​The Shield of Barlovento (Short Story) by Hanner Goenaga

​Albert was a boy who grew up with his grandparents in the small city of Barlovento. He was a good person, an excellent student, and always supportive of those around him. However, upon reaching adulthood, he had to move to a neighboring town to live at his mother’s house.

​That suburb was a dark place, surrounded by a vast, withered forest where a fearsome whistling sound could be heard whenever the wind struck the treetops. Albert’s mother, Mary, was always seen prowling the streets with a group of strange women dressed in black. Rumors said they were witches and that Mary, influenced by them, had sunk into the dark world of spiritual magic.

​Albert slept in the last room of the house on an old folding chair tied with ropes on the sides, which extended so he could lie down. One day, he began to notice his mother passing by his door minute after minute, watching him with an expression of rage and a strange glint in her eyes. Although it intrigued him, he ultimately didn't give it much thought; after all, she was his mother, and he didn't suspect any evil intent behind her actions.

​The morning after that strange stalking, he woke up with a sharp discomfort. Upon checking, he realized the rope on the left side of his chair had snapped. It seemed odd to him since it had been tightly secured the night before, but he decided to get ready for university so as not to be late, thinking he would fix it when he returned. That evening, when Albert asked his mother for materials to repair it, she replied in a dry, indifferent tone:

—Leave it be, we’ll fix it tomorrow— she said, feigning lack of interest with perfect coldness.

​Albert saw nothing strange in this; he simply obeyed and went to bed. Beside his chair-bed, he had a small table where he kept his books. In the early hours of the morning, a loud crash woke him. When he opened his eyes, his heart froze: for a split second, he saw the elongated chest of a black figure whose head peeked unnaturally from the side of his own body. Thanks to the moonlight, he saw that his table had been overturned; his books, which he cared for so much, lay scattered on the floor like corpses.

​At dawn, the first thing he saw was Mary standing in the doorway.

—The spirits protect you— she whispered with a mixture of disappointment and fear.

​In that instant, Albert was assaulted by inexplicable visions. He saw his mother’s friends demanding a sacrifice in the middle of the street: "If you wish for us to allow your entry into our clan of darkness, you must give us your son’s soul." He saw his mother handing over a photograph of him to one of the witches in a room saturated with the smell of sulfur and tobacco smoke.

​The vision transported him to his room while he was sleeping. From the perspective of his mother, who was watching him from the door, he could see a dark flying being cutting through the left side of his chair and snapping the ropes. When the next night came, the same specter decided to attack the other side from behind. The idea was for Albert to fall to the ground while he slept and hit his head so hard that it would lead to his death.

​But just as the being was about to succeed, it crashed into mid-air and bounced against the wall. Filled with rage, it tried again and again, but nothing worked; it was as if Albert had an invisible shield or someone was standing in the way. Finally, at the boiling point of its fury and seeking revenge, the malevolent being did the only thing it could: it lunged at the small table, rammed into it with force, and sent it flying to the floor.

​That entity, exhausted by the purity of its victim, vanished with the first light of dawn. Mary, seeing her son unharmed, understood that she had lost her place in the clan. Albert didn't know it, but that night, his goodness had been a shield that not even the darkest of curses could pierce.