Why I Don't Walk Alone: A Haunting Tale of a Bruja's Curse

Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. To celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month in the US, I was asked about a story that combines my experience with a twist that includes a part of my own, very real fears. At the end, I hope you joined me in sharing your stories. My name is Edwin and here's a scary story. Does spear get passed down through our blood? I asked, my face now completely serious. After the many jokes and songs we played around the porch of my uncle's ranch in Mexico, there weren't that many of us left. My three cousins were off by the grill, worming up some of the meat and tortillas that were left over from earlier. I almost never got the chance to be in such a place. For the rest of my family that lived in Mexico, these stories were completely normal. But to my sister and I, tales of the hairy hand, the scissors under the crib, and the stories of doglike creatures that turn into humans were new. My dad always said that we didn't miss out on it, but traded it for other chances, something we could always go back to anyway, to look at it, like an old hidden chest full of secrets and stories, and that's exactly what it felt like. My uncle looked at me and answered my question with a question, now, gillin's mio, what are you afraid of? I thought about answering that for a while, because it wasn't that simple. Most people would say that they were afraid of the dark, or bees or snakes, maybe ghosts or la your oonna. Perhaps it was of being alone, not in the literal sense, but rather feeling like I didn't belong anywhere. That's not what he was asking, Brujas, I said, witches. He looked at me straight in the eye as if he wanted me to continue, but I couldn't. There was no reason behind it, so I hardly even knew what they were, but I knew that whenever a story about those came up. Ay, a full grown adult by now struggled to walk down a very dark hallway lit by the moonlight without imagining a which blocking its path from the outside. There was something strange about being out in the desert in Mexico. Perhaps it was a silence. It made every sound feel like a thread out there. My uncle was a smart guy and answered my question clearly enough for me to never ask it again, even though it took him a while, and to this day, I haven't forgotten it. Miho, he started. Fear gets passed down through our blood to protect us, and witches, especially out here, are a thing we must do everything in our power to avoid at all costs. It's why we never walk alone out here? Do you notice that? And he was right. Even my cousins to asked each other to head out to the bath at night, to go out to grab something from the car, or to walk to the store on those dimly lit dirt roads. Do they exist? I asked them, Are they real? Yes? He said, letting the thoughts sink into my mind for what seemed like an eternity. Do you know why we live here now? Did your mom ever tell you of the brucha of Gimichi's My eyes were wide open now waiting for him to continue. Long before we moved here to the north, your family and all of us used to live in a small town in the state of Nayarite. We lived, like every other family, off the land, supplementing it with food and things we picked up from the city. We didn't have much money, but we were rich fields of beans and corn, for us whenever we wanted to eat, always something to do, a topic of conversation with the neighbors, and seasons to look forward to. Christmas wasn't like how we spent them here. Back then, it was a town celebration. Our mayors used to do things for us or we would kick them out. But along with that, evil and envy used to roam much more easily. People along before me used to tell our family to watch out for that, because women like La Bruxao f Kimchi's were not to be messed with. I don't know if she actually existed, but what she left behind definitely did. Had friends go from healthy and strong people to weak and vulnerable guys. Intelligent business owners go bankrupt and later run off into the mountains and shame to never be found again. All of this, it was said, came from the work of this witch. But why did you leave? I asked my uncle, right before his stare went blank. Did you really want to know, he asked, as he turned his head to whit me, the light of the fire making it much more eerie than and I will ever be able to retell. Yeah, I whispered, it was from your grandmother. She asked us right before she died whether we were willing to fight this thing together or not. And as you know, she was successful with her own things, her shop. Do you remember the photos she fed all five of us growing up with that, and your grandfather protected all of us. But no matter how much she wanted to fight this thing, he didn't want to risk the rest of us, not after seeing what she was capable of doing, so we moved. There was this one woman. She used to live on the corner of the last street in town, right where the hill started. There was a nook there, no other houses around, just an empty lot and not much else to see but her tiny one bedroom hut in the middle of it. People used to say that she was a descendant of this witch Bruja the Kimchi's, and she would do work that you wanted for a price. Of course, word around town was that somebody was envious of your grandmother's shop and one day brought her something to eat, something that had all of the evil