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The Mind-Shattering Horrors of Llanada Villa
The most merciful thing in the World, I think, is the ability of the human mind to partake in all the beautiful of the material World. We live in an infinity of reality that only the beholder can discern. If we choose to go far, we must learn to apricate our circumstances and work towards an enjoyable life. My home is a vast labyrinth, each mile straining in its own direction, and somedays piecing together the dissociated mysteries will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful curse therein, which shall either make one go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly catacombs into the peace and safety of a new dark age. Within these walls, there are strange survivals of apparitions that will freeze the blood. However, it is not from them that there came the single glimpse of forbidden aeons which chills me when I think of the madness that has been bestowed upon my bloodline. The grass and trees have assumed the fresh enamel of mediaeval May, and the turf is figured with little blossoms of azure and white and yellow, like an ornate broidery, and there is a pebbly stream that murmurs beside the way, and the voices of undines are parleying deliciously beneath its waters. The sun-lulled air is laden with wafture of youth and romance; and the longing that wells from the heart of Llanada Villa seems to mingle mystically with the balsams of the fruit orchards. Llanada Villa is like a high castle which holds dominion over a surrounding forest. However, once through the threshold, dreaded glimpses of truth, flash out from a hideous past. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Somewhere within my haunted mansion is a hidden room notorious for sorcery. Servants speak of phantoms, grisly tales; and there are stories of loup-garous and goblins, of fays and devils and vampires that have infested these very walls. However, to these tales, I give little heed, considering it improbable that such creatures would fare abroad in open daylight. Until one day, I was nearing the appointed parlor, which a turn of the path would soon reveal; and my pulses quickened and became tremulous. My thoughts were interrupted by a shrill scream that rose to an unendurable pitch of fear and horror, issuing from the corridors of stillness of the nearby rooms. Startled, I peered at the thick doors; and as the scream fell back to silence, I heard the sound of dull and hurrying footfalls, and a scuffling as of several bodies. Again the scream arose. It was plainly the voice of a woman in some distressful peril. In a small open space beyond the parlor, I saw a woman who was struggling with three ruffians of exceptionally brutal and evil aspect. Even in the haste and vehemence of the moment, I realized that I had never before seen such men or a woman. They could not have been my servant. The woman was clad in a gown of emerald green that matched her eyes; in her face was the pallor of dead things, together with a faery beauty; and her lips were dyed as with the scarlet of newly flowing blood. The men were dark as Moors, and their eyes were red slits of flame beneath oblique brows with animal-like bristles. There was something very peculiar in the shape of their feet. All of them seemingly had cloven hooves, but somehow I could not recall what sort of clothing they had worn. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The woman turned a beseeching gaze upon me as I peered through the door. The men, however, did not seem to heed my presence. Lifting my pistol, I fire with tremendous power at the head of the nearest one—a shot that should have leveled the fellow to Earth. However, the bullet fell to the ground as if forced by unresisting air, and I staggered and almost fell headlong in trying to recover my equilibrium. Dazed and uncomprehending, I saw the knot of struggling figures had vanished utterly. At least, the three men had vanished but from the middle of the parlor, the death-white features of the woman smiled upon me for a moment with faint, inscrutable guile ere. I understood now; and I shivered as I crossed myself. I had been deluded by phantoms or demons, doubtless for no good purpose; I had been the gull of a questionable enchantment. Plainly there was something after all in the legends I had heard, in the ill-renown of The Curse of the Winchester Rifle. I retraced my way down the hall I had been following. However, when I thought to reach again the spot from which I had heard that shrill unearthly scream, I saw that there was no longer path leading to that parlor; nor indeed was this a section of the mansion I recognized. The marble steps, coffered ceilings, the elevator paneled in mahogany like a plutocrat’s library, which carried me to the fourth floor vanished. In lieu of this elegant new addition to Llanada Villa there lay before me a tarn of hallways that were dark and dull as clotting blood, and the trail therein like the hair of suicides, and the skeletons of rotting corpses. