12 April 1921

12 April 1921 is the date on which Señora Aldaya was found dead in her bed, confirming the ominous date a mysterious woman had given her young son, Jorge, years earlier. The discovery turns a prophecy spoken in the mansion into a documented family death, while the jewels recovered from the courtyard pond bind the episode to the house’s atmosphere of secrecy and misfortune.

The Prophecy

Jorge had once disappeared inside the mansion for eight hours. When he emerged, pale and dazed, he said he had spent the time in the library with a mysterious black woman who showed him old photographs. She warned that all the women in the family would die in the house to atone for the men’s sins, and gave him the date of his mother’s death: 12 April 1921. No trace of the woman was ever found.

The Death and Discovery

Years later, at first light on the foretold date, Señora Aldaya was discovered lifeless on her bed. The prophecy’s specificity gives the date its force: what had seemed an uncanny episode in Jorge’s childhood now appears to anticipate an actual death. The account leaves the woman’s identity and the means by which she knew the date unexplained, preserving the gap between supernatural warning and unverified testimony.

The Jewels and the House

Señora Aldaya’s jewels had disappeared. When the courtyard pond was drained, a servant boy found them embedded in the mud at its bottom, next to a doll that had belonged to Penelope. Their recovery ties the death to objects concealed within the mansion and gives the episode a material residue beyond the prophecy itself. The date thus gathers the house’s central unease into one scene: a predicted death, missing valuables returned from the pond, and a child’s doll beside them.