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Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 17:19:51 -0800 (PST)
From: MMorton875@aol.com
To: ghost-stories@aurora.cdb.com
Subject: Spanish Castle
I have always been fascinated by stories of the supernatural. My mother's father was born in Eastern Europe, while my father's family has been in America since before the revolution. Being a product of this union, I am torn between being a rationalist and being privy to some unusual occurences. My mother and her family say that I have a "talent", but the logician in me consistently is able to find a logical explanation for various happenings to which I am a witness, with the exception of one.
When I was a boy my family and I lived overseas. From 1978 to 1980 we found ourselves in Algeria, in northern Africa. My father was employed by an oil company, and that company gave its employees a two week vacation every six months. In June of 1979 the family decided to take its vacation touring Spain and Portugal. In Spain, there are are series of hotels called "paradors" or "paradores". These are restored castles, monasteries, and nunneries which the Spanish government have turned into modern hotels.
During this trip, my family had just left Toledo and we were on our way to Granada in southern Spain. I was fourteen at the time, and was having the time of my life. We decided to stop at a parador halfway between Toledo and Granada, and I was excited at the prospect. The hotel that my father selected was not a restored castle, but a monastery. However, a ruined castle lay not 100 yards from the hotel, and being the inquisitive 14 year old kid that I was, I made the castle my target for exploration.
We checked in at about four in the afternoon, and after we got settled in our room, I made a beeline for this castle. It was a magnificent structure, with an imposing gatehouse, curtain walls, and a central keep. Though in ruins, the main walls and structures were still standing and I crawled all over the place. Before I knew it, time had left me and it was dark, nearing nine o'clock.
Seeing the time, I made my way out of the castle, since I knew that we were to eat at 9:30 that night (in Europe its is customary to eat at a rather late hour). I found the track to the hotel and began to walk towards the hotel when I heard a peculiar swishing noise to right. I whirled to the source of the noise, but saw nothing except the grasses blowing in the breeze.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure on the top of the castles' wall, right next to the gatehouse. I turned to face the castle, and as I did, the figure fell forward off of the wall. I remember that the figure had a conical helmet on, and that he glistened from the moonlight as he fell. I thought that odd later when I thought about the episode, in that it was cloudy that night.
I ran to where I thought that the figure had landed, but found nothing. I looked about for a moment, and then hurried back to the hotel when I thought about the probable source of my experience.
To this day I am not able to put a logical explanation on the events of that evening. I am only glad that I was not on the wall at the time!
Tom Morton