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Now, beyond all question, I knew that I was the victim of an evil enchantment. In answering that beguileful cry for succor, I had exposed myself to the spell, had been lured within the circle of its power. I could not know the force of wizardly or demonry had willed to draw me thus; but I knew that my situation was fraught with supernatural menace. As I passed this scene of utter desolation and lifelessness, it seemed a place where cadavers might keep their tryst with demons. Nothing stirred, not even a hammer; and there was no whisper of a servant, no song of birds. I proceeded further and further into my mansion with a cautious eye, as the further I got, the more the scene changed. There were moving lights in the halls that vanished; there were drowned faces in the walls. The parquet floor was an obstacle course of French dollhouses and miniature Japanese castles. The draperies were green silk damask and blue velvet, the furniture Lousi XV gilded oak, the paintings signed by Renior, Cezanne, Degas, Manet, Monet. My many-turreted castle was ancienter than the World, it was older than light; it was coeval with fear and darkness; and horror dwelt upon it and crept unseen but palpable along its bastions. The 600-room mansion was a fairy-tale castle come to life, with secret entrances, mysterious sources of music, and treasure collected from all the World. My home was not so unusual during the day. On the top half, every inch was decorated with Parisian Beaux Arts ostentation, a profusion of lions, cherubs, and goddesses. Oh, but the architects were not done. Soaring above the mansion was an ornate domed tower reaching nine stories, so pleased with itself that it continued to an open cupola. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Although construction was continuous, there was often no sign of life about the castle; and no banners flew above its turrets or its donjon. However, spirits spoke loudly to warn me that there was a fountainhead of sorcery involved in the construction of my home. A growing panic would whisper in my brain, I seemed to hear the rustle of malignant plumes, the mutter of demonian threats and plottings. Amid my dismay and bewilderment, I thought of Annie and William and imagined that as long as I continued construction, that one day I would find them waiting for me in a parlor, library, kitchen, or hallway. Through my mansion throw which I lived was a maze of bafflement and eeriness. Sometimes I could swear I felt implacable arms that stoke to retard me; I could swear that I felt them twine about me with the strength and suppleness of living things. I fought them, insanely, desperately, and seemed to hear a crackling of infernal laughter in the walls as I fought. After years, with a leaden sinking of my heart, as into some ultimate slough of despair and terror, I resigned myself and made no further effort to escape. My very will was benumbed, was crushed down as by the incumbence of a superior volition that would no longer permit my puny recalcitrance. I was unable to resist when a strong hateful compulsion drew my footsteps along the margent of the halls down a new, never before seen room. Doors would open by themselves as if to receive an unexpected guest. But other than me, there was no sign of carpenter, architect, maid, butler, no farmer; and the walls of this great mansion were silent as those of a sepulcher. However, there were these apparent hieroglyphics and a figure of evidently pictorial intent, though its impressionistic execution forbade a very clear idea of its nature. It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. Behind the figure was a vague suggestion of a Cyclopean architectural background. At the opposite end of the parlor was a door which stood mysteriously open, revealing a dark hall. As I approached the doorway, I saw that a man was standing on the threshold; though a moment previous I could have sworn that it was untenanted by any visible form. I knew that any weapon was futile against this supernatural foe. The man was inordinately tall and cadaverous, and was dressed in black garments of a superannuate mode. His lips were strangely red amid his bluish beard and the mortuary whiteness of his face. They were like the lips of the woman who, with her assailants, had disappeared in a manner so dubious when I approached them. His eyes were pale and luminous as marsh-lights; and I shuddered at his gaze and at the cold, ironic smile of his scarlet lips that seemed to reserve a World of secrets all too dreadful and hideous to be disclosed. “I am Gilles Garnier,” the man announced. His tones were both unctuous and hollow, and served to increase the repugnance I felt. And when his lips parted, I had a glimpse of teeth that were unnaturally small and were pointed like the fangs of some fierce animal. Mr. Garnier was haunting my mind like the funereal accents of a knell; though I could not recall at that moment the macabre and spectral ides which the name tended to evoke. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
He turned abruptly, motioning me to follow him. I refused. There were sudden and furtive darkness had closed in upon Llanada Villa without moon or star. My mansion became airless and stifling like the gloom of a sepulcher that had been sealed for ages; and I was aware of the veritable oppression, a corporeal and psychic difficulty in breathing, as I moved from room to room. I flung open a heavy door of dark somber wood. Beyond, in what was the eating-room of this section of the mansions, several ghosts were seated about a long table by the light of cressets no less dreary and dismal than those in the hall. In the strange, uncertain glow, their faces were touched with a gloomy dubiety, with a lurid distortion; and it seemed to me that shadows hardly distinguishable from the figures were gathered around the board. I thought I should go mad with fear. Then sensation of being watched grew upon me until I sprang up and turned with my back to fire. Even then it was impossible for me to see much. I stood glancing from door to door, straining to listen over the thudding of my heart. My twin shadows swayed across the doorway of the study opposite, seeming to move independently. I thought of snuffing the candles; but then I would not be able to see the doors to the landing at all. I had learned that you could count second by your heartbeat. Mine was racing far faster than the measured ticking of a clock, but I began to count, anyway. Only I could keep it up; I would reach twenty or thirty, and be distracted by some phantom sound or movement, and start again. Thus I endured an indefinite interval, while the windows darkened further and further. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
