The house was never finished. Its concrete walls are open to the weather and are now wearing graffiti from kids in the neighborhood. It sits on a small pond whose lush waterlilies and cattails hide a deep and very dark secret.
In fact, the pond wasn’t hiding just one dark secret. It was hiding two.
The first secret was about the water itself. You see, it wasn’t just a pretty pond. Beneath it’s still surface where dragonflies buzzed and marsh flowers bloomed lay the entrance to a vast cave system. If you looked carefully, you could see an opening to the cave across on the other side of the pond. And if you leaned over the rocky edge of the pool, you could see another one right beneath your feet.
The quiet pond was a source of fresh water that would never run dry. But it was also a portal to an underworld called Xibalba by the Maya where the cenote dragon lives and the ancestors wait. As you can see, it was a very special pond indeed.
And that is why there is another dark secret about it.
The second secret involves its guardians.
The story goes like this: There were two families who were arguing over the ownership of the land. One family began work on a beautiful house sitting above the cenote, but it was never finished because of the family fighting. The argument became so heated that one of the families reached out to a local shaman to bring several aluxes to guard the property.
What is an alux, you may ask?
Alux is the Mayan name for an elemental being a bit like a fairy or a leprechaun. You may be laughing now, but here on the Yucatan Peninsula they are taken very seriously. They are small (about 1-2 feet high) and usually invisible, but they are occasionally seen as tiny people or animals with odd traits about them. They are created by shamans as guardians, but they must be fed or they can get very cranky, dangerous even. (To read more about aluxes, go HERE. I Believe. I had one in my house!)
Well, it wasn’t long before the villagers started hearing the awful screams of someone drowning in the pond/cenote. People would stop and look to see where the screams were coming from, but there was never anyone there.
Years have gone by since the falling out and the arrival of the aluxes. The families have still not agreed on who owns the land and the house sits deserted.
Wanna go spend the night there?
I bet you think I’m joking!
Hoping to go on a sleep-over,
Laura
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