The Wailing Woman of the Winter Hill
It is a story that I wanted to get lost in the vapors of the mist or in the darkness of the evening, but one fine sunny winter afternoon, sitting on the little patio, remembering or remembering what was said in the town about ghosts, my father spoke…
I'd always held a quiet longing to lose myself in tales born of mist and shadow. Yet, the story that would mark me crept forth on a winter afternoon bright enough to dispel even seasoned superstitions. My father, a man not prone to flights of fancy, spoke in a low voice of a firewood peddler named Santiago and his brush with the spectral.
This peddler, a lad back then, was a creature of habit. The sharp smell of split wood would fill the frosty December air at daybreak as he prepared his wares for the market. But one frigid morning, ax poised to fall, something in the air turned even colder. It was an unearthly silence broken only by the eerie wails of the dogs. Their usually playful forms slumped into whimpering submission as their muzzled cries clawed at the moon.
