The Gateway Ghost

Please read the post titled “A Bit of Personal History” before this post. Also, trigger warning: a woman kills her children in this paraphrased retelling.

This is my paraphrasing of the story of La Llorona. I’ve heard many different versions of it over the years, spanning from the version Joe Hayes tells, both in person on Museum Hill when he visits Santa Fe—from what I’ve read, he’s from Pennsylvania, and I think he lives out there, but I could be wrong. I try not to know people’s exact locations, if I’m entirely honest… (Examples: I know Stephen King lives in Maine, and I have an idea of what his house looks like—Sister found a really cool picture of it in the library one day, and we made a copy of the picture. I still have it framed and hanging on my wall. I have no idea where he actually lives. I know, too, that George R. R. Martin lives in Santa Fe, and someone rang his doorbell and left a brown paper bag on his doorstep, and when he opened the bag, he found a copy of Stephen King’s Misery. I have no idea where he lives, either. I just know where to find his theater and book store. Because books. Hello!) I’ve heard Sister’s version of the story, too, and can’t recall much of it. I’ve even heard iterations of it on podcasts—I heard a modern twist version very recently on Deadtime Stories, one of their earlier episodes, and I know it was covered at some point by the podcast called Something Scary—I don’t listen or follow Something Scary so much anymore. It fell to the wayside, and then got deleted, to be honest. It’s partly Morbid: A True Crime Podcast’s fault. I got horribly spoiled with Ash and Alaina. They’re a nice reprieve from the horror sometimes—I think I’m still a little scarred from West Memphis Three, though, if I’m being honest. Or, maybe I’m also having a Morbid, Interrupted in addition to the Supernatural, Interrupted. (I know they’re in Massachusetts. I can’t tell you where they are, either, other than Massachusetts. They don’t want to be found, and I respect that.)

            Snuggle up, World. Get your cozy blanket ready and wrapped around you. Get your back against something solid, so that—hopefully—whatever’s lurking in the dark won’t be able to sneak up behind you. It’s Story Time on the Spooky Sukie Blog.

            Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maria. She was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen, and when she grew up, all the men in her village tried to woo her. They brought her flowers, they serenaded her, they brought her the finest silks from far away lands. Maria didn’t pay any of them any mind. She was too good for them.

            Then one day, someone new came to the village: The most handsome man Maria had ever seen, and he rode the wildest horses. All the women swooned over him, but not Maria. No, she paid him no mind and ignored him. He wasn’t used to that, of course, and took notice of her. He tried to woo her: he tried serenading her, too, and bringing her flowers. Maria ignored him, until one day he asked her to marry him. Of course, Maria said yes. They were married, and Maria bore him two children, but he traveled for business, and as the years went on, the longer he was gone from home. Then one day, he came home, and the children ran to him, and Maria started to run to him, but paused at the sight of another woman with him, a prettier woman, a rich woman (I don’t think Maria had been wealthy, and the other woman is usually depicted as someone classier than Maria, in addition to being another woman).

            Maria was heartbroken. She was furious. She didn’t know what else to do besides take her children to the river that night and throw them in. They screamed and cried for her, and she realized what she’d done and ran up the river, calling their names, trying to get within arms reach of them, trying to see where they might turn up next in the river so she could get ahead of them and maybe try and grab them that way…but then she tripped over a rock (from here, it’s said that she either hit her head on a rock and died that way, or she fell into the river and drowned as well; either way, she dead). They found her the next day (either she washed up, or it’s evident that she tripped and hit her head; maybe even both). They buried her, but they never found her children.

            In some versions, it is said that she was turned away from Heaven because she lost her children—she did the right thing in trying to get them back, but as she didn’t…so, she can’t enter Heaven. I guess Hell won’t have her either, though I’ve not heard why. This legend also has the makings of a cautionary tale: Don’t be so prideful. Pride come before a fall and all of that, which clearly, Maria had an abundance of pride from beginning to end, no matter the version or telling of the story. She still haunts the river(s), by the way, looking for her children. Either she gets confused, or any children will do, especially if they don’t heed their parents when they call for their children to come home because it’s getting dark, or it’s dinner time. Those children especially are ones ripe for La Llorona to try and take back with her…

            As mentioned in the first post, this legend has been adapted for the big screen most recently for a Conjuring installation; it’s meant to be a stand-alone movie, but of course, there’s an Easter Egg that ties the movie La Llorona to the Conjuring—or, more specifically the Annabelle—franchise. I saw the movie in theaters with a close friend and four twelve-year-old girls. The person that gave us our tickets informed us that the movie was rated R, and that if the girls left the theater, they needed an adult to accompany them. They were accompanied, and the kids and the adults had a good time (my friend and I ran out of nachos we were sharing. I was irritated at the small bag they’d given us; she very awesomely went to get us more, which we proceeded to continue to split). I was surprised to learn that my friend had this same childhood fear of La Llorona—she’d learned about La Llorona when she’d lived in Mexico when she was a little girl. We’d met through work, and while we don’t work together anymore, we keep in touch. (I graduated college just in time!...to get my dream…retail job…. I’m grateful for the experience, and I never would have met this wonderful woman without that job, let alone end up watching a horror movie with her and four twelve-year-old’s, which I’m always going to remember and look back on. Please don’t yell at me for “bad parenting”—the girls could have been doing worse things, like drugs, or wandering around the mall aimlessly and possibly getting abducted for who-knows-what. They were safe and in good company with each other and the two adults. A little psychological scarring never hurt anyone. Just look at the Winchesters. They turned out…um…well, I think Sam and Dean turned out just fine.)

            Speaking of the Winchesters and Supernatural, if La Llorona’s story sounded at all familiar to you—and you watch Supernatural, or you’ve at least seen the pilot episode…it might be because La Llorona has a lot of similarities to another legend: “The Woman in White.” Woman loves dude, dude loves woman, they have kids either in or out of wedlock, he cheats on wife or decides he’d rather marry “his peer.” If we really wanted to take a deeper dive into this, we could really do the damn thing and talk about caste systems and marrying within caste’s, but this is already reaching my personal limit, and this is Spooky Sukie Blog, not history lesson on caste systems. Bottom line, woman kills kids and haunts…a river, a road, whatever. If I’m spoiling the pilot episode for anyone, I’m sorry. I’m not going to tell you how Sam and Dean “help” the ghost, if that’s any consolation. I’m just pointing out that this might sound familiar because even Supernatural has touched on it.

            I’ve read on Wikipedia, doing some research for La Llorona for one of my books, that she also is somewhere in season 15…I have no idea where. I just know she’s apparently there. I’m excited to see what they do with her, but not so excited I’ve resumed my Supernatural viewing.

            I’m waiting until I have a Supernatural dream again, okay?

            Anyway…if this scared you…yay! I’m doing my job right! If not…I hope you liked it, and I hope you come back for more! In the meantime…

            Keep it spooky!