Creatures of the lighthouse

   Jane took off her socks and put them on top of the heating. She had no idea the lighthouse had radiators in all its rooms but it really came in handy that that was the case. She also took off her pants and shirt and decided to stay only in her underwear, lying on top of her jacket. The storm outside did not seem to subside, if anything it was getting worse by the minute. The rain was so strong that almost nothing could be seen, except when the light from the tower passed over it and revealed. But even then, it was just the pissed off sea and the razor sharp rocks that had been the whole reason to built a lighthouse there.

 For many years, the tower had been managed by a human, a man that stayed there several months and then was replaced and had to come back again later on that year and so on. But rather recently, that had ended with the modernization of the tower and the installation of an automated system. That was the reason why Jane had been forced to kick the door several times until the old cement caved in to her efforts and the door flung open.

 The machines and computers that controlled the tower now occupied most of the space but there were still spaces to be used by people, possibly for tourism or by the person that had to come and fix the system in the case of any failure or something like that. It all looked so new and clean, except for the ground level that was slowly flooding due to the storm. Jane had found an old folding chair and had used it to prevent the door from opening as she had broken it when entering.

 She had been walking for days along the national park that surrounded the lighthouse so Jane knew exactly where she was or at least she had realized it when she found the tower when the rain started to get really dangerous. All the time she had been walking in that place, she had thought that animals were the ones to be careful about but it wasn’t the case. The storm had scared them all off and she was the only living being stupid enough not to take shelter when in had been obvious for many hours than the storm was going to arrive to the coast.

 Deciding to check for food, Jane realized she didn’t really have much food on her backpack. At first, she had a lot of provisions she had brought from home like dried fruit and things like that but now her rations were very low and had nothing to calm her stomach, which was growling like a wounded wolf. She decided to go down to the middle level of the tower and check out a kind of deposit there was there. No idea why, but the door was opened so she had free reign to check everything out. There were cleaning products, paper, some tools to fix things, a big bag of sand (for some reason) and, finally, a survival kit that she opened in haste.

 The kit was a very complete and Jane made a mental note to thank the people that managed the lighthouses when arriving to society. It had flares, a flashlight, more tools but also some beef jerky and juices in bags and candy. It wasn’t the most nutritious meal ever but Jane guessed it had been put there in the case of an accident or something. It wasn’t really to survive on for more than a week so Jane knew it was perfect for her as she believed she was only staying for one night.

 She went back to the top floor with the whole kit and started to eat as she sat down again on her jacket. But realizing the floor was too cold, she decided to stand by the heating and look outside, in order no to get bored and maybe getting sleepy. She ate the beef jerky slowly: it was very hard to chew on it and had to yank pieces of one by one, so it took time to finish a single portion, which was good in order no to ran out of it.

 Then she gasped and almost dropped her meal. She raised her head and looked outside, sure she had seen something when the light of the tower had hit it. But there was nothing, only water falling from the sky and the water from the ocean that was very violent. Aside from that, only the rocks and none of them had the shape of what she had seen.

 Jane sat down again and realized it was impossible that a person would be outside the tower as the storm was very violent. And who she had seen did not seem like a normal person, it was like a very pale person, almost like the way people have painted ghosts over the centuries. The more she analyzed it all; she realized it was really silly. She had been silly to think about someone been out there and it had possibly being the light playing ticks on her tired mind.

 She decided to look in the kit again and she found one of those blankets that keeps you warm without electricity (the one use by paramedics). She just used that as her blanket lying on her jacket and used her hands as a pillow. Before that, she had turned off the light on the top floor of the tower and everything was now in darkness.

 Her eyes closed and then open and then closed only to open again a few seconds later. The light of the tower annoyed her but that really wasn’t the reason why she couldn’t sleep. Jane was, for the first time since she had begun her adventure, very scared. She didn’t mind the heat outside or sleeping in a tent or even the bugs. But there was something deep inside her telling her than there was something weird about that tower and, furthermore, that what she saw had not been an optical illusion of some kind.

 Then, she heard knocking. The sound was weak but it was clear it was coming from below. Jane’s mind raced, thinking if maybe there really was someone in need out there or if there was really such a thing as ghosts or spirits. But for that last one, she had to punish herself in her mind: it was ridiculous that a grown woman than had learned a few things in life was now thinking there could be a ghost outside her door. It was preposterous and simply stupid.

