“Ghosts?!” Isabel said.
“Yeah! Why do you think I am going to the north of Spain on this archaeological dig? I am looking for ghosts.” Leo, Isabel’s classmate, ran a hand through his dark brown hair and looked at her.
“So, tell me. What kind of ghosts are there?”
“You really want to know?”
Isabel wanted to act cool.
“Of course,” she replied.
“Ok well, the town has Arab roots. You know the church we are going to be digging near? The town has had that church since the 12th century. It has been a town since the 15th century, if you can even call it a town.”
“Wow! That is old!”
“Yeah and maybe this is why the whole town is haunted. And then something weird happened in the 1950s. The town’s whole population just disappeared. There were thousands of people and then one day, they just vanished. No one knows why.”
“What?!” Isabel could not believe what she was hearing.
“Yeah! Crazy, right? Students’ books on desks, packing boxes in the church and the doors of houses open, but there was nobody home. No sign of people anywhere. After that, when people visited the town, they said they could hear voices, see figures in the dark, or some people even said they were transported to another place instantly.”
“Why didn’t the teacher tell us?”
Leo shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t want to scare us.”
“Who doesn’t want to scare you?” said the teacher behind them. Both Leo and Isabel jumped.
“Oh it’s you, teacher! Thank god! You scared us!” answered Isabel.
“We were just talking about La Caleficada and how it is haunted.” Leo said to the teacher.
The teacher looked at Leo.
“Haunted!? By ghosts!?” The teacher looked surprised and laughed nervously.
Both Leo and Isabel nodded their heads.
The teacher was silent for a moment.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Leo.
“You don’t believe those stories, do you?” asked the teacher but she had fear in her eyes when she said it.
“So it’s true!” said Isabel with excitement.
“They are just ghost stories! Stories that are told around a campfire to scare children. They are not real. Don’t worry!” the teacher said as she walked into the classroom.
Isabel and Leo stayed in the hallway staring at each other for a moment.
“So it’s true” Leo said with determination in his voice.