Lying in bed that night with the breeze fanning my face, I began to relax. The cool air felt as soothing as my mother’s hand when, in younger years, I was sick with a fever. Sighing, I burrowed into my pillow.
Sleep vanished as a sound penetrated my consciousness. I sat bolt upright. What had awakened me? My bedroom curtain moved with the wind, but was it strong enough to knock something off my dresser?
Throwing back the sheets, I padded to the window. The full moon lit the front yard, making it almost as bright as day and throwing long tree shadows across the grass. An owl disengaged itself from an oak and flew silently away. Owls are night birds and they sometimes fly into yards, so there was nothing unusual about seeing it. Maybe it had hooted and that was what woke me.
Something, however, felt wrong. Could this be the same owl I heard before our near break-in? Had it adopted Mom and me and taken upon itself the job of guarding us?
As I gazed at the shadows in the yard, one of them moved. This shadow was large and upright. A man stepped from behind the oak. As if I were watching an old, silent movie, a smaller figure appeared, walking toward the man, her housecoat flapping in the breeze. Mom! She was alone and unprotected, closing in on a stalker who had trespassed into the yard!
Panic urged me down the stairs, shoe-less, with not even a robe around my pajamas. Yanking open the front door, I dashed toward those two moonlit figures.
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