There were few nights like that in the Empordà, with a winter determined to sneak into every corner. The Mystery of the Smells and Apparitions at Mas Torrencito
The fog covered everything in such a way that the road to the farmhouse looked more like a horror movie tunnel than a simple country road. Mas Torrencito, our 1412 farmhouse, looked like a legendary castle in the middle of the landscape. The fireplaces were lit, and inside, everything seemed a picture of calm and comfort… or so I thought.
Some clients were in the chill out, that area of the house where a 100-inch screen was broadcasting the “Pasapalabra” program as if it were a live show. Other clients, less interested in guessing words, were chatting in the living room or dining quietly in the dining room, each in the company of their beloved pets. Our dogs, Masto, Maky, Mastitwo and Mamas, were scampering around the rooms, making their territorial authority clear, albeit with the usual peace and quiet. So far, the evening was perfect for the farmhouse to give a warm welcome to all.
But, as always at Mas Torrencito, the calm has a limited time.
Blanca and Ramón. The Mystery of the Smells and the Apparitions at Mas Torrencito
-Miguel, have you already forgotten about Blanca and Ramon? Mireia reminded me, appearing from the kitchen with a frown that I only reserved for occasions when I was absent-minded. Blanca and Ramon were our friends and trusted clients, who came religiously to spend a few days, and we always picked them up at the train station in Camallera, the neighboring town.
I sighed and grabbed the car keys. To tell the truth, the drive in the rain and fog was not the most appetizing, but the thought of returning soon to the warmth of the farmhouse motivated me enough. Mireia said goodbye to me with a smile of those that carry an implicit “do it fast and come back”.
As I walked through the foggy tunnel, I thought I had already seen everything at Mas Torrencito: dogs in superhero costumes, cats doing yoga on cushions, even ferrets behaving like the owners of the place. But nothing prepared me for what I would find that night.
As soon as I arrived at the station, I recognized the silhouette of Blanca and Ramon under the bus shelter. We greeted each other with laughter and hugs, as always. Blanca was cheerful and talkative, while Ramon maintained that calmness that seemed to hide secrets. I helped to load the luggage and, as soon as we got into the car, Blanca broke the silence with a phrase that left me wondering:
-Miguel, have you noticed anything strange in the air? Like… a strange smell?
-A smell? -I repeated, hesitating.
There was nothing out of the ordinary in the car, or so I thought. But as soon as we entered the farmhouse, I understood what he meant.
An unsettling aroma.
As soon as we walked through the door, we were hit by a strange mixture of smells, like some kind of sulfur mixed with burnt sausage. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was… disconcerting. Mireia was in the chill out with a couple of clients, and when she saw me enter with Blanca and Ramon, she approached me wrinkling her nose.
-Did you smell that, Miguel? It looks like someone tried to make a roast with rotten eggs,” he said, looking at me with a mixture of disgust and curiosity.
Blanca and Ramon joined in the comments, and within minutes, the aroma was the main topic of conversation among the guests. We couldn’t find its source. From time to time it seemed to intensify in the chill out, then disappear, and reappear in the dining room, as if it were a culinary ghost.
-Isa and Vincent are about to arrive too, aren’t they? -murmured Mireia.
Just at that moment, I heard the sound of a car approaching and I peeked into the driveway. It was Vicent with Isa, and, of course, his dog, a huge boxer that looked more like a bull in its best days. The boxer came in sniffing the environment and immediately made a strange grimace, as if he had caught the mysterious scent.
-What is that stench? -Isa asked, as soon as she walked through the door.
We shrugged our shoulders. The dogs, including the boxer, sniffed every corner of the driveway. I tried to relax, thinking that, as in many old houses, strange smells sometimes came out of nowhere.
The evening continued, and after a while, we all began to forget about the mystery. But it wouldn’t be long before the next incident put us all on alert again.
The first scare. The Mystery of the Smells and the Apparitions in Mas Torrencito.
As we tried to make the strange aroma disappear from our minds, a high-pitched scream echoed from the dining room, chilling our blood. We rushed towards the place, and when we arrived, we found Mr. Gutierrez, a man in his sixties, petrified and pointing to the corner of the dining room.
-I saw it! A shadow! It passed right there… with a hat. He had a hat.
We looked at each other, some hiding a nervous laugh and others trying not to look too scared. Although Mr. Gutierrez was still shaking, there was no trace of the “shadow in a hat” he claimed to have seen.
To reassure him, I said something I didn’t quite believe myself:
-I’m sure it was a reflection, Mr. Gutiérrez. The shadows in such an old house can play tricks.
-No, it wasn’t just any shadow. This… was someone,” he insisted.
The clients returned to their activities, although the tension was palpable in the atmosphere. Mireia and I looked at each other, exchanging a look that said “this is getting out of control,” but we tried to remain calm. Our dogs, for their part, did not seem very willing to ignore the situation; in fact, they were all looking in the same direction Mr. Gutierrez had pointed, growling low and with unusual intensity.
We tried to distract them, but their eyes were still fixed on the empty corner of the dining room, as if something was there. Something only they could see.
