Lisa A. Smith

         The wind was more restless than usual that night as Lizzy got ready for bed. She could hear it brushing against the house, pushing against the windows and rustling the leaves of the trees in the backyard as she lay on her bed, reading. Looking at her watch, she saw it was getting close to 8:30 p.m. She sighed. She wished she could think of a way to convince her parents that she should be able to stay up later. All her friends in her 5th grade class went to bed at 9:00. Trisha said she went to bed at 10:00, but Lizzy didn't believe her. Trisha was always making stuff up to impress people, like when she told everyone her dad was on TV. She made it sound like he was a star or something. Turns out he had only been seen briefly as the camera scanned the crowd at a hockey game. Big deal! 

         Lizzy went through the usual bedtime rituals of brushing teeth and saying good night to her family, then crawled back into bed and snapped off her light. The comforting noise of the TV in the next room helped to drown out the voice of the wind, which seemed to be picking up. Lizzy hoped it wouldn't start to thunder. She was 11 years old and pretty much past that fear, except for when it was dark. Then the booming and rumbling brought out the worst in her. She fell asleep straining to hear the slightest sound of far off rumbles.

          The wind woke Lizzy up, bringing her fully awake from a pleasant dream that faded as she lay in bed, listening to another gust that shook the house. There was no sound coming from the TV room which was right outside her room. It must be late. Her family would all be in bed, her parents in their bedroom, which was downstairs and on the other side of the house, and her older brother in his room right beside hers. Lizzy was secretly grateful for this arrangement when it came to waking up in the middle of the night. She had to admit that knowing she had a 20-year-old next to her to call on if she needed help was nice.

          It was really blowing now, causing the trees that were close to her side of the house to knock their branches against the siding. The window rattled as the heavy gusts blew against them intermittently. Lizzy cracked open her eyes. Surprisingly, her room was quite light. She looked at her window, which faced her as she lay in bed. Through the curtains she could see a faint glow. Moon must be up, she thought. She turned over in bed and shut her eyes again, but the rattling and blowing disturbed her. It was getting a little spooky, even if there was no thunder to accompany the window-shaking gusts.

          She tried to decide if she had ever heard such a wind but couldn't recall any night that had featured this unrelenting assault. She imagined the trees in her backyard bending earthward against the force of the wind and wondered if one could possibly be toppled. That made her uneasy, so she tried to ignore the sound, which of course made her all the more aware of it.

         Suddenly, through the wild blowing outside, she heard another sound. It was a regular sharp rapping, which came from the far end of the backyard and then drew closer to where she lay in the bed. She realized with a sharp jolt that it sounded like footsteps. But they weren't the soft, shuffling scrapes that you would normally hear if someone wearing shoes was walking along the concrete sidewalk that led from the garage out back and continued all the way around the house. These steps were harder, more defined. She rolled over onto her back in order to have both ears trained fully on the sound. She couldn't figure out what someone would be wearing to make their steps so crisp and sharp.

         In her fright her eyes flew open to see her window once again. What she saw there turned her limbs to ice and notched her heartbeat faster, if such a thing was possible.

         It was the head and shoulders of a man, passing rapidly across her window, from one side to another. The shadow did not linger, but was gone in an instant. The rapping steps followed the shadow's path exactly, then faded in the midst of another howl of wind.

          Lizzy was completely still beneath the blankets, her fright freezing her limbs. She wanted badly to yell for her brother. But even more than her desire to wake her brother was the desire to not call attention to herself. Her room was right against the outside wall, her bed tight against that wall. If she yelled for help, she had the uneasy feeling that the shadowy owner of the footsteps would hear her. There was something about the quality of those footsteps and the implacable nature of that shadow that stilled her tongue.

         Suddenly, she heard the strange footstep noises again. To her horror, she realized they were climbing the few steps to the side door of the house, which was just to the right of her bedroom door. Her breath caught in her throat as she heard the unmistakable sound of the doorknob rattling. He was trying to come in!

         But then the rattles stopped, and there was only the sound of the wind, as before. Straining with all her might, she could not hear anything else other than the wild gusts blowing among the trees. The window shook again.

