In the year 1891, Iquique was a city covered in the white dust of saltpeter, a place where wealth flourished as quickly as the lives of men faded in the desert. In this harsh world, on Baquedano Street, stood the house of the Arabizia family, a building with shutters always closed and an oak door that seemed to fear the twilight.

The Arazbia family had arrived in 1878. Esteban Arazbia Cortés, a stern-faced cloth merchant, attended mass every Sunday with his wife Mercedes and their six daughters: Dolores, Amparo, Luz, Consuelo, Trinidad, and little Rosario. The girls were known for their fair skin and dark eyes, but even more so for their silence; they were never seen smiling or playing. They walked in a line, their eyes downcast, like shadows in a city under the scorching sun.

Her only visitor was Father Elias Montalva, parish priest of San Atopio. He was a tall man, with heavy hands and an intense gaze that made the young women uncomfortable during communion. He was the one who baptized Rosario in a private ceremony at the family home. In the parish register, next to the entry of the baptism, he wrote a note in the margin: “This child has been consecrated.” Nobody understood the dark meaning of that word.

The truth, buried for decades, began to be whispered through seven letters discovered in 1942, when the old parish church was demolished. A worker, Ricardo Fuezalida, discovered a sealed metal box in the basement. Inside, written in faded ink by Dolores, “the last one,” was the code of her family.

It all began, according to Dolores, in 1884. Don Esteban, seeking prosperity, entrusted himself to Father Elias. The priest promised him eternal salvation and riches, but the price was service to a god that was not the god of the churches. It was something more ancient, something that demanded pure blood to keep the doors between the worlds closed. The six Arazubia daughters, with their “clean” souls, were chosen to serve as the “lock.” Don Esteban accepted; Doña Mercedes, weeping, obeyed.

When Dolores, the eldest, turned 13 in 1885, Father Elias’s nightly visits began. The parlor would close with Don Esteban, amidst prayers in Latin and heavy silences. Then the priest would go up to the attic, a windowless space that smelled of strong, somewhat darker incense. There was an altar with black candles and an upside-down crucifix.

The ritual, as described by Dolores, was terrifying. The girls were taken to the attic, dressed in white shirts and a red ribbon on their wrists, tied with silk. They were made to drink a bitter liquid that plunged them into ignorance while Father Elias read from a book bound in black leather.

Dolores felt a cold and aloof presence upon entering the room, an entity that accepted the “consecration” that Elias offered her. She awoke in their beds, without memories, only with marks on her skin and the sensation that something had been taken from them.

But not all survived the “consecration”. Between 1887 and 1890, Amparo, Luz and Cosuelo died. Officially, it was from typhoid fever, certificates signed by Dr. Hermipio La Torre, a doctor who only attended to the family and who died mysteriously shortly afterwards.

The night Amparo died, she whispered to Dolores: “My soul is not here. He took it.”

After each death, Father Elias performed the “Rite of Liberation.” He explained that consecrated souls could not go to heaven; they had to be “purified.” To do this, he took the bodies and preserved their organs—hearts, tongues, eyes—in jars with formaldehyde and highland herbs, hiding them in the basement of the house.

 These jars, he assured, should remain sealed for exactly seven years so that the souls would be free and the doors between worlds would remain closed.

The neighbors and other clergymen were horrified. Doña Iés Pizarro, the neighbor, heard guttural cries and sobs. One early morning in 1887, she saw Elías come out of the basement with a bundle the size of a recently deceased child, keeping it in a wooden box with inverted crosses.

Father Atopio Cifuentes decided to report Elias’s “unorthodox practices” to the bishopric, but his letter was filed away and he was transferred to a remote mission in Chiloé, where he died.

By 1890, Don Esteban had lost his mind and Doña Mercedes had fallen silent. The French governess, Madame Berigger, fled in terror, declaring years later to  Le Figaro : “The pineapples were not pineapples, they were offered.”

In January 1891, the Civil War broke out. Father Elias disappeared, but returned in April. He came back changed, bringing with him a sealed metal box with seven vials, one for each sister. The seven years of the first consecrated women had passed. It was time to open the vials and complete the covenant.

Doп Estebaп, for the first time, got stuck.

But it was too late. The house was filled with phenomena: voices, shadows, and the jars in the basement shone with a greenish light. On August 17, 1891, the night of the fire, it was not an accident.

According to Dolores’s last letter, it was her father who gathered them in the attic. Father Elias arrived and opened the seven locks. Inside the box were the seven jars with the organs of her sisters and the black book. “The final price must be paid,” said the priest.

At that moment, Don Esteban plunged a knife into his chest. Rosario, the little girl, ran to hug him. While her father was dying, Doña Mercedes took a candle and lit the cursed book. The flames consumed the attic instantly. Esteban, Mercedes, and Rosario died embracing each other.

In the midst of the chaos, Father Elias dragged Dolores and Triidad, the only survivors, to the basement and locked them before they died.

The children were discovered unconscious and sent to the asylum of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in La Serena. Father Elias Montalva was officially transferred to Antofagasta and then, supposedly, traveled to Rome for health, where he was informed of his death in 1896.

In the asylum, Trinidad died of tuberculosis in 1903. Her last words to Dolores were a warning: “It wasn’t enough. I’ve seen them… they’re trapped. As long as the jars exist, they won’t be able to rest.”

Dolores Arabizia lived 19 more years, in silence, waiting. She died in 1922, after writing the seven letters and delivering them to a nun, asking that the box not be opened until 20 years after her death.

The letters, discovered in 1942 and read by the historian Manuel Cotreras in 1973, revealed the truth. Cotreras verified the deaths, found testimonies that spoke of how Elías had “taken away” Mercedes’s voice, and searched for the priest’s trail in Rome. He found no record of his death or burial.

When Cotreras returned to Chile in 1975, his notes on the Arazbia case had been stolen. He was left with only a warning: “Some doors must remain closed.” Cotreras remained silent. Years later, his journalist niece, Patricia, attempted to publish the story in 1994, but was censored and fired.

The end of the story was in Dolores’ last letter, which was published in full. In it, she recalled the words that Father Elias told her in the hospital, days after the fire: “Your parents sacrificed themselves, but the sacrifice was not complete. There were still two left.”

Elias Montalva had only escaped the fire. When he fled from Iquique, he took with him the metal box with the seven cauldrons.

The Arazbia house no longer exists. The family disappeared and the witnesses were silenced. But somewhere, beyond Iquique, the seven jars probably remain intact, preserving the horror. The souls of the Arazbia girls were never freed, and the doors that Father Elias so feared, or so longed to open, never closed completely.