 So she closed her eyes but the sound coming from the ground floor didn’t really help her relax in order to sleep. Trying to be logical, she concluded that the sound had to be because she hadn’t put the chair in the perfect angle to really close the door. So the wind was banging on it and everything was shaky and moving. So she decided to stand up and go down the stairs in the dark, with the flashlight, in order to fix that sound that could make her crazy if she didn’t do something about it.

 Barefoot as she was, she realized the ground floor was flood when she put her feet on the cold water. It reached ankles. She walked to the door and realized she had been correct in her conclusion. The door kept getting opened and closed and it was all because the fair was not good enough to keep it shut and the water out. So she tried to find something she could put on the handle of the door in order to close it for good.

 She had started walking towards the stairs in order to go up again and look for something or at least some told to help her, when the door flung open and the wind entered messing her hair and everything. Water also came in, making her fall to the ground, hurting her knee. She reached for the door and tried to close it but the door wouldn’t move and the wind was too strong for her. She pushed and pulled and did everything she could, but everything coming in from the storm was making her weaker and weaker by the second.

 It was then when, once again, she saw it outside. But this time she was sure she had seen it because it hadn’t been for a fraction of a second. This time, she had felt time get frozen and her eyes been able to detail every single part of the creature’s complexion. It was taller than her, very pale and with a larger mouth than any human she knew. Its feet and hands were very large and it watched her, very attentively. She noticed it had no pupils and that its eyes were very white too.

 But that lasted a minute or so. In the next moment, the wind subsided for a second, which Jane used to push harder and close the door with a loud sound. There was no need to look for something to lock it with because the door had closed so violently it had become jammed in its place. Nevertheless, Jane stayed there for a long while, only breathing.

 The next day, the storm disappeared. The weather outside was perfect, with bird singing and everything. After the door had closed, she had remained there for a while but she eventually found her way to the top and had some sleep. It took her a long while to open the door again and she did it fell of its hinges and into the flooded floor. Jane just went out and started walking along the coast, looking at the sea and how the storm was now there, again.

 And she thought of the creature but even now she doubted its existence. Maybe the monster was inside her and she had just seen it in a dire moment.

The wind on L

   The wind roared and roared. It seemed like it carried the voices of thousands of people long deceased, as if it all of them had decided that life on planet L should be eradicated. For thousands of years, the elders had gathered every single piece of mysticism and mythology, every tale and story told by a grandmother or a priest. And in many of those tales the wind played a very important role. It was always a destructive force, a very awful power of nature that menaced everything on its path, specially the sensible civilization that had grown on L. Despite their advancements in many fields, they still hadn’t been able to put an end to the never-ending problem of the wind. Besides, they knew that doing anything against it would cause consequences and who knew what those might be.

 Planet L was mostly water, so the wind didn’t really have obstacles that would stop it, like mountain ranges. On L, the only obstacles were caves dug underground by centuries of people trying to find a solution for their awful problem. They had also tried to build walls but that had failed fast. The only way to properly survive was underground, below the few continental masses of the planet. The cities below were small and very damp, but the people had adapted fast and did not care anymore. They had also developed a great sense of hearing and of sight, meaning they could navigate the caves without fear of getting lost or hurt by falling or something like that.

 Their way of living was the main reason no one in that area of the galaxy knew of their existence. Funny enough, many creatures of the universe knew planet L. Pirates, bounty hunters and warriors met there sometimes to exchange prisoners, goods or just to kill each other off in very bloody battles. Almost all alien creatures could withstand the wind easily, at least in some regions. And they liked that it made a cover for them, in case authorities followed them from other systems. But the inhabitants of L had no idea this had been going on for a long time. Their personal belief was that no one on the galaxy would be interested in landing in such a nightmare of a planet.

 One day, however, something rather different happened. Two ships entered L at very high speed, breaking the sound barrier several times. One was after the other and, from time to time, it fired on it. They had cannons mounted everywhere so one could only think they were bounty hunters or assassins. The ship being attacked caught fire but kept fleeing into some more shots mad it crash into one of the largest islands of the windy world. The ship that went down exploded and the other one just left, its crew thinking that all life inside of the downed ship would soon be dead, if it already wasn’t. It was a matter of time.