I conjure thee, O Guland, in the name of Satan, in the name of Beelzebuth, in the name of Astaroth, and in the name of all other Spirits, to make haste and appear before me. Come, then in the name of Satan and in the names of all other demons. Come to me, I command thee, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. Come without inflicting any harm upon me, without injury to my body or soul, without maltreating my books, or anything which I use. I command thee to appear without delay, or, that failing, to send me forthwith another Spirit having the same power as thou hast, who shall accomplish my commands and be submitted to my will, wanting which, he whom thou shalt send me, if indeed thou comest not thyself, shall in no wise depart, nor until he hath in all things fulfilled my desire. I offer my blood unto the Divs and Druj, whom are the essence of counter creation. I offer my life force unto the powers of eternal darkness within. May they devour and destroy the imposed shackles of divine light and stasis that I may become unlimitedly powerful. I salute and conjure you, O beautiful Moon, O beautiful Star, O bright light which I hold in my hand! By the air which I breathe, by the breath which is within me, by the Earth which I touch, I conjure you, and by all the names of the spirits who are princes residing in you; by the ineffable Name On, which hath created all; by thee, O Resplendent Angel Gabriel, together with the Prince Mercury, Michiael, and Melchidae! I conjure you again by all the divine Names of God, that you send down to obsess, torment, and harass the body, spirit, soul and five senses nature. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
For many years there has been talk of slamming doors, muffled voices and ghost walking the corridors of The Winchester Mystery House, which is over 140-years-old. Recall, the mansion started off as an eighteen-room farmhouse, which Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester purchased. A number of persons hired as night watchmen have quit after only one night on duty, complaining of door opening and closing and invisible footsteps following them on their rounds. In July 2008 a staff member working late thought he heard the sounds of a reception in progress on the first floor, but when he reached the foot of the stairs, he found the rotunda empty, and all noises suddenly ceased. The same tour guide recalled the library room on the third floor as being particularly creepy. Late one night as he approached the library door, he remembered a cold, dank air falling on his head and neck, and he decided his work could wait until the next day. Although the mansion has gone through a considerable number of watchmen who declined the privilege of working in the building after one night on the job, one stuck with the task for more than 13 years. He simply shrugged off the angry slamming of doors that sounded behind him and the thumping noises that followed him on his rounds. However, he admitted that he did not like to work in The Winchester Mystery House after dark. He always made it a point to be out of the building by quitting time, because when darkness fell, he could sense the whole atmosphere changing.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Call Up the Buried Past Again
My sea green Victorian mansion gleamed dazzingly in the early morning sunshine. Giant peach trees, bursting into bloom before it, hid the roof and cast blue shade on the ground. A fence at the back enclosed a poultry yard, and beyond that were hen houses, the horse stables, and a stall from which the black-and-white cows looked plaintively forth, several gazebos, a greenhouse, water tower, toolshed, a roofed well, a flower garden and vegetable garden. It was an infinitely pleasant-looking estate, and if death had struck there at all, there was no outward sign. All that beautiful wainscot mahogany, as good as the day it was put up, and garlands-like of foliage and fruit, and the lovely gilding work on the coat of arms and the organ pipes really spoke to my soul. However, the season was undoubtedly a very trying one. Many people in the neighbourhood had but little enjoyment of the exquisite sunny days and the calm nights of August and September. To several of the older people—the summer proved downright fatal, but even among the younger, few escaped either a sojourn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. Gradually there formulated itself a suspicion—which grew into a conviction—that Llanada Villa had something to say in the matter. I was visited by dreams, which I retailed to my friends, of a shape that slipped out of the little door of the south transept as the dark fell in, and flitted—taking a fresh direction every night—disappearing for a while in the house, and finally emerging again when the night sky was paling. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
