“Creatures of the Night my ass!”
My visitor was looking to be less refined than the stories made out. The dogs were making a fuss, and this was likely to raise the whole town if it didn’t calm down some. But the stories are always wrong. We know this, and yet we are still surprised.
I shooed the little fluffball that often sleeps in my room into the hall, and it got quieter.
He continued hovering outside my window, though, until I remembered my manners.
“I’m sorry, please do come in.”
He slipped through the open panes with ease, then stood there looking around as if he was a little confused.
“Am I in the right castle? Nothing looks familiar.”
“You must be remembering Mother’s room, or possibly Grandmother’s. I’ve made a few changes since I moved in.”
“Wait, how long was I asleep this time?”
“Well, my mother told me stories of you, but somehow although she always tried to make it sound like she was in them, I somehow knew it was Grandma you were visiting. But that would have been this very room, and you would have used that very window.”
“Fifty years or more. What could have happened?”
“Some have said they staked you. Perhaps they did. They did dig up that roundabout last month, and there was some fuss about a coffin found under the crossroads by the construction crew. They did say that the rats started acting funny the moment they brought the coffin out of its resting place.”
“Those ungrateful peasants! I protected them and the do that to me! It must have taken a while before someone disturbed the stake in my remains, even though it was likely inevitable. We do come back. They always forget where they put us, and then we come back.”
He looked around hungrily. Then in an eyeblink he was by my side, sliding his hand under my hair to lift and reveal my neck. I wasn’t sure what to think, but this did seem a touch forward.
The Creativity Oracle 