Anna

Anna learned that every legend holds some truth. She grew up reading tales and scary stories just to try to make sense of something she couldn't really understand. She didn't believe in ghosts or in any of the spirits and monsters she read about, she was just looking for an answer.

She soon would leave her hometown for college, but if she didn't clear her mind before leaving, she feared the past would haunt her.

She never told anyone about the memories that lurked in her mind and, sometimes, even her dreams. She was not superstitious, but she believed there has to be a meaning and for years she has been trying to find that meaning, but fifteen years passed and she was still not close to understanding it.

It was a memory of hers that sometimes would take her sleep away. Sometimes she would ask herself if the memory she constantly saw was real or if it was just a creation she unconsciously made. She just wanted to know why she could not leave it in the past.

Her grandmother's house was not so far from her own house, it was up on the hill, and from her house, she would easily get there by simply walking. But she has not come back there since her grandmother died. Although walking by the house she feels something about that place is calling her.

But Anna is a rational young woman, she understands the stories she reads are pure fiction; she even has made herself a skeptical person, especially when she hears people talking about the so-called afterlife. She knows nothing is calling her, it is the memories that she holds from that place that make her feel, somehow, connected to the house. It is not a spiritual thing, it is a simple dilemma of what is real and what isn't.

Her mother once told her how much her grandmother loved her. She knew her grandmother's name and knew what she looked like because of the pictures around the walls of the living room. She even loved hearing the stories from her mother about what it was like back in the times when her grandmother was alive. Anna even pictured her grandmother in her mind with every story she heard about her, but in her dreams, Anna never saw her alive, she would always find her lying dead in a coffin.

Ever since the nightmare started, she thought it couldn't truly mean something, it was just a dream. But then it became constant and every time she would sit and think about it, she would remind herself that the dream was not the first time she saw her grandmother in the coffin.

She knew it was not a ghost haunting her, she would never believe in such thing. It was a real memory, something that happened a long time ago.

Anna was three years old when her grandmother died, she knew because of her mother that she died of natural causes. Anna thought that because of her age she wouldn't be able to remember such thing, especially when it comes to death, but she surprisingly did.

She knows what her grandmother's house looks like because she had been once there: she was there at the funeral of her grandmother.

Anna remembered the furniture from the living room was moved elsewhere, the place almost seemed empty except for the chairs around for the attenders and the coffin in the center surrounded by four candles. The casket was not empty, but her height at that age would not let her see inside the casket.

The memory was vague for Anna, but she could remember at that age she was not aware that she was at a funeral dedicated to her grandmother who passed away. As a child, she would curiously look at everyone around without understanding why some were crying, even her mother; Anna knew nothing about grief back then. She did not remember her grandmother in life, but she surely with not forget her in death.

She knew that living in the countryside one can become familiarized with several different smells, but there was a scent she would never forget. The moment she walked into the living room of her grandmother's house, her nose perceived something strong, but soft and sort of sweet. At first, she thought wooden was being burned, but the smell couldn’t be the same. For her, it was somehow pleasant. It was a strange feeling for her, especially since every time she walks near the house, she thinks she perceives that same smell and she recognizes it immediately. Then she remembers the funeral of her grandmother.

At the funeral, she remembered one of her uncles holding her up in front of the casket to let her see what is inside the coffin.

There she sees her grandmother.

When she saw pictures of her after the funeral, she could see the resemblance of the woman, but in the casket, there was no sign of happiness. Anna thought her grandma was sleeping. Whoever was holding her whispered to her, probably telling Anna to say goodbye to her grandma, but she was too confused to listen. All she could do was stare at the old woman laying inside of the casket with a white dress and her hair braided. Her clothes and her aspect would easily make Anna believe that her grandma was just sleeping, but she asked herself why she had cotton in her nose.

She does not remember asking that right away, the last thing she remembers is the face of her grandmother in the coffin.

Anna doesn't remember more about that day or the days after that. She has no more memories about her life before she was four years old, but that single memory kept coming through her mind over and over. Her memory would even be projected into her mind through her dreams.

When she started to have those nightmares, she started reading about the stories and legends that people believe in with passion. She never feared the tales people told her about creatures in the dark or ghosts, she was intrigued by the subject because other people actually believed in it. Anna just wanted to find the meaning of her dreams and she thought that those kinds of stories would at least ease the nightmares. But after fifteen years, it never happened as she wished.

In a few days she would leave forever, but was she ready to leave and let the nightmare haunt her for the rest of her life?

She could not. She needed the slightest answer, whatever it meant or whatever it would take to know it.

Although she did not believe in ghosts, the only thing she feared was her grandmother's house. After so long she understood the answer was probably in the place where everything occurred.

