Once again in the span of only 24 hours, I dreamt of years long passed. My dreamed started in a crowded town, one where there more people than it seemed possible for a town that size to hold. There were all different kinds of folks, most of them looked like they came from poor backgrounds, some looked middle waged, and none looked as if they were rich. They walked swiftly through the town all headed in the same direction. I tried to see where they were headed, but I couldn’t, however, in this dream I had the power to walk. I walked shoulder to shoulder with the large group of people through the dirty, dusty streets and past all the many buildings far too close together.
The town itself was old. It looked very similar to what I imagine New York might have looked like during its industrial age, when people of all nations and backgrounds flocked to it for the promise of a better life. The Georgian era buildings stood tall and close together, many dilapidated and seemingly crudely built, all as old as the town itself which I guessed to be around the early 1700’s to 1800’s. Many of the buildings seemed to have more than one family living in them. How they supported the weight of the people inside I couldn’t figure out because some of the buildings looked like they would buckle any minute. Despite their condition they were all painted beautifully almost in an attempt to cover up their run down nature.
When we reached the end of town, I could see where a clearing opened up and I understood where we were. We were in an old textile mill town. The giant mill houses spanned acres; there must have been a dozen of them. Each had its own purpose in the production of the various types of fabric they produced, and the people who worked there appeared to be divided into status groups based on where they worked. There was definitely a hierarchy amongst the people. The upper classed people worked in the buildings that got the fabrics ready for shipment, the middle classed people worked in the weaving and making of the fabrics, and the lowest and poorest class of people worked in the gin houses. As I walked with the people it was if my feet took on a life of their own. I could no longer choose the direction I wanted to go. I went along with it and made my way into the clearing with the higher class of people on their way to the packing and shipment building.
This building was the smallest of the 12, with wide open loading docks and doors, and a loud whistle signifying the changing of the shifts. People entered as others exited the place and we went through the doors and entered therein. Once inside, I was shocked at the amount of fabrics there were. There were all kinds. There were many different shades of warm wool, exquisite silks, sturdy cotton, and comfortable linen. Some had floral prints and others paisley, all in different colors and patterns. The sheer number of the different fabrics was astonishing, despite the size of the building, it held so much.
As I looked around I became aware of a person I had known I had seen before. I couldn’t place my finger on it at first, but the longer I stood, the more convinced I became. It was the woman from the picture outside my door, the picture of the Bennett family, Rosa Bennett. Dressed in a fine navy blue and black, silk, floor length dress, she stood on the second floor of the building towards the back where the smarter and more learned workers had their desks. As I watched her I noticed she stared ahead, hands on the banister, looking down to where I was. Then it hit me. She wasn’t watching the workers or caught in a daydream, she was looking straight at me. I tried looking behind me to see if she was merely looking through me at something since no one else could see me, but when I turned back around I saw her smile, then she walked with one hand still on the banister, guiding her down the stairs. As she descended, she kept her eyes locked on me, never looking elsewhere. I began to become a little intimidated by her stare. It was constant and purposeful just as her walk was. I knew she had something to say before she even opened her mouth.
“Hello. I’m glad we can finally meet, face to face. I’ve heard about you and your arrival and have wanted to meet you, though I didn’t realize it would be so soon.” She said with a slight giggle. Before I had found the words to reply she continued. “Do you know where you are?”
“No I don’t believe I do. I can tell it’s a much bigger and older town than where the hotel is though.” I replied.
“Yes it is, it’s a town back East where I came to when I was young, after I was married to my husband. I wasn’t prepared for this life and hated it here. It was too uptight and I didn’t like the people whose company my husband kept.” She said with distain.
“If you didn’t like it why did you stay?” I asked her.
“Things were different then, a woman couldn’t really divorce her husband, even if she had good reason, and I didn’t. I hated being married to him, I hated being so far away from my family and friends, but he was always kind and civil to me. When I had my daughters it sealed my fate. I certainly couldn’t leave then even if I wanted too, I had no means of making a living or going back home, and I couldn’t take my daughters away from their father, even if I had been able to make a living for myself I couldn’t feed three hungry mouths.” She replied a little mournfully.