 Below, the people of a city had felt the tremor of the ship crashing into the ground. They had been scared for a moment, but then remembered that the weather report had clarified that a very strong storm was going to take place outside, so it was better to stay at home and close all doors, just in case the wind breached the main entrance. That was almost impossible as the main entrance was made from an incredibly strong type of metal they had found when building the caves, but these people preferred to play it safe, specially when from their houses they could hear the moaning of the wind and the voices of all creatures that had died out there in it. For the young ones, the wind was a monster to avoid. For the older ones, it was the difference between life and death and the thing that kept them there, at home.

 As they all ran to their houses and took shelter from the sound of the wind, in the downed ship its pilot was struggling to get out of there fast. The other members of its crew had been killed and he was the only one capable to transport their precious cargo back to their home planet. The treasure was on a small chest he grabbed with bloodied hands. He put it on a bag, which in turn he put on his back. He checked conditions outside but couldn’t wait for the computer to calculate anything. Partly because it had been damaged in the crash but also because there was gasoline leaking all over the place. He didn’t have time to wait so he just put on a suit and went outside. The wind knocked him off at first but then he managed to sink his feet into the ground and at least walk slowly.

 The storm was too strong but he managed to walk away from the ship a few meters just before it exploded. He was pushed away, landing on a puddle of mud and dirty water. The strength of the explosion caused him to lose his balance and stability for a while. He even bled from one if his ears but he could still hear fine, or so its seemed at least in the middle of the storm. He had nowhere to go now so we just stood up and slowly walked away from the wreckage. He turned around to see his ship one last time and a small tear slid down his face. He had lived in that ship for years, but now he had to move on and try to get someone to pick him up there. His suit had a communications device but the wind wouldn’t let it work.

 In the city below, as he tried to use the device, a red light appeared in one of the consoles that checked security all over the city. The computer had detected the device that the stranded alien was using out there. But there was no one there to see it. Everyone had been ordered to their homes due to the storm, to their fear of a wind that just couldn’t get inside their city. However, there was a lonely native of L who happened to be a priest. Secretly, he left his door opened when a storm happened, as he loved the sound of the voices. He thought he could hear in the wind what his ancestors wanted for all of them.

 That priest was the only creature that heard the destruction of the ship outside and he knew, right away, that that sound had nothing to do with the storm. He ran to the metallic door that separated the city from the outside world but just stood there, as if it was going to open magically. Of course, it didn’t and he didn’t dare to open it by himself. Doing so would mean the death penalty, by precisely stepping outside and never coming back. The rules of their civilization were pretty clear and even it moment, when his desire to see what was outside was so big in his heart, even then he just couldn’t do anything. He just stood there by the door, waiting for one more sound to make him do something crazy or at least let him know they weren’t alone.

 Outside, the stranded one was walking clumsily, falling over very often, and almost going insane due to the voices that he could now hear very clearly around him. He didn’t have a clue of what they said, but he had a feeling it wasn’t anything good. Finally his device began beeping and he thought that some ship was en route to save him. But that wasn’t it. It had detected an energy source ahead, which might lead to life or at least to a shelter. Going more and more crazy by the minute, he walked in that suit as fast as he could, careful not to drop his bag with the small chest inside. He had a massive headache and he knew he was bleeding but he just kept on going.

 Then, the priest heard a sound on the door. It had been a subtle, soft sound but he knew he had heard it… Again! It was as if someone was trying to know but didn’t have the strength to do it. As one of the few that dared to listen to his planet, the priest knew this time the death penalty was worth it. Even if there was nothing there when the door opened, he knew something else had happened and that was good enough for him. He then ran to the control panel and entered a password that had never been used. The door moaned, as everything turned to lift it over the priest’s head. The wind entered from the outside like a plague but he felt something else enter so he closed the door instantly.

 When the metallic door had fallen into its place, the priest turned around and saw the stranded alien lying on the cave’s floor. He was bleeding or at least that was what it looked like. Their blood was yellow and his was green. His breath was slowing down. The priest dragged the body to his house and there checked the alien. It was risky, but he took off the helmet. He waited but nothing happened so he got to work and cured him as well as he could. He removed him from the suit and put the bag with the chest on a chair nearby. For days, no one knew there was an alien in that house and they wouldn’t think twice about the bag on the chair.

