A Troubled Sleep

“And when I look in my window, so many different people to be.”

Donovan – Season Of The Witch

~

The boy was having a lot of trouble trying to get to sleep. It had become a common problem for him in the past few years. You see, now when things got quiet at bedtime he began to worry. He wondered if the demonic hag that had been haunting him would ever go away. Several years had now passed and the boy was now several years older, with three younger siblings; the youngest of which was now close to the same age as the boy was when the hag had first visited. And still the witch came to terrorize him.

And what about the threats this horrible old witch was now making toward his family? It seemed as soon as the boy decided that the witch’s threats towards him were maybe just all bluster to scare him, she began to threaten his younger siblings. As an oldest brother, he instinctively feared for their safety even more than his own, which made him fear the witch even more than before. And there was also something else.

The other thing that concerned the poor young boy was the idea that these hauntings were somehow all in his imagination? Nobody else ever saw the witch, and the boy was sure people now looked at him a little differently than most other kids. He overheard them say his withdrawn behavior was because he was shy. He didn’t like that. He wasn’t shy! The whole thing made him feel like a disappointment. He wondered what he could do about it all. He was afraid it was all hopeless.

But even though it took him several hours to fall asleep, that’s just what the boy finally did. It was not long before he was dreaming. He found himself in the living room of his house with the rest of his family. Everything looked okay, but something didn’t feel quite right to the boy. It was after realizing this didn’t feel like a good dream that he noticed that his sister wasn’t there.

And then at that moment the familiar low ominous humming sound that always announced the coming of the hag came again to the boy. But there was a curious difference this time. It didn’t sound quite as close. It felt almost as if the sound was being aimed in another direction. The boy thought maybe it was because this was just a dream.

Even though, upon hearing the threatening sound, his usual urge was to flee in panic to a futile safety near the closest adult, curiosity got the best of the boy.  He couldn’t help himself but to follow that all too familiar strange shift in gravitational pull towards the back of the house. And anyway, he felt that it wasn’t pulling towards him as hard this time. He still didn’t want to meet the hag alone again, but he just couldn’t help himself but to follow his curiosity.

When he got to the kitchen doorway his eyes were somehow instinctively drawn to the window just over the sink at the right side of the kitchen. There looking in the window was the demonic witch with a menacing look on her face! Even though the boy felt the overwhelming urge to run away, he didn’t do it because he noticed that the hag’s horrible gaze wasn’t focused in his direction. She was after something else.

When the boy followed the gaze of the monstrous old hag to the opposite side of the room he found his sister cowering there in the corner! The boy’s terror shifted immediately from himself to his poor little sister. What could he do? He knew he was incapable of helping her.

The boy then turned to look back to the kitchen window but the hag wasn’t there anymore. She was now in the middle of the kitchen walking toward his obviously terrified little sister! No!!! And when the witch halted directly in front of the helpless little girl, the evil old hag turned to the boy and gave him the most evil, spiteful grin she had ever shown him.

It was right at that moment that the boy woke up from the nightmare.

The next afternoon, while still obsessively worrying about his all too real feeling nightmare over and over, the boy’s little sister approached him. Her gaze was focused on the floor for some reason, and she seemed as if she wanted to turn and run. Then she finally looked up at him and said in a small voice, “I don’t know who to tell this to. I had a nightmare last night. It seemed real when I was there. There was a mean old witch, and she said she was going to hurt me…”

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