I could see nothing of it, but that it was a moving form: only I had an impression that when it returned to the mansion, as it seemed to do in the end of the dream, it turned its head: and then, I could not tell why, but I thought it had red eyes. The circumstances involve too much unreconciled grief, too tragic a loss, for me to be willing to fully engage others in the dream. The iron broom he uses to sweep leaves a trail of blood. When I awake, I am exhausted. In the small hours of the morning, I can barely remember the details of the journey I had in my slumber. All I can think of is what he looked like when he caught me in my attempted escape, cold and bedraggled, lost and looking for a servant so that I could make my escape. And after awaking, accompanied by the sounds of Indian drums, chants, whoops, and the cries of what seemed to be hundreds of voices, I was again possessed by the odd feeling of being watched. As vague outlines of people running back and forth in the darkness of the hallways. The high-pitched howls and screams were real. There were the shadows of fifteen people. In the unsure light of dying fire, there were tears in my eyes. I went outside, began to stroll aimlessly along the front of the house, then around the corner and around the side. The certainty had set in me that I would find something. It burned like a small fire in my belly as light from the sky along Winchester Row retreated and deepened the shadows softened, under the threat of advancing rain. With a rasping, grating sound, a section of brickwork like a low, narrow door swung outward; as I entered, a cloud of dust and grit rolled out into the gallery, and settled slowly around me. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
“Well, I said, coughing, “there’s certainly no one in here—no one living, at any rate.” I lit my lantern, and I saw through the floating dust a narrow stairway of brick, spiralling upward into darkness. I heard a noise from the direction of the library. I stood for a moment listening; the sound was not repeated. I strode to the connecting door. There was no one in the library, and no apparent cause for the sound until I saw that the pages of William’s manuscript, which I had left on the seat of a leather armchair, were now strewn upon the floor beneath, with my journals amongst them. “A draught, perhaps,” I thought. However, the air was completely still. And something else had changed. Outside, where the trees should have loomed a mere fifty yards away, there was nothing to be seen at all; nothing but dense, fleecy vapour, sliding across the glass. With a last worried look around the library, I walked back to the gallery. As I was about to step into the opening, I was seized by panic. With my lantern, I stepped over the threshold, into a cylindrical chamber no more than three feet wide. Dust and grit lay thick upon the stone floor. I shone the beam upward, but could see only the returning spiral of the staircase. Testing each stair as I went, I moved awkwardly upward, afraid of tripping over my shirt. Musty air stung my eyes; there were cobwebs draped about the walls, but they looked old and brittle, and nothing moved when I shone the lantern over them. This, I thought, was how an ancient tomb would smell, a tomb that had been sealed for hundreds of years, where even the spider had died of starvation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
I had completed at least two full spirals before the stairs ended at a low wooden door, set into the wall to form a ledge just wide enough to stand upon. My hair brushed against the stone roof of the chamber. I glanced back down the stairs and was seized with a fit of dizziness so that I had to grip the door handle to prevent myself from falling. The handle turned in my grasp; the door creaked open. It was a room I had not seen—or, rather, a cell—perhaps six by four feet, the roof only a few inches above my head. The door opened inward to the left, leaving just enough room for a straight-backed chair and a table placed against the opposite wall. Upon the dusty surface of the table were a decanter, a wineglass, two candlesticks, an inkstand containing half a dozen quill pens, also thickly covered in grime; and a glass-fronted case, two shelves high, containing what looked like thirty or forty identical volumes. There seemed to be no other furniture, but as I stood staring at the desk, I became aware that my lantern was not the only source of illumination. Along the wall to my right were half a dozen dim, narrow strips of light. I took a tentative step forward, felt an icy draught upon my face, and realized that the secret room and its stairwell had been built across the chimney, with slits for ventilation running through the outer wall. Three more steps brought me within reach of the bookcase. Through the dusty glass I saw that the volumes were indeed identical, and that there was no printing on the spines; they were leatherbound manuscript books, labelled only by year, and shelved in order from 1860 through 1866. I set the lantern upon the table, tugged at the right-hand door until it opened with a shriek of hinges, and drew out the last volume. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
It was a diary, written in a crabbed, shaky hand, but legible enough.
5th December 1860
Beloved, let us love so well, our hearts shall still be better for our love, and still our love be sweeter for our life, and both commended, for the sake of each, by all true kindred souls and true loves born. My heart so potently never spake romance, but when my eyes with thine thereon could dance. My own goddess is past all thing far, I saw far in the concave green of the sea. My nets are spread out, and I at rest. I was a lonely youth on desert shores. But the crown of all my life was utmost quietude: More did I love you than the brightest summer shine. I now dwell whole days in sheer astonishment from far off a crustal pool. When I awoke, ‘twas in a twilight bower; who could resist? Who in this universe?