 As it happened, that bag carried the most important object in the universe. And it was a coincidence, a very happy one to be precise, that it had landed in that forgotten part of the universe as many hands wanted that thing but only one person could manage to handle it. And that person was not very far now.

Sages & Temples

   Tea was poured into four small glasses and the men drank it fast but in silence. After they had finished, they separated, each taking a different direction on the crossroads that passed just by the small hotel they had met. No one would ever know that those four men had been talking about very ancient things, about legends and about men that no longer existed. They were all sages, taking care of temples in different regions of the world. Each one of those temples was dedicated to a different element existing in the world. They used to be more temples but they had been destroyed in the past and only the four most important ones remained. People had forgotten all about that, but not the sages. They had taken care of their buildings in such a way that any person that passed by was impressed and had to come in.

 Even if they didn’t now the whole meaning of everything, they always knew that those places were very special. No one ever tried to move them or demolish the temples to build something else. Actually, no one even thought of building anything close to any of the temples. That aura that the woods and every other natural element gave to the place was part of the reason why people adored spending time there, even if they were not especially fond of praying. Families just spent the day there checking out the hidden features of the building, which had secret drawings and things all over the place. This pleased the sages because the legend said that the temples should always be filled with people or the gods would descend to make things right in the world.

 The four of them had met because they had all received a mysterious letter. There wasn’t a name on it, not a thing telling them who had written the mysterious words that revealed there was a lot more to their order that they even knew. There was some secrecy that had always surrounded their group but nothing like those letters, which spoke of a very old enemy preparing to come out into the world to bring chaos, which they had to confront whether they were ready or not. The letters seemed menacing at parts but they weren’t threats or warnings. They seemed to have been written by a especially mysterious friend, something they didn’t really appreciate as people in the dark tend to like it there.

 They read the letters various times, trying to look for differences between the four that they had received but that was not possible as they were exact copies, word by word. The paper seemed to have been made by the person that had written the letters, as it was very hard and rugged in several areas. The writing did weird curves and funny loops but it was obvious it didn’t have anything to do with the writing skills of the letter’s sender. The ink was pretty regular, so that did not say anything either. But the signature, however, had something they hadn’t seen in quite a while.

 The thing was, the letters didn’t have a traditional signature. Instead, there was a red seal at the bottom of each letter. According to those markings, the seals had been put on different times. Some were very well defined and others seemed to have been put in a rush. The seal was a symbol that monks had used over one thousand years in the past, when dark forces reigned all over the country and the lands of nature. The presence of that seal, made the sages think the person that had written the letters knew the past very well. No one really had access to those seals, unless they had kept them for generations. Some were in museums but none of them had been stolen. There was the possibility of all of this been a hoax but, somehow, it didn't seem like it at all.

 The group of four men stayed in that small hotel for an entire week. Not surprisingly, they were the only guests of the place. The owner, a big-breasted older woman, didn’t even talked to them, as she already knew what they needed and when they needed. Breakfast, lunch, diner and teas times were always exactly at the same hour and were always served at exactly the same time. She prepared their bed exactly at nine o’clock at night and left the windows opened because they all liked to hear nature as they slept. These details had all been given to her by letter sent from an assistant of one of the sages in order for her not to interrupt any of their meetings. She liked having them around anyway.

 Every meeting, they met in a small room by the veranda where the sun entered gently as well as the autumn breeze. It was often a very quiet room, even when they were all there. During long moments, the sages liked to keep silent and not say a word unless they thought it served to enhance their conversation and their deliberation about the letters. That’s, in part, why they stayed there for a whole weak. They had to go through every detail and each one of them had to give his opinion about every single matter that they proposed, every solution to the mystery. In spite of the modern world, these men had decided to live a life that wasn’t rushed and fast. They thought every single step they took in the world.

 All of them had gotten to be sages exactly because of that. They were patient men that loved to be close to the gods and nature. They knew how to communicate with themselves and the people surrounding them and had always this aura of peace around them that made people like them instantly. No one could be aggressive to any of them as they calmed fast and just heard their words and opinions about any old subject that the times put on the table. They were also very smart although they were no geniuses. They actually refused to be thought of as more than men or more special that most men. They always insisted they weren’t and that they were just men on a very special mission.

 Before they separated, they agreed that the letters were a pressing matter. The sages had always thought they were the only ones with any knowledge about the ancient world and now someone was presenting itself to them and telling them that he it was there. Every single one of them returned to their regions with the promise to keep investigating in order to clarify the matter as soon as possible. They even worked during their trip back, which was by road or train, and as they did some of them discovered interesting things. Two on the letters had traces of some type of dust, which happened to be rice dust, which was normally used in cosmetics. Another one of the letter had a stain of water in the back and, when properly checked, they discovered it was salt water.

They kept discovering things like that, small indications in a very big map, and they decided to reunite again some six months after their initial meeting. This time, however, they chose a small town by the sea. They stayed in another hotel with another owner that knew how to treat them, and there they reunited every single piece of the puzzle. They worked on it for days and days until one night they agreed they had found the person. They decided there was no time to waste so they would travel that same night. The trip was not very long as their destination was a bigger town by the sea, very well known for the fisheries.

 There, they did a little big of investigation until they decided to act. They arrived at a grand house in the middle of the night. They didn’t knock or anything like that, instead using their special abilities to walk over the rooftops and enter the mansion that way. The place seemed deserted but suddenly the lights were turned on and a woman, young and beautiful, stepped into the garden to greet them. The men stay there, very still, as if waiting to see their host’s next move. It was a wise things to do because a battle ensued, where she used knifes and a love sword to battle against them. The neighbors didn’t hear nay of the racket because of the trees and the structure of the building but the fight was though.

 Then, the woman simple stopped and revealed herself to be one of the other sages, of the temples that had been destroyed long ago. She had been hiding because her grandfather had been the former sage and he had no one else to leave the temple than to his granddaughter. She promised to do well and rebuilt the ruins he had left her and she had done so. She asked the sages to follow her and soon they found themselves to be in one of the biggest and most awe-inspiring temples they have ever stepped in. The dedication she had show, in fight and restoring the temple, won the respect of the sages who accepted her as the only sage in generations to be a woman and to live by the ocean.

Pomp and Circumstances

   Every single member of the staff was very nervous. It was well known by them that when the McAllen family decided to visit, it was a trying moment for the hotel and everyone in it. But the McAllen’s were very rich and they knew they could use that kind of clients. Rich people were not coming to the hotel anymore, or maybe to the region… Anyway, not many wealthy heirs and heiresses wanted to visit Lake Flora in the summer. Other vacation spots had become more popular and the lake had lost some of its former splendor. But the McAllen’s were a family of traditions and they had come to the lake every year for sixty years, so they weren’t going to break that custom.

 The day they arrived, every single staff member had to stop whatever it was they were doing and just run to the main hall and line up on either side of the red carpet they had installed exclusively for the event. The other guests, which were not many, had been barred from the main hall and had to use the service elevator in order to get to the their rooms or from there to anywhere else in the hotel. Some of them complained but as none of them were as rich and famous as the McAllen’s, their opinion was not very important. That sounds awful, especially when the hotel always cared about every single guest with care. But this time it was different because the McAllen’s were the difference between a definitive closure of the hotel or their permanence in the business.

 When they arrived, everyone was as still as a statue but that didn’t mean that people weren’t excited or curious. After all, it had been a year since they had been there for their last visit and many staff members had entered the hotel after that so they were really excited about meeting people that were practically royalty. If nobility existed in any way in this country, the McAllen’s would surely be a very important and powerful family, maybe even more that they already were. Arthur McAllen, the main figure, had made his family richer by buying several mines around the world as well as having an almost complete monopoly on several markets such as bananas, sugar and tea.

 He was the first one to come in and every single staff member had to bow as he passed. Mister McAllen seemed overjoyed and the first thing he said to the hotel manager was that the place was as beautiful as he had always remembered. He congratulated everyone and moved on to the main counter. After him, came Lady McAllen. She was a true noblewoman, daughter of a duke from England. Her father owned several newspapers. She walked among the people, greeting some of them. And then came the children. The girl was already a women, very beautiful but visibly very annoyed by the whole concept of spending her holiday in the lake. She rushed over the red carpet and joined her parents fast.

 The young boy that followed him was ecstatic. He looked at everything, greeted some of the staff and asked a kitchen maid if she knew if there were monsters in the lake. She laughed at the comment but the hotel manager gave her a look of disapproval, which stopped her laughter. The last person to come in through the door was the mother of Arthur McAllen. Everyone in the region and the country knew Callista McAllen very well. She had been the wife of a governor that years later became prime minister. And he had been a particularly bad prime minister. Many people said he had died of an illness related to madness but no one was really sure. The truth was every staff member looked at her, interested by her story.