A frustrating search. The Mystery of the Smells and Apparitions at Mas Torrencito
In the midst of the uncertainty, another customer, a woman named Lourdes, appeared at the entrance to the dining room with her face completely unhinged.
-My dog! My dog Lolo has disappeared! -he shouted, looking at everyone as if he suspected someone was to blame.
Lourdes was a regular visitor to the farmhouse and her chihuahua dog, Lolo, was almost as famous as the house itself. He was an arrogant dog, one of those that look at you as if they were doing you a favor by letting you pet him. He never left her side, and never ventured out of the house, so his disappearance was as strange as it was unexpected.
We set out to look for Lolo in every corner, but after searching rooms, living rooms, and even the garden under the fog, we found no trace of the dog. It was as if he had vanished, leaving only an echo of his presence, and a light patch of hair on his favorite pillow.
With each new event, the atmosphere became heavier, and the murmurs of the customers began to mix with the wildest theories. What if it was a ghost, what if the house was haunted, what if Lolo had been abducted by aliens.
As we returned to the dining room, I noticed that Blanca and Ramon, with their characteristic calm, were too quiet, as if they had understood something that the rest of us could not see.
Unexpected tourists
As we were trying to calm Lourdes about Lolo’s disappearance and the whispering among the customers began to intensify, the reception phone rang. We all turned our heads toward the device, which seemed to ring with uncharacteristic urgency. At Mas Torrencito, we rarely get calls this late.
-Who will it be now? -I muttered, as I was about to answer.
-Hello! -Uh… how do you say? Ah, yes. Good evening! -said a voice with a thick English accent and a hurried tone.
-Hey… Hello! Good evening! -I replied, quickly adjusting to the rusty English I had learned in school.
–Yes, yes… um… We are lost. Very lost. We’re in the middle of… fog… so much fog! And we need a place to stay… we saw your sign on the road but… can’t find you! -The voice sounded somewhere between amused and a little desperate.
Hearing this, Mireia and some of the customers began to laugh quietly, although Lourdes was still frowning, clearly worried about Lolo.
-Don’t worry! -I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Uh… I mean, don’t worry! We’ll guide you! .
I quickly gave them directions, although I wasn’t sure they followed them at all, because at some point in the conversation one of the tourists exclaimed that “the fog was like a horror movie monster”. Finally, after several attempts, they understood the way, or so it seemed, and I said goodbye with an animated “See you soon!”.
The arrival of the guiris. The Mystery of the Smells and the Apparitions in Mas Torrencito
About twenty minutes passed, and just as the customers were beginning to disperse to their rooms, we heard a couple of timid knocks on the door. When I opened the door, I found myself face to face with two figures that looked like something out of an indie music festival: one of them, a blond with a bushy beard and a knitted scarf that looked like a giant necklace, and the other, a red-haired girl with a giant smile and a camera hanging from her neck, as if she was ready to photograph every last corner of the house.
-Hello!” they both greeted each other, and after that they started laughing and greeting the dogs, who came over right away, sniffing at their suitcases.
–Hello! We are… uh… very… uh… sorry! Thank you so much for helping us! -said the girl, who then introduced herself as Lucy, as the blond, who they called Oliver, nodded and bent down to pet Mastitwo.
We quickly showed them to a room and offered them some hot coffee. The couple settled down in the lounge with some guests who were still around, and the atmosphere began to relax. With a charming naturalness, Lucy and Oliver began to tell anecdotes of their trip through northern Spain, recounting how they had gotten lost in the fog in a story involving a map that, according to them, looked like it had been drawn by a five-year-old.
Isa and Vicent, who were still in the chill out, laughed out loud at the story of the guiris, and soon struck up a conversation with them.
-Oh, it’s like a… what do you call it? A… haunted farmhouse? -asked Oliver in his rudimentary Spanish, causing several customers to burst out laughing.
-So it seems! -I replied, laughing and, for a moment, forgetting the tension of the missing cat and the mysterious shadows.
The calm after the storm. The Mystery of the Smells and the Apparitions in Mas Torrencito (2nd part)
The new guests were like a breath of fresh air. Lucy turned out to be an animal lover, and quickly integrated with the dogs and cats, becoming a four-legged friend in a matter of minutes. Oliver, meanwhile, was an expert at telling exaggerated stories, and within minutes had everyone in the living room laughing as he described a supposedly “epic battle” he had fought against a stray cat in a village in Portugal.
Even Lourdes, still worried about Lolo, could not help laughing when Oliver began to imitate the meowing of the “ferocious cat” that, according to him, had tried to “attack” him in the middle of the street. And so, little by little, the atmosphere relaxed and the tension in the house diminished. Even the dogs, who had been restless until a moment ago, curled up next to Lucy, as if they knew they were in good company.
The couple was so at ease that they decided to stay in the chill out, where they settled on one of the sofas with a blanket and started watching “Pasapalabra” with the other customers, commenting on the words as if they knew exactly what the show was about. The fog outside, which had seemed frightening before, now felt like a cozy blanket that insulated us from the rest of the world.
Mireia approached me and smiled.