Eternally yours,
William Wirt Winchester
#RandolphHarris 5 of 8
I read on through entry after entry of meticulously precious moments. There were several more volumes and I found that they were all the same: a tender daily record of magnificent life and love. I think I fainted. When I came to, I aw a bundle of old clothes lying behind the door. Only they were not just clothes, because there was something in them; something with shrivelled claws for hands and a shrunken head no larger than a child’s, to which a few tufts of scanty white hair still clung. The mouth and nostrils and eye socket were choked with cobwebs. I picked up the last volume of the diary and, averting my eyes from the ghastly object behind the door, ran down the shaky stairs and through to the comparative warmth of the library. The fog outside was impenetrable as before. As I made my way back to the main entrance, I thought, I should go mad with fear. Well, that same night I dropped off asleep as sound as a baby does, and all of the sudden Zip woke me up, coming into the bed, and thought I, now we’re going to get it sharp, for he seemed more frightened than usual. After about five minutes sure enough came this cry. I cannot give you no idea what it was like; and so near too—nearer than I had heard it—yet—and a funny thing, you know what this mansion is for an echo. Well, this crying never made no sign of an echo at all. However, as I said, it was dreadful near this night; and on the top of the start I got with hearing it, I got another fright; for I heard something rustling outside in the passage. Now to be sure I thought I was done; but I noticed Zip seemed to perk up a bit, and next there was someone whispered outside the door. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
I slipped out of bed across to my window, but Zip he bored right down to the bottom of the bed—and I looked out. First go off I could not see anything. Then right down in the shadow under a buttress I made out what I shall always say were two spots of red—a dull red it was—nothing like a lamp or a fire, but just so as you could pick them out of the black shadow. I had not but just sighted them when it seemed we were the only people that had been disturbed, because I saw a window in the left side of the house had become lit up, and the light moving. I just turned my head to make sure of it, and then looked back into the shadow for those two red orbs, and they were gone, and for all I peered about and stared, there was not a sign more of them. Then came my light fright that night—something came against my bare leg—but that was all right: that was my little dog Zip. He had come out of bed, and was prancing about making a great to-do, only holding his tongue, and I saw he was quite in spirits again, and took him back to bed and we slept the night out! The next morning there came the most fearful crash down at the west end of the mansion, as if a whole stack of big timber had fallen down a flight of stairs. There was terrible commotion. I heard the slab fall out, and the crowbar on the floor, and I heard Mr. Hansen say, “Good God!” #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
When I looked down again I saw Mr. Hansen tumbled over on the floor, the men were making off down the hall. Mr. Hansen was very crossed. “I wish to goodness you’d look where you’re coming to,” he said to the carpenters. “Why you should all take to your heels when a stick of wood tumbles down I cannot imagine”; and all Mr. Hansen could do, explaining he was right away on the other side of the staircase, would not satisfy him. Then the butler came back and reported there was nothing to account for this noise and nothing seemingly fallen down, and when Mr. Hansen finished feeling of himself they gather round—except someone lit up a candle and they looked into the hall. “Nothing there,” said Mr. Hansen, “what did I tell you? Stay! here’s something. What’s this? a bit of music paper, and a piece of torn stuff—part of a dress in looks like. Both quite modern—no interest whatever. Another time perhaps you’ll take the advice of an educated man”—or something of that nature, and he went, limping a bit, and out through the north door, only as he went he called back angry to the butler for leaving the door standing open. The butler called out “Very sorry, sir,” but he shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I fancy Mr. Hansen’s mistaken. I closed the door behind me, but he’s a little upset. I asked the butler if he had seen what knocked over Mr. Hansen. “Come, you must have seen it,” he says. “Didn’t you see? A thing like a man, all over hair, and two great eyes to it?” Well, that was all I could get out of him that time, and later on he seemed as if he was ashamed of being so frightened, and he used to put me off when I asked him about it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
A tour guide was making the night trip through The Winchester Mystery House. He had been dozing lightly as he secured the rooms when he was awakened by what he later described as a “damned uneasy feeling.” He could not put a figure on what was troubling his, he told a reporter for a Bay Area newspaper in the summer of 2003. There were no strange or unusual noises in the mansion. He could detect nothing that sounded wrong in the steady closing of the windows and doors. For some reason, he decided to lift one of the window shades. That is when he aw the apparition. Outside of the window, so close that is seemed as if he might be able to touch them if he lowered the glass, was a brightly painted Indian brave on his spirited mount. The warrior bent low over the flying black mane of his horse and looked neither to the right nor to the left. He seemed to be mouthing words of encouragement to the phantom mustang as they rapidly dashed off around the estate. “I’ve seen the me six or seven times after that, on different parts of the estate,” the tour guide said. “They seem to be solid flesh, but there’s kind of shimmer around them. It’s like watching a strip of really old movie film being protected onto the prairie.”
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 