“Oh, yes, I have!” He smiled with charming archness, and I noticed that the fear had passed out of his voice.
“When did she come?” I asked.
“She has been here always, ever since,” he hesitated, “since before I was.”
“Does she look after the other children too?”
He laughed, cuddling down into the middle of the feather bed. “They don’t know about her. They have never seen her.”
“But how can she come and go in the house without anybody seeing her?”
At this the laughter stopped. “She has a way,” he answered enigmatically. “She never comes into the house except when I’m afraid.”
I bent over and kissed him. “Well, you’re not frightened any longer?”
“Oh, no. I’m all right now,” he replied, stroking my hand. “The next time it gets dark Mammy says she will come back and finish her story.”
“And I am next door,” I said. “Whenever you begin to feel frightened you can come and sleep on the big couch by the window.”