I knew she was right. It can be hard enough today for a woman to leave her husband, let alone in the early 1800’s. I noticed too, now that she was up close, she wasn’t a white woman either. Her copper tan skin wasn’t just from too much sun. She looked much older than I was sure she was. Wrinkles and lines traced the outlines of her face and grey streaks flowed through her jet black hair. Her dark brown eyes looked weary from the many years of being shackled to a life she never wanted or felt she needed. As I looked at her I could sense her pain, sorrow, and regret. She had lived a life not meant for her and it had broken her spirit. I could not tell you how sorry I felt for her in that moment, yet she looked more sorrowful still when she spoke these next words.
“You see, I grew up on a ranch in Mexico. My father was well known to be one of the best cattleman in the region. We weren’t wealthy by any means, but we were comfortable. I loved the life I lived, the wide open spaces, my horses that could run freely where they wished, and my family that was so very close knit. It was a simple life, but a life well lived.” She paused a moment before continuing to speak. “When I was almost 15, a man from America came. He was from the East and wanted to establish a business near where I lived. He came to the ranch because he had heard my father spoke English, and he needed a translator. I even remember the day he came. I was getting ready for my quinceanera. It was only a few weeks away and my mother and grandmother were making my dress as I stood on a stool so they could hem it. He saw me and got a strange look on his face. He told my father I was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. I saw him many times after that; he met with my father often. After he had conducted his business he came back to the ranch and asked my father for my hand in marriage. At first my father said no, but when he offered him a large sum of money, or as he put it, for his troubles, my father agreed. The ranch hadn’t been doing well that year and in order to keep it running my father could use the money. So he sold me, and traded my life for the sake of the whole family’s wellbeing. We married a few weeks after my 15th birthday. I wasn’t the beaming bride everyone expected me to be. My friends tried to calm my spirit by telling me what a wonderful life and opportunities I would have being married to a rich man, but it did nothing for me and the day after the wedding I had to say goodbye to my friends, family, and home. I never saw them after that nor did I ever walk again in the land of my birth.”
My eyes filled with tears hearing her story. I understood her a little more then and it made more sense what she had to tell me later on. After she had told me her life’s tale she looked from the ground where her eyes had fallen back at me.
“Come with me, I need to show you something.” She said as she grabbed my hand and led me back out of the building.
When we went through the door we were no longer in the clearing outside packing and shipping building. It was as if we had simply walked through a portal to the entryway of someone’s house. I notice quickly though that it wasn’t a house at all, it was actually a railway car. Decorated elegantly, the car held everything a person would need to live in comfort, to the left side chairs, a couch, and a small table with a vase of dried flowers on it, a small love seat on the opposite side between two end tables, beautiful stained glass lamps and hanging lights that gave a colored glow to the room, and the carpet on the floor looked new and expensive. It looked almost too beautiful to live in by my own standards.
She let go of my hand then and we stood there as a scene played out before us. I could see her there sitting on the loveseat, even though she also stood next to me, wearing a far less expensive dress, more common and designed for a simpler life. She was sipping tea from fine china, a book on her lap. All looked peaceful and calm in the room, I halfheartedly wanted to join her, but as we stood there her husband entered and the tranquil quality of the room fled before him. He looked angry, furious even, filled with indignant rage he bellowed.
“These savages refuse to leave, they are hindering our plans and setting us back months!”
“They aren’t savages dear,” the woman in the railcar said as she took another sip from her cup, “They have lived here on this land far longer than we; they merely don’t want to leave their homes. Perhaps they wouldn’t have too if we built the town a little further over to the east or up north a little?”
“But then what would the problem be hmm? Would they then complain that we take too much water from them? Or perhaps they might change their minds about us and attack us in the night, scalping us and our children!” He continued to yell as he paced the room. “No, the best course of action is to force them out once and for all. They’re a dirty and simple minded people. If they can find the ability to live here in the middle of this God forsaken land they can live just about anywhere! You just aren’t capable of understanding this; you came from a simple minded community as well. You are lucky I saved you from it and gave you a better life.”
I was astonished by what I was hearing from the man. Savages? Dirty and simple minded people? They were anything but. How could someone be so ignorant and close minded? Surely this man could hear himself and how ridiculous he sounded….and what of her? Wasn’t she compassionate, having come from a simpler community herself? All these thoughts surged through my mind as I continued to watch them speak before me.
“Well, being so simple minded, explain to me just what you had in mind to rectify the situation then?” She replied haughtily.
“I plan on having some of my men go to their village tonight and force them from the land.” He said as he poured himself a cup of tea, taking the first sip.
