The Shed by Anonymous

We lived with our grandfather. He had a little storage shed at the back of his property where he kept very old things, it was like a tiny little house. It had a stove, old wedding clothes, children's toys from a long time ago. It was full of family memories.

Every single day, my brother would go to that shed. He always said there was a woman who lived inside.

According to him, this woman was good. She lived together with two other beings, like three of them. But the one my brother kept visiting was different from the other two. He described her as a very tall, very thin woman covered in black hair, with red eyes, while the other two were reddish, and they treated her badly because she was different.

Now, I want to make clear: my brother was extremely timid. He was scared of everything, the dark, horror movies, going out at night. But every single morning before kindergarten, he would go to that shed to say hello to her. He said she was always crying. He'd bring her flowers he'd pick from the yard. He'd bring her little gifts. When we got back from school, he'd go again. He would sit outside the shed, talking to her, playing, as if she were another mother to him.

The shed had a chain on it, so you had to squeeze in with effort, the door would jam. But my brother, skinny as he was, would force his way in. Not because he had to, but because of his love for her.

One night, we were playing hide and seek with our cousins very late, midnight, 1 in the morning, in the courtyard, which was like a little orchard with trees. My brother went to hide in that shed. We couldn't find him anywhere.

He stayed in there the whole time. We don't know what he was doing with her. He just had this deep affection for her. Our mom always warned him: "Don't go in there, something will happen to you." But he always came back.

Eventually, over time and with a lot of scolding, my brother slowly started to forget about her. The shed itself began to fall apart. No one ever found out what happened to the being inside.

Then our grandmother died. She had been very Catholic, always praying, always with God. And it seemed like when she died, everything, the shed, the bond my brother had with that entity, all of it collapsed together.

My brother completely forgot about her. He doesn't even remember her well now.

We later found out that one of our uncles practiced witchcraft. He had poisoned our dog. There were disputes over the inheritance of my grandfather's house. And that shed, it had everything in it you'd need to practice brujería: old wedding dresses, items connected to people, birthday gifts. We even found old eggs with dead chicks inside, dried up, years old, but there were no hens on the property. Maybe, in some way, my brother's kindness, bringing her flowers, accepting her despite everything, feeling compassion for the one who was mistreated by the others, maybe that's what protected our family from whatever someone had put in that place.