"I've always wanted to visit Spain," Lívia said dreamily.
"How about Barcelona?" I asked, immediately excited.
"I've only been to Madrid. Let's go!" Helena replied.
"I've heard it's beautiful! Kids, we're going to Barcelona!"
Pedro had never been there either and would have loved to join us, but he'd already gone back to work.
After our flight, we caught a bus and got off at Plaça de Catalunya. Taking advantage of the last light of the afternoon, crowds of people wandered through the streets lined with countless shops.
Using the map on her phone, Helena guided us toward the hotel.
The farther we walked, the darker the streets became, and the older the buildings looked. Many people were sleeping on the sidewalks.
"Here we are," Helena said. "This is the building."
The façade was covered in scaffolding for renovations.
We pushed open a narrow wooden door and stepped inside.
The building itself looked at least eighty years old, but the red carpet and chandelier decorating the entrance were brand new.
We climbed a staircase to the apartment we'd rented online and passed through another narrow, timeworn door.
Inside our bedroom stood a small table with a lamp and a single chair.
"It smells like rotten eggs in here," Luigi observed.
"I don't smell anything. Helena, are all the windows open?" I asked, puzzled.
"The owner will be here soon to bring the keys and collect the payment," she explained.
We opened yet another door, its old hinges groaning loudly.
Slowly, the four of us stepped into the apartment together.
The place possessed a haunting kind of beauty.
Everything was impeccably maintained and brightly lit.
The antique wooden furniture filled the rooms, while paintings and ornate mirrors adorned the walls. Intricate plaster moldings decorated the ceiling, giving the apartment an air of old-world elegance.
"I love it!" Helena exclaimed as she hurried into the living room.
She tossed her coat onto the couch and sat down, taking in the décor.
"So? What do you think?"
"It's nice," Lívia replied.
"It looked nicer in the pictures online," I said. "But the location alone makes it worth it."
"I like it," Helena said with a happy smile.
A strange feeling settled over me.
I had the unmistakable sense that we were being watched.
"This place isn't empty..."
"The atmosphere's crawling with spirits," Luigi warned.
"The spiritual heaviness in here is overwhelming," Lívia said, rising from the couch. Then she began to pray. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name..."
She walked slowly through the apartment as she prayed over every room.
"They live here! You can't make them leave! They'll stay—and they'll get revenge!" Luigi cried.
"Everything here belongs to us," a spirit said to me.
"Lívia, don't be afraid. God is watching over us. They can't harm us," I reassured her.
Luigi ran into one of the bedrooms and whispered,
"There's some chips and bottled water in here. I'll even leave my suitcase open so you can eat and drink. Just... please don't bother us tonight."
What right do we have to drive them out? I wondered. They were here first, and we'll be gone soon enough. I'd like to talk to them. Why are they here?
Then, in my mind, I saw an angel, his expression fierce, rebuking me.
"There must be no communication."
Moments later, I sensed more angels arriving to stand guard over us.
We wandered into the kitchen.
We wanted coffee, but the mugs were cloudy and scratched inside.
Lívia pulled open the drawer beneath the sink.
"We can't use this silverware!" she exclaimed, holding up a spoon.
"Mom, stop," Helena scolded.
"You'd actually use these?"
Time had stained the utensils beyond recognition.
Instead, we went out for dinner and returned late, exhausted.
"I'm taking the room with the double bed," Helena announced.
"I'm sleeping with Mom! This room is ours!" Luigi shouted as he raced toward one of the bedrooms.
"And I'm sleeping with my mom!" Bela called after him.
"Good night, everyone."
We turned off the lights and settled into bed.
After a few moments, Luigi whispered,
"Mom... there's a spirit watching us."
"We're going to pray, and then we're going to sleep peacefully," I said, trying to reassure him.
"He's standing by that door," he said, pointing toward a locked door secured with a padlock.
"What does he look like?"
"He has a gray face... and black eyes."
I let out a quiet sigh.
"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty..." I began reciting Psalm 91.
Sometime during the prayer, Luigi drifted off to sleep.
Not long afterward, I fell asleep too.
At dawn, the alarm went off.
I sat up in bed, and suddenly I had a vision.
An elderly woman, her hair neatly pinned into a bun, sat quietly in the kitchen, sipping tea from a cup identical to the ones in the apartment.
I went into Lívia's room and told her what I had seen.
"Judging by the way she was dressed, they've been here for a very long time."
"I didn't sleep well," she admitted. "Let's have breakfast and get out of here as soon as we can."
We spent the day exploring the city and returned that evening.
The spiritual atmosphere inside the apartment still felt restless, but I slept peacefully. I knew God was with us, and there was nothing those spirits could do.