She sneaked out when her mom was out in the town, took the keys to her grandmother's house, and went uphill to the big old house that her mother never dared to sell. Anna was somehow grateful to her mother for never selling the house.

As she got closer to the house, Anna would perceive that smell in her nose again. It gives her chills every time her nose senses it, but she controlled herself as she introduced the key to the lock and opened the door.

Even if no one lived in that house, the place remained clean. Her mother would pay someone to clean the house at least once a month and just occasionally, she would come there. The house belonged to her mother now, but she had one already with Anna's father and she wouldn't sell the place where she grew up with her beloved mother.

Anna was impressed by everything her mother was doing to keep the house intact. She remembered her mother invited her in multiple times, but she refused every time. The simple thought of being in there again not only gave her chills, it sort of made her feel sick.

But once she was inside the house, she surprised herself because she didn't throw up. She walked in and closed the door to keep safe the place her mother had been protecting; she walked in the place looking around as if she were three years old again.

Anna looked at the pictures on the walls, photos of her grandmother and grandfather taken in black and white when they were young, photos of her wedding, and pictures of her grandmother with her mother and all her uncles. Anna even found a picture of her grandmother carrying Anna when she was a newborn. In the latter picture she found, she saw her grandmother already look tired, but still, her eyes were bright like stars as she was staring at her granddaughter.

Anna smiled when she saw the photo. After what she thought the house made her feel like, in there she felt safe, she felt at peace, and overall, she regretted not stepping in there before. Looks like after all this time all she feared was what she might find there.

She kept walking around the house, looking around without looking for something in particular. Anna wanted an answer and she walked into the house expecting to find one, but she didn't know what it would look like. She was not looking for a signal, it is not like she was expecting the spirits to move something or hand her anything, but she feared that if she left the house empty-handed, she would feel the same.

There was the smell again. She was getting used to it, but it seemed to increase as she was getting closer to the living room, the place where she saw her grandmother for the last time.

She barely recognized the place with all the furniture back in its place. She noticed the walls were still the same with a pistachio color, but it was a bit worn by time. On the wall in front of her, there was a big portrait of her grandmother, she seemed to remember it from the funeral. The picture was black and white, but her grandma was already in her last years of life.

For once, Anna felt tears in her eyes when thinking of her grandmother. She thought of the stories her mother told her and how fascinating were each one of them, it almost made her cry while she was staring at the picture of her grandmother. Anna was no longer three years old; she knew the meaning of death and there she felt it was time to say goodbye.

Anna let her tears burst when she started to say how excited she was because soon she would be moving out of her hometown for college. She opened herself and told her how hard it was for her to achieve it, but she was proud, and she hoped her grandmother was proud too. Anna said she would have loved to meet her and hear a few of the advice she once told to her mother, Anna felt sorry because they did not have time enough for them to meet.

When Anna cleaned the tears off her eyes, she laughed a bit because she realized all this time she has been talking alone. She didn't regret though, she just remembered her grandmother was dead and she would never listen to her words, but it felt good for her because she felt she was setting herself free.

After she let out the words from her heart, she decided to come back to her house, she thought her mom would have been back by now, but something stopped her when she was turning back.

Something got her attention, there in the table below the picture there was a bunch of little boxes and frames with pictures and there was also an envelope. It was a letter.

She barely recognized her name written over it, the handwriting was barely legible, not just because it has been over that table for years.

Anna hesitated even when she read her name on the envelope. She knew it was written by her grandmother because her mom once told her that in her last days her grandmother could barely write and read. Anna wasn't really expecting an answer or a signal, but she found it.

She didn't think her mom saw it before, Anna couldn't believe her grandmother wrote something for a child she barely knew in her last days of life. If Anna would only have walked into that house before, would anything have changed earlier?

Anna held the letter close to her chest after smelling it for a moment, it was the same smell she sensed in her childhood. It was no longer a bad sign for her, it brought her the peace she has been longing for.

When she realized there was nothing more for her to do there, she finally decided to leave.

As she walked away from the house, she no longer felt the place was calling her, she felt released. She didn't hide the letter from her mother when they met at their house, she sat with her mom and told her everything, even the memory that was no longer haunting her, and then showed her the letter. Her mother almost cried when she realized she has never seen the letter before, otherwise, she would have handled it to Anna immediately.

Anna told her that what mattered was that she finally found it. She didn't open it and read it right away, she wanted it to be special and her mother told her it would be best if she reads it alone. Thus, Anna walked out of the house to the backyard and sat down next to a tree. Her hands toyed with the letter before opening it.

It was after reading the letter that Anna understood that every tale, every legend holds some truth. She may not believe in spirits, or anything related to ghost stories, but she couldn't deny that after being at her grandmother's house she was never haunted again by the memory of hers.