. In the late 90s, most everything that had once been centralized in Cali and Medellin, Colombia—where the two major drug cartels were located—had moved northward into Central America and Mexico. For the most part, cartels, drug wars and the major control of cocaine coming out of South America via Colombia were all but gone. The Colombian government, aided mostly through logistics and training by U.S. special forces teams, was waging an all
-out war against the production, packaging and shipping of cocaine out of the country.
Having cleared out Escobar and broken up the cartel, Medellin had broken free from the bondage that it had been under during Escobar’s reign. With a new lease on life, so to speak, a metro train line had been constructed, which was only a small part of an overall plan to bring Medellin out of being the dark, murder capital of the world and into being named Citi’s Most Innovative City in the World in 2013. The organization cited Medellin’s pristine civic spaces, top-rated public transportation and rich cultural heritage as being the main reasons for presenting the city with the award.
As I read the recent history, it felt as though the Paisas had taken a deep breath of relief and then gone to work to repair their image. It was, however, the rich history of the state, which was known as Antioquia or Antioch, in English, that I began to get a true appreciation for the people that settled in the Aburra Valley region and their strong spirit.
One such story was so intriguing to me that I had to share it with Ellen.
“Do you know that they have a flower festival here every August?” I said as a lead in.
“I saw something about that in some of the travel stuff,” she replied.
“Well, it is linked to Spanish colonial times,” I said. “The first flower festival was little more than a parade of sillateros coming down from Santa Helena with their silletas decorated with flowers.”
“What is a sillatero and a silleta?” she asked.
“Well, silla means chair,” I responded, proud that I’d learned a few Spanish words. “Silletas are, literally, chairs that are carried on the backs of sillateros, sort of like backpacks. Anyway, the parade of the flower festival features thousands of these silletas decked out in flowers and carried on the backs of sillateros.” I showed her photos that I’d found.
“How beautiful,” she responded. “Sort of like the Tournament of Roses Parade, but not quite so commercialized.”