intentions tied up to it, and it worked. Suddenly your grandmother started having trouble standing up for the time she needed to at her shop. Then her hand stopped working, and soon she became bedridden. We rarely talked about this with the rest of your aunts and uncles, but all of us agree on something that this thing that happened to your grandmother was absolutely a curse, a curse that came from this woman. I stared at the dying fire for several minutes, wondering about what I had just heard from my uncle. He had no reason to lie about something so serious, so deep for her family. So it makes sense that you're afraid of witches. It's for your own good now, he said, turned his head to everyone. I'm going to sleep. Turn off the lights and lock the gates before you go to bed. And I didn't know it back then, but that short story, a tale one normally hears from an older relative, was about to change my life. I asked my family about this witch, La Brucha e Kimchi's, and everyone had a story about her. Some, I must admit, asked me to stop looking into it because of how serious it was and how much it had affected everyone, but most told me about their own experiences in this small town the central coast of Mexico, stay away from the witch. Years later, and with my family, I went down to that very town, but by that time there were a few people in town who remember the events from long ago. The stories had turned into tales that only people my age would share around campfires just to scare each other. But those that knew the truth told me everything they remembered. Deep in the hills there lived a woman whose only company were the owls, snakes, and the river that kept her alive. She would come into town about once a month, typically when the moon was full, to buy some things that she couldn't make or grow on her own. A bottle of shampoo was one of the things that everyone remembers her buying, and everyone knew when to expect her, the lonely old lady from the mountain some would call her, or others referred to her as the witch. It always bothered me to think that this is what scared me, a thing that I couldn't quite describe. And I came back from that trip to Mexico feeling like I missed out for being away from everything for so long, apart from the rest of my extended family, far from everything that made me feel more Mexican words and phrases that I never learned, and the fear of not knowing how to use them. It was always a fear of mine growing up. The stories that only my small family of four shared in my home. Some stories that only the same friends at eight burritos for lunch at school would understand, The ones and bilingual classes that they try to take away from us through policies that I was far too young to understand as a kid. Fear of being put into classes where the teacher would skip trying to pronounce my last name and refer to me simply as Edwin C. But these stories of witches, of ghosts like La Jorona, legends like El Tilbon, stories of Nahwalez creatures that turn into humans to blend in with us for Maine, and spread through my dad's radio late at night during those drives at the Juana, a city right across the border of California. I didn't know it back then, but there were millions of us here already in line to share our stories, sharing my same fears and excitement for these tales and for many others, not quite scared, but essential to what makes us us. I often wonder about this irrational fear of witches brujas in Spanish, Where does it come from. Is there something else that I need to explore or to figure it out? Are there really people out there with evil intentions that will stop at nothing to hurt us through these invisible forces? Is it something that we cannot protect ourselves against. As a storyteller myself, it's common for me to encounter the ghost story here in the United States to be quite different from the ones in Mexico and Latin America. Here, I have to convince you of the existence of these entities. While in Mexico it's so embedded as part of our story that we skip that part entirely and go straight into our fears. But perhaps I'm somewhere in the middle with the real fear that I'm just now beginning to understand while still trying to convince myself of its existence. There's a whole place out there that leaves in them. And as I take this opportunity to celebrate our heritage these fears, brujas or something else, I'd like to remind you that even if you're on that lonely road on your way to the corner shop, or if you just have to go a few doors down the dark hallway to the bathroom at night, there are many things that our brain doesn't understand, but you feel it. Fear that runs through you. Stories that need us as much as we need them, because they stay alive when they're shared, and they, along with the voices of everyone who shape them, live inside me, pass down in my blood, and that is the reason why I don't walk alone. Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Kovarujas. I'd like you to join me in celebrating this month by telling me a story that has been passed down to you, and of course, everyone is welcome in our community, so feel free to share them with me. Legends, stories from where your parents are from, a story a grandparent shared with you. You can DM me on Instagram or use a contact form on my website Scary Story podcast dot com. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary. Every one too soon,