-Miguel, these guiris arrived just in time. I don’t know why, but I have the feeling that their good energy was needed tonight.
I nodded, looking at the customers and their pets, all together in a kind of strange but pleasant peace. For a moment, I thought the night had decided to give us a break.
An unexpected discovery.
Just as we all seemed to relax and the atmosphere became warm again, a peculiar sound broke the silence. It was a high-pitched, soft bark coming… from behind the sofa!
Lourdes jumped up, and before she could say anything, Lolo, her little yorkshire terrier, appeared with an expression as calm as ever, as if he had been there all along, hidden in a secret hiding place. With that characteristic yorkshire attitude, Lolo approached his owner wagging his tail and giving her a look that seemed to say, “What have you been worrying about?”
-Lolo! -Lourdes exclaimed, hugging and caressing him as she examined him to make sure he was all right. Where have you been, you little rascal!
The customers and we relaxed that little Lolo had turned up safe and sound, and Oliver, unable to help himself, started joking, suggesting that Lolo might be “the real guardian of the Mas Torrencito, spy uniform and all”. He even posed with Lolo for a photo, while Lucy laughed and captured the moment with her camera.
Back to normal?
And when it seemed that everything was back to normal, a detail left me intrigued. As I looked behind the sofa to see Lolo’s hiding place, I noticed something strange on the floor. It looked like… footprints? Yes, small wet footprints, clearly doggie, that went from the entrance to behind the sofa. However, there was something odd about them, as if they were superimposed on larger ones.
I tried to ignore it, but the bewilderment was impossible to avoid. How could such a small puppy leave footprints with that shape and size?
Mireia noticed them too, and we looked at each other not quite knowing what to think. For a moment, I almost dared to ask Lourdes if Lolo had been behaving strangely, but I decided not to scare her. However, as we walked back to the chill out, a question settled in my mind and I couldn’t help myself:
Was there anything or anyone else at Mas Torrencito that night? …..
The night progressed and we all tried to relax, although the wet footprints and Lolo’s strange behavior had us intrigued. The Mystery of the Smells and Apparitions at Mas Torrencito
Lourdes continued to pamper her little yorkshire, and the customers, although a little tense, tried to convince themselves that everything had a rational explanation.
Suddenly, Oliver stood up from the couch with a startled expression and pointed to a small shadow slipping between the legs of the dining room table.
-Wait... is that… a cat? -he asked, blinking, as the small figure stopped dead in its tracks and watched us with beady eyes.
We turned to see what Oliver had pointed out, and there it was: a stray cat, with gray fur and a sly look, watching us disdainfully from under the table. It was a skinny, lithe cat, who seemed to have found Mas Torrencito the perfect place for dinner… and a little entertainment.
The invading cat of mas torrencito
Mireia and I approached slowly, and the cat, seeing himself discovered, jumped nimbly and hid behind the sofa. Lourdes exclaimed, with a nervous laugh:
-So this is the real culprit of this whole night!
Isa, who watched the scene with an amused smile, nodded.
-Sure, I’m sure this kitten has been going in and out of the house without us noticing. And Lolo… well, I’m sure he’s been following him.
Suddenly, it was all starting to make sense. The cat had been hanging around the house since early in the morning, causing Lolo and the other dogs to chase him around every corner. The wet footprints we had seen on the floor were nothing more than the trail the two had left in their little game of “hide and seek.”
Mireia laughed, now more relaxed, and turned to me.
-So, all this was because of a cat that found its paradise in Mas Torrencito!
The stray cat was watching us from his hiding place, probably feeling very proud of having turned the quiet night of the house upside down. Lolo, seeing that everyone was watching the cat, started barking again, clearly annoyed at having lost the limelight. Lourdes couldn’t help but laugh.
-Come on, Lolo! Did you also want to cause a “mystery night”?
Tension
Oliver and Lucy, delighted with the outcome, began to take pictures of the cat and Lolo. Everyone began to joke about the “legend of the ghost cat of Mas Torrencito” and the evening regained that warm and relaxed atmosphere.
To top it all off, the cat, as calmly as it had entered, came out of hiding and walked slowly toward the door, giving us one last defiant look, as if to say, “I’ll be back.”
Watching him go, Isa joked:
-It seems that in the end, the cat only came to make sure that the Mas Torrencito is of good quality. Even he has approved it!
As laughter filled the room and Lolo finally settled into Lourdes’ lap, the fog outside began to clear. The cat disappeared into the darkness, and with it, the uneasy feeling that had marked the night.
Peace Returned.
The next morning, Mas Torrencito dawned quietly. The guests were laughing about the previous night’s events, and Mireia and I were finally able to relax. The tourists, Oliver and Lucy, took photos of the farmhouse and promised to return for “more adventures”.
Finally, Mas Torrencito recovered its usual tranquility… or at least until a new guest, human or animal, decided to bring a touch of chaos again.
From Mas Torrencito we wish you a good day and that your dog accompanies you!!!!
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If you want, you can see our vouchers for weekends, retirees vouchers, at an incredible price…go to www.mastorrencito.com or if you want you can read more history and anecdotes that have happened to us in Mas Torrencito… Click here:
