This happened to me in Formosa, Argentina, when I was 6 years old. To this day I can't explain it well, and every time I tell it, it gives me chills.

My mother had gone to the store and my grandmother, who lived with us, was not home that day. I was left alone taking care of my newborn sister. It was a very calm, but heavy afternoon, one of those in which the air feels thick and everything is silent. I remember it perfectly because it was just before sunset.

I was sitting in the living room, watching my little sister sleep, when I heard a knock on the back door. It wasn't normal for them to use that door, so I approached carefully. When I looked out the window… I saw my mom.

Or, at least, someone who looked exactly like her.

But there was something strange. He didn't have a bag, he seemed to come from afar, and his hair was a bit messy. The clothes had dirt on them, as if he had walked through the countryside. And her eyes... I don't know how to explain it, but they weren't my mom's. They did not shine, they had no expression. It was like looking at an empty version of her.

He spoke to me, smiling: “Come, my love… let's go to the back for a little while.”

I told him no. Let her come in. I stood on the other side of the door, waiting for him to open it. But he didn't do it. It didn't cross. He wasn't getting any closer. She stayed there, standing in the doorway, as if something was stopping her.

And he kept repeating: "Come... it's okay. Just for a little while..."

It scared me so much that I started to back away. I told him I didn't want to go. Let him come in if he wanted something. But he didn't. Then he started to walk away, not with his back turned: looking at me the entire time, without blinking. He walked towards the back, towards the field, where the light was already beginning to go out. The last thing I heard was his voice, low: “Come on… come with me…”

When he disappeared into the trees, I closed the door tightly and went straight to my little sister. I hugged her tightly and didn't move from there until later, my real mother arrived, with the storage bags and all sweaty from the heat. She didn't understand why I was so scared. It hadn't been her who came before.

I never knew what that was. I never forgot it. But from that day on, I never looked at the back of that house the same way again.