         For the next few moments, Lizzy lay frozen in her bed. No footsteps broke through the howling outside. Was he gone? She waited a fraction longer, then the fear became too much. She screamed for her brother, hoping that whatever it was had left.

         "Gerald!" she yelled. "Gerald!" She strained to hear the sound of movement in the room next door. But nothing was happening. The wind continued its assault against the house. She carefully kept her eyes closed, not wanting to see any more shadows.

         "Gerald!" she yelled again, the sound of her voice crying for help increasing her anxiety. Her entreaties notched up a level.   "Gerald! Gerald!"

         She stopped, listening. Where was her brother? This was all becoming too much. No comforting getting-out-of-bed noises were to be heard, no light snapping on in the hallway outside. She couldn't stand it anymore. She had to go to him, assuming he was there, of course. She shoved that thought away before she could dwell on it.  Carefully, she drew back the covers, listening all the while for footsteps, rattling doorknobs, or any other sign of whatever was outside. Nothing. Gathering her courage, she stepped out of bed, shivering as the cool night air enveloped her. She longed to turn on the light but the same instinct that had delayed her yells stopped her. She could not bring herself to draw attention to herself. So, back carefully turned to the window, facing her closed bedroom door, she hugged herself for comfort and warmth and considered her next move.

         Once she opened the door she would see across the hallway into the TV room. To her left the hallway ended in the bathroom, beside that, her brother's room. Directly to her right would be the door to the outside—the one already tried and abandoned by the night visitor. She wondered if the big windows in the TV room that faced the front yard would be curtained against the night. She didn't think she could stand it if they were open, giving the intruder a glimpse of the inside of the house, and her a view of what was outside. She stood still for a moment, heart knocking in her chest. She really didn't want to see what it was, and besides, then he could see her. Lizzy shivered again.

         Willing her feet to move, she slowly opened her door. She saw at once that the curtains in the TV room were closed, and she let out the breath she had not realized she had been holding. Now that she had opened the door, her tension mounted until it was unbearable. She broke for her brother's room in a rush, muttering under her breath, "God please, God please..."—the best she could come up with under the circumstances. After all, she didn't know God very well yet. She had just become a Christian through her best friend Julie about two months ago. Not having a believing family, she did not have a rich heritage of faith to fall back on. But everything she did know about God told her He would understand.

         Flinging open Gerald's door, she flew into the dark room. Relief rushed through her. She could see him, lying there in the bed that lay snugly against the far wall, sleeping. She ran to the bed, flinching as she heard trees creaking alarmingly outside.

         "Gerald!" she hissed, jumping on the bed. He slept on, peacefully. She shook him.

         "Gerald!!" Shaking him violently, she repeated his name again and again with increasing urgency as he continued to sleep. What was wrong with him? She gave up in frustration, slumping against the wall. The windowsill bumped against her head. She briefly considered looking outside, but thought better of it. What if whatever was out there saw her looking out? She shuddered, and then froze as she heard the rapping footsteps again.

         But this time, they were getting softer. She felt a moment's relief until she heard the faint rattling of a doorknob. Not going away then, but descending the concrete steps that led to their basement door.

         Then, silence. No sound of a door opening. She let out a shaky breath. Whoever or whatever it was, he seemed to be thwarted by the locked doors. Thank goodness her father made the rounds each night and locked each one.

         The trouble was the house had 4 doors. The side door, by her room. The basement door. Then there was the door that opened into the upper floor, from the balcony that rimmed the back side of the house. And, of course, the front door. So, two more doors to go. She wished the stranger would give up and go away, but somehow she doubted that would happen. Logic told Lizzy that the next door to be tried would be the balcony door, upstairs, as it was also on the back of the house. She should have a few minutes to get some help before he got there. She pushed aside the remembrance of the swiftly moving shadow. A vicious gust shook the pane in the window above her, making her jump. Mixed in that noise she thought she heard a couple of footsteps coming up the stairs from the basement door.

         Lizzy gave her brother another frantic shake, leaning down to speak his name firmly and clearly into his ear. He continued to sleep soundly, oblivious. She gave up in disgust. Clearly, she was going to have to go to her parents' room.

