Ghost stories from Mexico

The Salt Line

My sister’s fiancé, Marcus, was a man of routines. He woke at six, ran three miles, and drank his coffee black. But after we moved into our late grandmother’s farmhouse,...

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The Borrower’s Toll

In the arid highlands of northern Peru, where the Andes cast long shadows over terraced fields and crumbling adobe churches, the villagers of San Jerónimo spoke of the duendes—not the...

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The Slate Between Doors

I moved to Playa del Carmen six months after my sister Rosa had settled there, trading the crowded streets of Houston for the humid, salt-tinged air of the Yucatan. My...

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The Vigil of the Unseen

In the sweltering summer of my ninth year, my family moved to a small, dusty town in the highlands of Oaxaca. Our new home was a long, narrow house with...

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The Salt-Stained Bell

The summer I turned fourteen, my mother’s voice carried her to a crumbling seaside hotel called the Mar de Ceniza, a place that had once been a glamorous retreat for...

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The Candle in the Mirror

I had just stepped out of the shower, my skin still prickling with the cool air of the old hacienda my family had inherited in the heart of Jalisco. The...

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The Hollow Woman of Calle del Sauce

In the summer of 2008, I lived in a small coastal town named Puerto Escondido, not the famous one, but a forgotten fishing village where the sea breeze carried the...

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The Algorithm’s Hunger

My name is Alex, and I lived in a cramped studio apartment in the city of Verdigris, a place where the constant hum of servers from the data centers below...

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The 3:11 Vigil

In the quiet coastal town of Puerto Escondido, I rented the top floor of a crumbling Victorian house that overlooked the Pacific. The landlord warned me about the stairs groaning,...

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The Christmas Tree Fire of Calle de la Luz

In the heart of the old city, where the cobblestone streets narrowed and the buildings pressed against each other like ancient sentinels, stood the three-story edifice of the ‘Salón de...

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The Rodeo’s Debt

At thirteen, I thought I understood fear. I’d watched my older brother leap from the barn loft into a pile of hay, his ankle twisting with a sickening snap. I’d...

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The Lantern at the Foot of the Bed

Mina had lived in the same apartment her entire life, a narrow flat on the third floor of a building that had once been a laundry. The walls were thick,...

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The Bell of the Salted Earth

The summer I was ten, my family drove from Kansas to the Yucatán to visit my grandmother in a village called Xocén, a place of limestone roads and ceiba trees...

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The Hollow Meadow

I never thought I’d be doing this, but right now I really want to find out what’s going on. I grew up in a creaky old farmhouse on the edge...

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The Weeping Velvet

My grandmother, Elara, passed away in the autumn of last year. I had been sleeping in my father’s study while she recuperated in my childhood bedroom, a room painted a...

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The Muted Set

Three weeks after the incident at the lake house, I thought we had left it behind. My brother, Marcus, had practically moved into his friend’s place, and my parents were...

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The Lantern’s Toll

My aunt Rosa worked as a live-in caregiver for a woman named Clara, who had the mind of a small child trapped in a forty-six-year-old body. They lived in a...

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The Coir Doormat

The rains came down that August like a punishment, drumming a relentless rhythm on the tin roof of our rented cottage in the misty highlands of Chiapas. The town below,...

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The Mirror Room

My tía Clara’s wedding in the highland town of San Miguel de Allende was a week-long affair of mariachi bands and cascading fireworks, but I was fifteen and allergic to...

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The Empty Rocker

It was the summer of 1994 when my family and I traveled to the arid highlands of northern Mexico to visit my mother’s parents. The village, nestled between rugged mountains,...

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The San Fermin Curtain

My parents were born in a small valley town called San Fermin, tucked between dry hills in the Mexican state of Jalisco. They left for the States when I was...

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The Lantern of Salt and Bone

I was seven the summer my father decided we should visit the village where my grandmother lived, a place called Los Ojos de Piedra. It was a name that made...

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The Morning Caller

I work for a small mental health clinic in the outskirts of Mérida, where we provide therapy for children with autism. The building we occupy is an old, converted house,...

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The Beckoning Palm

It started seven years ago, not with a bang, but with a gesture. I remember stepping out of the guest bathroom in my aunt’s old farmhouse, the one with the...

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