 The older woman crossed the red carpet, oblivious to the preparations for their arrival, getting to her son and demanding him for a bed in order to rest her feet. A waiter gave each one of them lemonade, made with fruit grown in the hotel surroundings, and then several younger bell boys rushed outside and started taking the luggage to the presidential suite. They all signed the guest book and then the manager asked Arthur McAllen if he would like to pose for picture. It was kind of a tradition of the hotel, so the family complied although only the men were happy to do it. The women looked annoyed and tired. So the photographer, who happened to be the groundskeeper, had to do it fast.

 Moments later, everyone was in the presidential suite, their empty luggage in a big closet and all their clothes and belonging in drawers and closets all over the room. The place was very overwhelming, if one wasn’t very used to the golden glow of its walls and the overpowering smell of the perfume used when the maids cleaned up the bedroom and bathroom. It was just too much for every one except for such a wealthy family as the McAllen’s. The women decided to rest and retired to their rooms. The men changed clothes and decided to take a walk. When they arrived to the hall, the red carpet was no longer there or staff members. Everything was back to normal. But they didn’t really pay attention. They just crossed the main doors and went outside.

 Arthur and his son walked towards the lake and there, the father would tell his son several stories about the monster that many had claimed lived beyond the surface of the lake. Some said it had wings, some others said it was like fish but huge in size. Father and son threw stones at the water as they shared stories about the mythical beast. They also explored the woods around the hotel and discovered the place were the lemon trees grew high and mighty. For Arthur, this place brought the best memories from his childhood and he wanted to past that on to his son.

 But his wife and daughter weren’t as happy to be there. The next day, her wife refused to have breakfast in their private dining room, and preferred to eat alone in their bedroom. The daughter wasn’t a much easier person to handle, especially because she did come out of her bedroom. In just a few hours, the staff had come to hate her even more than any other guest in their time there. She was bossy and very rude for such a rich family. She would tell them how to do their chores, even as she had never moved a finger in her life to do anything. And she tired everyone by always saying that her future husband was a commander in the army and he would have the power to improve this lost region and make it productive, instead of just a place for old people to catch some sun.

 But the elderly person in her group would not have agreed. The oldest McAllen was maybe the nastiest and that was because she insisted, every morning in sitting in the main table of the dining hall down in the ground floor. She wanted to seat where her dead husband also sat when he was governor and prime minister. The thing was Callista McAllen had lost it several years ago. Her son was too kind and didn’t want to realize it but she was losing her mind by the minute and she was becoming more and more demanding and rude because of it. She even attempted to hit a waiter on the second day because he had delivered her tea colder than she liked it.

 And the McAllen’s never apologized. The waiter had to leave for the kitchens immediately and he was relocated to another part of the hotel, were he would not be affected by Callista’s insanity. Besides minor incidents like that, everything was going very well with the McAllen’s summer stay. The manager love to do the counts of how much money he would win by the end of the season. He was relieved more than happy because it was not mystery that the hotel was going under: there was not that much money to pay every single person that worked there and attendance had been so low that year that they had even though of closing for some time. That’s why the McAllen’s had to be treated like royals.

 But then one night news from the capital came in and everyone was awoken by the man carrying the letters, because it wasn’t just one but many. He demanded to see Arthur McAllen, who had to be woken up and rushed into the ground floor. There, the man gave him all the letters. And every single one of them told exactly the same story: their neighboring country had attacked a border post and then a whole border town. It was war and the government had demanded for the wealthy to help them in this hour of need. McAllen asked for a pen and paper to write his response, that he was going to give all the money he could to the cause. But the man that had brought the letters stopped him and told him that not only they required his money, but his presence to in the battlefield.

 Everyone in the hall became mute. And it was the first of many silences they would hear for the following years. The war grew larger and more and more lethal. Arthur McAllen would die months later, as well as the commander who was going to marry his daughter. The hotel closed indefinitely the following winter and no one would ever hear about Lake Flore until after the war, when it would become synonym of madness, as the hotel was bought by the ministry of wealth fare and then transformed to an asylum. The McAllen tradition and dynasty died in the war, as the women died of sorrow and the men of war.