          This presented a new dilemma. Due to the quirky design of this split level house, her parents slept clear across the house and down a flight of stairs from her. She was managing to keep her terror at bay in the smaller confines of the bedrooms. The thought of traversing the TV room, passing the front door, and going down the dark stairs to her parents' room was almost unbearable. She strained to hear anything outside above the blowing of the wind, but nothing distinctive emerged. She gave her brother one last shove, and when that produced no results, pushed herself off the bed.

         Gathering her courage around her, her thundering heartbeat almost drowning out the wild wind, she stepped back into the hallway. She quickly and soundlessly passed her bedroom door, giving a quick look at the side door to reassure herself that it remained comfortingly closed and locked, and paused at the entrance to the bigger TV room. Through the curtain, she could see the shadows of the bushes that grew next to the big picture window shudder and shake in the wind. The room illuminated briefly as a car went by on the street outside her house, shadows shifting eerily. This road was fairly busy, and even late at night traffic was not unknown. She drew some comfort from this fact—the would-be intruder maybe would not risk approaching the front of the house and being seen by passersby.

         She took a couple steps into the room, and her eyes lit upon the phone that was placed beside her mother's chair. Of course! The phone! She leapt forward and, grabbing at the receiver, listened for the dial tone. It buzzed with a steady hum. She peered at the lighted number pad on the receiver and, with shaking fingers, stabbed at 9-1-1. Visions of her picture in the paper with the accompanying headline "11-Year-Old Girl Saves Family" danced through her mind as she lifted the handset to her ear, only to hear the buzz of the dial tone again. She groaned in frustration, and then ground her teeth. They had been having trouble with this phone, she remembered. Why couldn't her parents just have fixed the stupid thing?

         She began to dial again and then heard the sharp footsteps, this time even louder, with a ringing, metallic edge to them. The unnatural sound pierced through her like a knife.  Who on earth, what on earth, makes footsteps like that? Her brain could not come up with a logical explanation.

         She froze again, breath held. He was climbing the metal steps that led to the balcony. Her ears strained to hear the sound she knew was coming—the attempt at opening the door. Her heart knocked heavily in her chest. Of all the doors, this was the one that had the most chance of being unlocked. It was where she always tried first when she herself was locked out. If her father was going to miss a door, it would be this one. Her breath came in shallow gulps as she concentrated on listening, even while she frantically tried to come up with a plan of what to do if the door opened. The knob rattled.

         Out the side door, she decided, and go get the neighbors. One more rattle, then silence.

         Then, thankfully, the footsteps started up again, echoing heavily on the wooden balcony floor, disappearing as a shriek of wind whistled around the corner of the house.

         Lizzy turned her attention to the phone again. Dialing the emergency number once more brought the same result—just more dial tone. She banged the receiver down angrily, then immediately regretted the noise she had made.

         She briefly reconsidered her options. Plan A seemed back in place—go down the stairs to her parents' room. She was not going to risk being outside with whoever/whatever was out there. She took a couple of steps and reached the doorway that led to the small front foyer.

         To her right was the front door. Glancing at the doorknob, she saw it was locked, and even better, the dead bolt was securely in place. To her left was the landing, from which stairs ascended to the upper rooms of the house and descended to the bedrooms below. Dark shadows pooled in the stairway, growing deeper as they led down towards her parents' room. Lizzy hated this. She felt all twitchy, shoulder blades itching as she imagined something creeping up behind her. She quickly glanced behind her. Nothing.

         Before she could make her mad dash down the stairs, the footsteps sounded again, loud and confident as they ascended the three steps that led up to the front door. Lizzy shrank back in fright as the familiar doorknob rattle broke through the wind's moans. She stood absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe. She fleetingly wondered at the stranger's boldness, noting with dismay his lack of concern with observers. However, there were no sounds of cars passing by now, just the wind, which continued its assault on the house.