“You can’t do that! They are a community that relies on one another. If you force them from their homes in the dead of night where will they go and what will they do?”
“I don’t much give a damn my dear quite frankly.” He replied taking another sip, pretending to be a gentleman.
“But they have women and children. What would you do if I and our girls were suddenly forced from our homes in the middle of the night? What would we do then?”
“Ha! Like that would ever happen.” He said placing his cup on the table in front of him where he sat on the sofa. “I imagine though if we were, we’d put up one hell of a fight. That’s why my men are going fully armed.”
“I thought you only said you were going to remove them from the land. Do you plan on killing them all as well?” She said, panic rising in her voice.
“I plan on any and all contingencies. If they leave quietly then there will be no bloodshed but if they don’t…….” He trailed off.
“If they don’t?” She continued.
“Then we’ll just have to wait and see.” He said rising from the couch and leaving the room.
I saw her sitting there silent now, a look of horror on her face. Had she heard him correctly? Did he really plan on forcefully removing and killing an entire village of people just so he could build a town? Did he not foresee what his actions could ensue? Was this really the type of man he was? I could hear all these thoughts run through her mind as she sat uncomfortably on the loveseat, the fabric of it clenched between her hands as her heartbeat ran wild. After a few moments you could see her calm a little, a thought had popped in her mind. Once her husband had made up his mind to do something he never stopped till he got what he wanted. This she knew. Perhaps though, there was something surely that she could do to prevent what she knew in her heart was about to happen. I saw her get up from her seat then, raise her head and straighten and smooth her dress, and walked with purpose from the car. She only had a short time to prepare for what would happen next, and prepare she would. She walked over to a roll top desk that sat if the corner of the room and began to pen a letter to her family back in Mexico. What she wrote I couldn’t see, but she wrote with passion and fury, as if she didn’t have enough time to get it all down. She placed the letter in an envelope and put a stamp on it, then almost sprinted out of the room, letter in hand. The woman who was with me then took my hand and led me after her old self, out of the railway car.
Once we were safely on the ground we followed her, through an encampment, filled with tents and crude buildings meant to serve as temporary housing and storage. There were many men there, hundreds even, and only a few women here and there. I supposed they were the wives of some of the men that had been brave enough to venture west far from their old homes and comforts they knew there. We went past a group of women then, they scarcely wore a thing, and these women I guessed were the men’s only source of entertainment in that near desolate place. She walked up to a man who had his back to her. He was wearing a white long john undershirt, a pair of light brown slacks with suspenders, and a beige, cowboy hat.
“Jasper!” She called out. “Jasper I need you to run a letter for me. It’s urgent.”
He turned around to face her then that’s when I saw him, the postman. He looked less tired, more unburdened and whole, if that makes any sense.
“Mrs. Bennett.” He said as he tipped his hat to her.”What letter do you have for me today then?”
“It’s a letter to my family in Mexico; it has to get there as soon as possible. Like I said it’s urgent. I need you to run it out today.” She said in response to his question.
“No can do Mrs. Bennett. I can’t be doing that. Your husband has got all the men ready to go tonight to remove the Indians from the land, and I’m to go with them. No mail will be going out today I’m afraid.”
“But it has too, surely you can run it to the nearest posting, my husband could do without one man surely.” She begged.
“I’m afraid not M’am. I have my orders and I can’t lose my job. You aren’t the one that pays me after all.” He replied with a chuckle.
“Well……well how soon can you have it out?” She asked then after a few moments.
“Best I can do is Friday next week M’am.” He said.
“But that’s over a week from now when you make your usual run!” She said as panic crept once again in her voice. “Surely you can take it sooner? Please! I’ll pay extra for your troubles, triple your normal rate.”
He thought about it then before settling on a decision. “I’ll take it from you then and have it out by this Friday. Best I can do.”
She stood there a moment, contemplating what to do. “If that’s the best you can do……here then.” She said handing over the letter.
He took it from her and nodded towards her direction as she turned, making her way back to the railway car, disappointed that she couldn’t get the letter to her family sooner. It was then that the scene went black and we were left standing, the woman and I in the dark, nothing around us. She turned toward me then as I asked her,
“What was so important about that letter? Why did you want need delivered so badly?”
