Someone’s at the Door

On an unseasonably cool and windy late evening, the mango blossoms twirled in the chill of the north wind that would inevitably lead to their demise. As they twirled, a nimble lass of about ten dithered in the fast-approaching gloom of twilight. The gloom that would soon engulf her house and that of all the others as it sprinkled across the Pomona valley in much the same nebula-like pattern as the fallen mango pollen on the bare, crimson earth that staged the girl’s gyrations.

As she spun herself dizzy in that way that only the young and carefree are at liberty to do without fear of judgment, she was oblivious to the fact that sinister forces were emerging from the dusk that had fallen like so many of the dried and withered leaves that littered the base of the tree she seemed to perform for.

In any event, she would not have to wait long to experience their presence, albeit thankfully not their less-than-charitable intentions.

Slowly and gracefully winding down like the wooden tops she and her brothers released with a flourish in the local schoolyard, she came to an abrupt stop directly before the front door of the house. There she stood in a state of youthful nonchalance staring at nothing in particular whilst nevertheless being keenly aware of the stoic presence of her father. He was ensconced at the head of the dinner table which gave him a commanding view of his daughter’s improvised performance, as well as the vale below.

His steel grey eyes seemed to illuminate from within their deep-set recesses in a way that only enhanced the lustre of his jet-black hair that grew thick and mane-like on a man whose temper was said to equal that of a lion once his passions were aroused. Perhaps this should come as no surprise given that he drew from Scottish stock so that his tall and sinewy frame could have just as easily be at home in the Highlands as in the tropical valley where he now raised a family.

Thus it came to be that with her lithe frame silhouetted across that of the door and the final waning rays of the sun melting behind a mountain claimed by many to resemble a giant in repose, this child so shy and pure would be given a startle so sudden and piercing that she would recount it to her incredulous children one day.

“Get away from here!” came the booming command from the father as he sprung up from behind the table with such rapidity and force that his chair teetered for a moment before righting itself and avoiding a crash onto the dirt floor of the house.

The girl was not quite so lucky.

Her father’s outburst, seemingly unwarranted as it was, and accompanied by a severe countenance that she had all too often associated with either an oncoming string of blows of the rawhide belt or else a volley of invectives, made her start to the point that she temporarily lost balance and landed knees down on the soft red clay at the threshold.

“Daddy I didn’t do anything!” came the shrill protest from the now thoroughly unnerved child.

“No sweetheart, not you,” was the tempered reply of the man who was now drawn to his full height and stood ramrod while he attempted in almost utmost futility to convey a sense of calm to his cowering bairn.

“I’m talking to him!” he croaked in a voice half-muted by the presence of the figure to which he now pointed. Such was the lion laid low in his den.

The child, in a mixture of fear and a curiosity that was intrinsic to that age, spun around to meet the gaze of the thing that had with such rapidity aroused the wrath of her sworn protector.

Spinning around, her long black hair wrapped itself in a snake-like coil around her now pallid neck while her eyes searched around the yard that by now was only visible for a few feet beyond where she lay knelt. A waning moon emerged teasingly from behind clouds but its light was virtually overpowered by the darkness so quintessential of nights in the tropics. The nymphet stared nonetheless.

Nothing.

Nothing that her straining eyes could discern anyway.

“Daddy,” she began slowly.

“Daddy, what did you see?”, the hairs on the back of her neck only just now beginning to fall lankly back into place.

Father now carefully eased himself back into his chair, all the while keeping his head bowed to his chest and both hands clenched to the arms of the chair so that his knuckles gleamed white. After a protracted moment of silence in which every sough of the icy wind grating against the corrugated roof of the house elicited thoughts of the Devil himself threatening to rip it off, he unclenched his hands. Laying both palms down perfectly parallel to one other, he hoisted his head off his collarbone.

As his eyes slowly rose to meet those of his daughter what she saw in turn was a man who seemed to have glimpsed the very face of evil itself.

“Darling… there was a man behind you.” Came the hushed response.

The girl, now standing if somewhat unsteadily, was again bathed in a cascade of dread that flowed like blood down to her blistered toes. Her father was a man of keen faith and even keener vision whose eyes could spot a blackbird in the corn patch from a mile away. So there was no chance of his words being said in either error or jest.

“He was short, shorter than you as a matter of fact” he continued.

“I couldn’t make out his face because the light was behind him and it was already getting dark”, he murmured.

“But I knew from the way he appeared all of a sudden, and the fact that he seemed to be sliding right up behind you like a Tommy Goff snake that he was no good, and,” he paused while his brow ridges furrowed like a freshly ploughed field in May.

“And, I knew without having to think twice that he was not one of God’s creatures like you and I”. This last sentence seemed to provoke the most distress in the man.

“Remember to say the Lord’s Prayer before you go to bed tonight child, and close your window and don’t open it no matter who or what you hear outside” he commanded.

“Yes sir, I’ll do that Daddy” was her meek and earnest reply.

That little girl did as she was told that night, and never again for all long as they lived in the Pomona Valley did she, her brothers, or either one of her parents claim to have seen anything else that could be labelled as otherworldly. In any event, they kept their doors locked come dusk all the same. Their prayers whispered on bent knees being their most steadfast shields against whatever malignant forces lingered about.

In a way, the swift and startling occurrences of that evening so many years ago left a lasting impression on that young maiden that she carried with her throughout her life in the form of an ardent faith, and a pronounced distaste for anything deemed to be not fully Christian in origin.

I would know. I’m her son.