         Lizzy was torn with indecision. She wanted badly to dash down the stairs and fling herself on her parents' bed, but was frozen with fear that the stranger would hear her and make more of an effort to get inside. She was sure that this was no ordinary burglar. Those footsteps, for one thing. She willed the stranger to retreat, to leave her alone; her whole being a prayer that he would go away. Listening with all her might, she heard only the wind, though, not the hoped-for sound of descending footsteps.

         Abruptly, so sharply she jumped, there was a sharp knock on the door, twice in rapid succession. Lizzy stared at the door in horror. He must know she was here, listening! Again the sharp knock broke through the wind's whistling. Then, silence. Lizzy strained to hear any clue as to the stranger's intent. She concentrated on the door, listening for any sound of movement. She was convinced that whoever was on the other side was doing the same, and that if he knew she was there, she was doomed.

         All at once a voice broke through the wind.

         "Lizzy! Let me in!" 

         Her father's voice, tinged with annoyance.

         "Lizzy!"

         Lizzy was astonished. Of all the explanations she was contemplating, this was the least expected. What was her father doing out there? Her shock and relief made her unable to form any coherent words. Gathering herself together, she began to call out to him when he spoke again.

         "I've locked myself out. Let me in, Lizzy!"

         This was her father's commanding tone of voice, the one that brooked no nonsense from kids who might be thinking of disobeying. Instinctively, she took a step forward towards the door, which brought her to the doorway that led to the foyer. Another step to her right would bring her into the hallway, facing the door. She began to step, her hand reaching out for the knob, when the reality of the situation hit her again. Something seemed not right about this, and she remembered again the strange footsteps. She hesitated, hand outstretched, sensing a growing impatience from outside the door. Her mind was racing, filled with impossibilities and questions. She didn't know what to do.

         "Elizabeth."

         A voice spoke quietly from behind her. She whirled around, a small shriek of terror escaping her lips.

         A man stood in the center of the room. He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt that glowed faintly in the moonlight that filtered through the curtains. Thick black hair fell to his shoulders. Dark eyes which glimmered in the moonlight regarded her kindly.

         "Don't be afraid, Elizabeth." Again he spoke softly, but with the manner of one who was accustomed to being obeyed. Behind her the knock sounded again, louder and more impatient.

         "Lizzy! Let me in!" The shout was angry, colored with desperation. Lizzy shoved aside her instinctive desire to obey.  She could only deal with one crisis at a time.

         Her father would forgive her if she delayed until she knew what was going on, she decided. She simply could not turn her back on the stranger, not even to go to her father's aid. She studied the man, who stood calmly in the center of the room without moving. This, and the kindness in his eyes, gave her some comfort. Besides, she reasoned, he could have attacked her easily enough before he had spoken, as she had not heard a sound behind her as she was gazing at the door.

         "Who are you?" Her voice sounded small and breathless, but she couldn't help it.

         The man smiled faintly.

         "Don't you know me?"

         She peered at him. He did look a bit familiar, but she couldn't place him. Behind her the knock sounded again.

         "Lizzy!" her father's voice yelled, "Open up this door this instant, young lady!"

         Lizzy chanced a glimpse over her shoulder at the door, then quickly looked back at the stranger. He had not moved, just stood in the room quietly. A sense of expectation grew in the shadows around him.

         All of a sudden she remembered where she had seen him before. A memory of herself, four years old, sprang to mind. She had been lost in the mall, separated from her parents. A man had found her and brought her to the security desk, staying with her until she was reunited with her parents. This was the man! She remembered now those kind eyes, the air of confidence that surrounded him. On the heels of that realization came another one, falling full and complete into her mind as if placed there.

         "You're an angel!" she gasped. She knew it to be true. Wonder tingled up and down her spine. Her fear abated as she stared in amazement at the visitor.

           "LIZZY!" The door shuddered as her father pounded on the door. "LET ME IN!"

          This was the absolute no-nonsense parent voice. Lizzy instinctively turned back toward the door, when the angel spoke behind her.

         "Will you let him in, then?" He spoke softly, but Lizzy heard every word, even though the wind outside picked up again, redoubling its assault on the windows. Branches scraped violently against the glass.

         Lizzy shot an imploring look at her companion.

         "It's my father." she said, but even to her ears she sounded unconvinced. The guardian cocked a brow.