“Growing up, my grandmother was a bruja. She knew every spell and cleansing ritual there was. When I was little, a Catholic mission church settled in the town and they sought to convert the locals. Being one of the better known and established families, the priest believed that if my father and our family went to the church the other locals would also. So he paid my father, a side agreement they had, and we went to the church every day for mass and every Sunday for church. I grew up in the church and its beliefs. My family eventually did truly convert, but my grandmother also incorporated her beliefs as well. When I heard what my husband planned to do, I wanted to reach out to her for advice and help. I knew she would know what to do, she always did. I also asked her to reach out to the newest priest, Father Michael, and ask him his advice also. I needed that letter to go out as soon as possible, just in case my gut was right, and what I thought would happen, would come true.” She explained.
“So you knew…..you knew what your husband planned to do and all you did was write a letter?” I said growing frustrated and angry with her.
“I did. I had lived with him for long enough to know what kind of man he was, even if I didn’t want to believe it. But I was powerless to stop it. I only had enough money saved back for petty things. I couldn’t pay off every man in town, nor could I stop my husband once he got on the war path, he was a force to be reckoned with then. All I could do was write that letter.” She responded.
“But what would that do? Your grandmother and Father Michael were thousands of miles away and the letter wouldn’t go out for days. What could they have done to stop what happened?” I asked.
“I knew nothing could stop what was about to happen. That was completely out of my hands, but what I could do was prepare, prepare for what was to come from the blowback of my husband’s actions. All I knew was that I had to protect my daughters and I at all costs, never mind him.” She stated a look of absent minded determination playing about her face.
“So what did you do, once the night was over and the bloodshed had occurred?” I asked her, halfway not wanting to know the answer because I suddenly sensed she had done something horrible.
“I did something horrible.” She said.
“What did you do, surely it can’t be as bad as what your husband did.” I questioned her.
“When everything had happened that night, Jasper set out that Friday to deliver the mail. It took several weeks to arrive and several more for a response to come back. Almost a month and a half later the return letter came. I took it eagerly from Jasper and tore it open once I got back from his tent. Construction had already begun on the town and things were going up quickly. In the envelope, there were two separate letters, one from Father Michael, the second larger one from my grandmother. I quickly read Father Michael’s letter first. It mainly said to just pray that God would forgive our sins, and make the town prosperous so the Natives didn’t die in vain. I thought that was preposterous. I didn’t want God to forgive our sins, I wanted him to collect payment for them and avenge the deaths of the innocent, not in turn make the town prosperous!” She said with a snort. “Not finding what I was looking for in that letter, I began to read my grandmothers. Finally I found what I was waiting to hear. My grandmother told me of many different spells I could cast over my wicked husband, his men, and the town. In the letter the spells were laid out, word for word, describing what items I would need to complete them. Some were in Spanish, others surprisingly in Latin. I decided to follow each and cast them all, but unfortunately, it was not easy to get all the things I needed for the spells. We only had so many resources out in the middle of nowhere. For some of the spells I had to make do with what I had and hope for the best, other more important spells I secretly sent out for the things I’d need. As for the Latin spells……I did not know Latin, but I practiced them, trying to correctly pronounce them, all in secret and never in their entirety; only in pieces and parts.”
“Did they work?” I asked her then.
“Some did, and others didn’t. I was able to gather all the supplies needed by the time that night occurred.” She said now facing away from me for a moment. “The night the villagers came into the town, it had been mostly built. My husband and children and I were fast asleep in the hotel. I wasn’t prepared for what came next…..none of us were. When the chanting of the peoples rang out in the night, I grew afraid. I did not care what happened to me or my husband, but my girls……my sweet, sweet girls. I couldn’t let anything happen to them. So I jumped out of bed when the screams began, and ran to their room. I held them close to me as they cried, tears streaming down their cheeks. That was when I knew, I had to do something. So I ran to the old roll top desk, where I had hidden the letter from my grandmother in a secret compartment, and took it out. There was one spell I could cast, a protection spell, over the hotel, protecting all within. While the native people cast their spells so did I.” She said now turning back to face me.
“The spells, did they work? I asked.
“They did, perhaps they were stronger that the ones the native peoples cast, or maybe perhaps it was for the reason I cast them, either way we lived to see another dawn.” She replied.
I saw then a light, almost as if it was at the end of a tunnel, shining in the distance. It was a bright, white light, which illuminated the dark around us. As I stood there I looked back at Rosa, and I asked her one final question.