The next morning, we headed out early to collect little stones along the beach.
"Look how beautiful this one is! I'm taking it home as a souvenir," I said, holding up a colorful stone.
Later, we admired Gaudí's masterpieces, enjoyed a wonderful afternoon coffee, and eventually returned to the apartment.
"Our flight to Porto leaves tomorrow at 7:30 a.m.," Helena reminded us.
"Let's set the alarm for 3:30. We'll have an hour to get ready and make it to the airport without rushing," I suggested.
"Luigi, Bela, remember—we have to get up early tomorrow," Lívia said.
We chatted for a little while longer before going to bed.
Around midnight, I woke up.
I noticed the light was still on in Lívia's room, so I walked over.
"Is everything okay?" I asked, concerned.
Lívia was staring at her phone, visibly shaken.
"We need to get out of here, Ana," she said nervously. "Look at this picture."
"What is that hand on my chest?" I asked, horrified. "Lívia, you edited this in Photoshop, didn't you?"
"Look at me!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide with fear. "I wouldn't even know how to do that!"
"The kids weren't with us. Helena wouldn't know how to do it either..."
"When I took that picture, I felt as though something passed right through my body," she confessed. "It gave me chills."
"I remember you saying that."
"It's a white hand... coming out from inside you."
"I was frightened too. How could that hand possibly have ended up there?"
"It looks just like the one in that painting..." she said, pointing behind me. "The one hanging on the wall."
I turned around—and froze.
My heart began pounding.
The painting was grotesque.
A gray face with black eyes was enclosed inside a box. Beneath it protruded a pair of feet. On one side of the box was a white hand—identical to the one in the photograph—and behind it emerged the profile of a head with long hair flowing backward.
"I only just noticed that painting! Who would hang something like that in a kitchen?"
"Who would leave something like that in a house? We have to get out of here. Right now!" Lívia cried in desperation.
"There aren't any buses this early, Lívia," I reminded her, turning to face her.
"I can't take this anymore! The oppression in this place is unbearable!" she said, waving her arms anxiously.
"Our prayers are disturbing them. They can't touch us, but they can try to frighten us."
Lívia was terrified.
I could almost read her thoughts.
"Lívia, you can't photograph spirits. They're immaterial. There has to be something wrong with the picture..."
"They do show up in photographs sometimes!" she shouted.
"Those are hoaxes. The spiritual world is perceived with the mind. You know that," I reminded her.
Our voices woke Helena and the children.
Helena got up and quietly began getting dressed.
The children hurried over, eager to find out what had upset Lívia so badly.
"Helena, once you're dressed, I want to show you something," Lívia said, clutching her phone.
"What is it? Just show me now, Mom," Helena said impatiently.
"Show us!" Luigi chimed in.
Helena pulled on her sweater.
"All right. What's in this picture, Helena?"
She took the phone and zoomed in.
"I don't know... there's a hand on Aunt Ana's chest..." she said, studying it carefully. Then she frowned.
"That hand is Aunt Ana's."
"No, look more closely!"
"It is, Mom. The picture's distorted. There's the side of her head here... and her legs over there. It's Aunt Ana," she said, sounding irritated.
"Lívia can't photograph the spiritual world," I repeated.
"Listen to Mom," Luigi said. "She knows what she's talking about."
"Let me see, Auntie," Bela asked.
Lívia handed her the phone.
The children examined the picture carefully.
"We know the spiritual world can send messages into ours," I said thoughtfully. "But the distortions in the photo do match details from that painting."
"What painting?" Helena asked.
"The one in the kitchen. Go look," Lívia replied nervously.
Helena studied it for a moment.
"It's just a coincidence," she concluded.
We finished getting ready in record time and hurried out into the dark streets.
It was still before dawn.
A police car pulled up beside us.
The officers watched us until we reached the bus stop.
Then they drove away.
"What a relief to be out of there," Lívia admitted, taking a deep breath.
"Haunted apartment or not, I loved Barcelona," I said with a relieved laugh.
Just then, a homeless man approached the bus door, asking for help.
"Buenos días..." he greeted us, extending an open hand.
His hand was strikingly pale, just like the one in the painting.
A chill ran through me.
I quickly ushered the children onto the bus.
"Buenos días," Lívia replied as she climbed aboard.
"Mom, don't answer him if you're not going to help," Helena said loudly once she was already inside the bus.
The doors closed, and the bus pulled away almost immediately.
"Mom... that homeless man is running after the bus!" Luigi said, frightened.
I turned to look.
There was nothing there.
I wrapped my arms around him.
The bus carried us to the airport, where we boarded our flight to Porto, Portugal.