         "Is it?"

         Lizzy's head whipped around as the door shuddered again from another vicious bang. The awful noise echoed throughout the house, bringing a fresh surge of panic spiking through her veins. She spun back to the angel, a terrible suspicion forming in her mind. Her father could not have hit the door that hard, not without breaking his hand.

         "Where are my parents?"

         Surely they should have woken by now; should be here dealing with this, not her!

         The angel bowed his head.

         "They are sleeping."

         A weight of sadness filled the room. Lizzy wondered at it, as his head came up and his eyes met hers again.

         "This is your choice to make, Elizabeth." Again, expectancy filled his gaze. At that moment, the wind stopped, bringing sudden silence ringing in her ears. All Creation seemed to be holding its breath.

         Suddenly, the truth dawned on Lizzy. She gazed at the door in horror, and took two slow careful steps backwards into the TV room, expecting at any moment the door to burst open. But nothing happened. She drew a shaky breath and turned to face the angel again. He was watching her intently, relief written on his features.

         "LIZZY!"

         The door shook and thundered with the impact of more blows. 

         "LIZZY!"

         Not her father's voice anymore. The cry of rage that broke over her snarled in frustration and pure, undistilled fury. Blows rained down on the door from outside. Lizzy wondered how the door continued to withstand the terrible onslaught.

         "He is a liar and destroyer, Elizabeth. Don't ever forget that."  The angel spoke with finality. Another truth broke over Lizzy. The angel was leaving her.

         "Won't I see you again?" Lizzy asked, despondent. This was not fair. She had just met her guardian angel and he was leaving?

         He smiled slightly.

         "Even now, you are almost too old to see me. That doesn't mean I won't be there. And you will see me again, but much later." The smile grew full, dazzling Lizzy with his beauty. Just as quickly, he grew somber again. "But you must not forget this night, and the decision you made. It will be before you again, before you are much older. And again, as you grow. Not in this same form, of course. Always he seeks entrance. Always you will have a choice." He paused, and those moon-sparkled eyes captured hers. "Choose wisely, Elizabeth."

         "I will," she said somberly, wondering at his words but not doubting their importance. 

         At these words the wind howled again, redoubling its fury of before. A sharp CRACK followed by a loud crash from outside signaled the downing of a tree.

          The angel glanced briefly at the window, then looked back and smiled again at Lizzy.

         "Do you want him gone, then?"

         Lizzy smiled back, dizzy with relief.

         "Yes!" she exclaimed. The angel inclined his head to her in a courtly fashion, then his shimmering eyes met hers again. It was not just the moon that made them sparkle so, she realized. Shadows bunched and flexed behind the angel, stretching out on either side of him, and suddenly Lizzy was shielding her eyes against a brilliant stab of light that bleached the room white.  An unearthly howl mingled with the shriek of the wind—then, silence reigned. The wind had stopped abruptly. She was alone in the room again.

         Lizzy crept to the window and parted the curtains. A car rumbled by, headlights flaring as it came closer, and then fading as it passed. The downed tree lay crookedly on the lawn.  Branches and leaves were scattered haphazardly about, but otherwise all was normal.

         But not for her. She knew that she would never be the same again. Discoveries had been made that would mark her, follow her through her lifetime to come. The world had changed for her this night. She leaned forward, looking up into the star-drenched sky.

         "Thank you," she whispered, face pressed against the glass. And smiled.

 

Copyright 2006, Lisa A. Smith

Lisa lives in Alberta, Canada. Her past times include reading, knitting, cross-country skiing, and bicycling. Her full time job is being a mother to three kids. Writing is a passion that she indulges in as often as she can! She has had some short stories published in the Faithwriters.com anthologies (In the Beginning, A Year of Celebration). 

 

 

Cover: "Madame Butterfly" 

Copyright 2006, Rachel A. Marks

Rachel A. Marks is a homeschooling mom to four beautiful kids. She's Managing Editor for the Christian Literary Magazine, Haruah, and is currently working with her agent to publish her first novel. You can read more about her on her webpage: < www.shadowofthewood.com >.