“Your daughters, what became of them?”
Unfortunately before she could answer the question the light began to increase with a loud humming. It made it impossible to hear her over it, drowning out whatever words she had to tell me, and with that I awoke.
As I opened my heavy eyes, I could see I was on a bed, an old quilt upon me to keep me warm, and the bright unfiltered light of a light bulb shone overhead. It was night wherever I was. I could tell from the chirping of crickets and the other night noises that sounded in the distance. I rolled over onto my back, sore and stiff muscles and joints groaning in protest. I slowly remembered where I was as I laid there for a few moments just staring into space at the ceiling. Once I had gathered my bearings I sat up and took a look around the now dimly lit room full of shadows only held at bay with the light of the singular bulb that hung from the ceiling and the lamp that sat on the bedside table beside me. My eyes scanned the room only to settle on the figure sitting next to the bed in the rocking chair, reading the same book as before.
“What time is it?” I barely choked out due to the dry mouth and throat I had received from hours of no fluids.
“I believe it’s about 9pm on a Wednesday.” He replied never looking up from his book. My eyes grew wide and I began to start from the bed. “I know what you’re thinking, and yes you’ve been asleep for about a day and a half, but don’t worry, I took care of all the nightly duties for you while you were out cold.”
I settled back down knowing things had been taken care of in my absence. “You take care of a lot of things don’t you?” I said with an accusatory tone.
He still didn’t look up from his book and turned a page as he answered. “I don’t know what that is supposed to mean, but yes, yes I do.”
“You were one of the men that murdered the villagers who lived on this land long ago.” I said realizing a little too late what that implied.
He looked up from his book then a questioning look on his face. “How could you possibly……..You know what never mind. You can’t possibly know what happened that night. You weren’t there.”
“But I was, or at least, I had a dream about it.” I said still upset at him for what he had done.
“A dream, oh sweetheart, if you saw what happened that night it wasn’t a dream. What I can’t figure out is why, out of all the caretakers, you seem to be the chosen one for a vision. That doesn’t happen often. Who showed you this so called dream?” He asked me resting the book on his lap.
“I don’t have to tell you that, it’s none of your business.” Then I added, “And don’t call me sweetheart!”
“Keep your secrets then and I’ll keep mine.”
We stared at each other then, for quite awhile. The silence in the room was deafening. You could have heard a pin drop. After a few more moments of intense staring, I got up off the bed. If he wasn’t going to explain himself and what he did, and I wasn’t willing to share what I knew, then there was no reason for me to stay. I looked around for my shoes that he had apparently taken off me, first under the bed, and then towards the door. After not seeing them there I heard him speak behind me.
“Looking for these?” He said twirling one of the shoes on his finger. “You know, I never saw how women walked on these.”
I grabbed the shoes huffily out of his hands and put them on as I moved simultaneously toward the door. Once I had them on, I looked back to where Jasper sat, my hand on the doorknob and said, “Thank you Mr. Moon for all your help but I think I’ll be going now.”
“I imagined you would be.” He said as he looked from me to the door, then back at me, implying once again that I had stated the obvious.
This just made me even angrier at him once again. I swung the door open swiftly and headed out into the cool, crisp night air. Once outside I breathed deeply in, the fresh air doing wonders for my clouded and jumbled thoughts. As I walked back to the hotel, I thought of all that I had seen in my visions. It worried me knowing now that somehow, after over 200 years at least one of the men who assisted in the night raid still lived. What exactly was the curse that the Pueblo people put on the town, what spells did Rosa Bennett put on the place as well, and how did the two coincide? I had too many things to sort through but I made up my mind that night to get to the bottom of whatever had happened to the town and the hotel that resided within it.
I got to the hotel in no time at all, and entered the front door. Locking it behind me, I came through the entryway and up to the doll room, turned the dolls to the walls, and went about feeding Jesus. Once I completed all my nightly duties I found myself wide awake. I sat down behind the desk to think about things. Like how I had found myself caught in a haunted, time jumping, animal talking, hotel in a town where the dead rise and people never age had me reeling. While lost in thought I became startled at the sound of a telephone suddenly ringing. As I turned to grab the phone off the desk and into my lap to answer it, I accidently pulled the cord too far. That’s when I noticed the phone wasn’t even plugged in at all. I looked now back at the rotary phone in my lap, still ringing, and I slowly picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” I said as I awaited a response.
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