Where did the water go?

When I was a freshman in high school, I lived with my older brother in Yucca Valley. We had two Dingo Dogs named Felicia and Delgado. They were the sweetest dogs and they stayed outside. We had a large backyard that was fenced all the way around and very secure. One morning we went out to feed them and give them fresh water, and all of their bowls were gone. We looked everywhere. We searched every inch of that yard. We even looked for disturbed dirt thinking maybe they buried them, even though they weren’t diggers. You never know. We couldn’t find them anywhere. We gave up and went in the house and got more bowls. The next morning same thing. This went on every day for a week. The dogs were very protective of the property, and we never heard them bark. We couldn’t understand it. Every day we walked the yard looking for bowls. They had to be there right? They couldn’t leave the yard. It didn’t make any sense, and we were running out of bowls. That last day, a week later, we go out, no bowls. So, we start walking the yard. We couldn’t believe it. Stacked neatly one on top of the other were all of the bowls. There is absolutely no way the dogs did that. We walked over to get them and right behind them was hole. That hole was not there the day before, or any other day, we checked. Logical thinking would tell you it was a small animal that must have carried the bowls to its den. Sure, that makes sense, and I can see an animal tunneling during the night and making the hole. What I can’t understand is what animal can neatly stack over a dozen bowls into a tower. I don’t even know if I could have stacked them that neat. They probably would have fallen over. We filled in the hole. We never had any other issues with holes in the yard or losing the dog bowls. Everything went back to normal, until we put in the pool. It was a big above ground pool, and a nice one. This was before all the temporary snap together pools you can buy today. This was a good old fashioned steel sided pool. One morning we woke up and it was empty. Where did the water go? We don’t know either. Our first thought was the liner must have ripped. No, it was still intact. Must be a leak somewhere. Makes sense until you realize the ground is as dry as chalk. Okay so maybe emergency services needed it. How would they get to it. There is a six-foot privacy fence all the way around the yard with one gate that is locked and two dogs inside. I am sure if they needed it that bad, we would have known about it. We refilled the pool. A few months later my parents, and a family friend came to visit for the weekend. In the middle of the night, we heard three loud knocks on the back door. Everyone in the house woke up. We were all trying to figure out what was going on. No one can get to the back door without getting into the fenced and locked yard and through the dogs. No one was there. My father, brother, and friend all went outside and searched all the way around the house. There was no sign of anyone in the neighborhood, it was like 3am. No one went back to sleep that night. The night after everyone left, I had taken a shower getting ready for bed. The bathroom was still a little steamy when I finished and, my brother went in to take his shower. I was in my room, and I heard the shower turn off. Then I heard my brother yelling for me. I ran to the bathroom thinking he was hurt and he was standing in front of the mirror pointing to it. There was a small child size handprint in the steam on the mirror. He held his hand up and said look it’s not mine, let me see yours. I held my hand up and it was larger than the print on the mirror. We have no idea how it got there but there were never any children in the house when we lived there. We cleaned the mirror several times, so it wasn’t left over from someone that lived there before us. Even though we had some really strange things happen there we stayed. We loved the house and we loved our landlord even more. She looked after us like a second mother and we were very happy. We never asked any questions about the house’s history. We just really didn’t want to know.