Someone Knocking

It all started with a knock on the door.

A simple, everyday occurrence... except that it was the middle of the night during a howling gale, and the nearest house or road was over a mile away. (A deliberate choice; some neighbours are better at a distance) There should be no reason for someone to be knocking.

Someone in need of rescue would have knocked more than once, and probably shouted to go with it. Perhaps I had imagined it. Perhaps it was a branch blowing in the wind, or a nut or stone blown with enough force to sound like a knock.

Satisfied, I turned back to my book and hot chocolate.

The sound came again, and this time it repeated itself. ‘It’s just the wind,’ I told myself. ‘Just the wind knocking a branch. Nothing to be fearful of.’

Indeed, there was a long pause, long enough to finish my drink and consider the merits of actually sleeping.

Yet, no sooner had I hung up my dressing gown, when another knock came. This time it was louder and more insistent. Nor did it stop.

Perhaps it was worth checking the door, if only for my own peace of mind…

With every step toward the entryway, the shadows seemed to grow longer and darker. Things moved at the edge of my vision, only to vanish when I turned my head to catch a glimpse. Voices whispered, never quite audible or discernible to my mere human hearing.

And throughout it all, the steady, continuous knocking at my door.

Did I really dare to open it and see what was on the other side?

The whispers grew louder. ‘Open the door, mortal,’ repeated by a thousand, a hundred thousand silibant voices. ‘Open the door and see what awaits you.’

I opened the door. Outside was a figure. Tall as a young tree and inhumanly beautiful. I didn’t need my screaming instinct to tell me that this was no human being that stood before me.

Steeling myself, I offered the plate of biscuits kept on my hallway table for such incidents. They took one, perhaps out of habit, perhaps to see what I would do. As they chewed, I smiled. “You have eaten my food and accepted hospitality, however briefly. By your own laws, older than mankind, you may do me no harm.”

The stranger made an indignant noise. “Why does everyone assume I’m here to do them harm?”

I looked over my shoulder at the shadows reaching for me, who promptly backed off when the stranger scowled at them. “Well, perhaps the messaging is a bit ambiguous… Not everyone is awake at this hour, and are more suggestible in dreams.”

I couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped me. “If I’d dreamed this, neither love nor money would pry me from my bed until well after sunrise, even if I thought it was only a nightmare.”

The otherworldly stranger frowned thoughtfully. “If I swear you no harm, may I come in and perhaps seek your advice about approaching mortals? There are dark and dangerous things out here that I must hide from, and I would welcome anything that made it easier.”

It fel a lot like inviting trouble, but curiosity had always been a fatal flaw of mine. If someone truly needed help, how could I turn them away? It wasn’t as if I would be targeted for helping this stranger, after all...

I opened the door wider. “I offered you food, and therefore my hospitality. Is there anything you can’t eat or drink?”

The stranger shrugged, “Rare red meat. Too much iron disagrees with my kind.”

I’d known about the effects of cold iron, purified into metal, but red meat? Really?

I hasn’t been planning on offering a steak either way, not with the current prices. Cheese and crackers would do fine, this time of night. “So, tell me what you’re fleeing from.”

The next time it stormed, my mystery stranger returned, and proved that he’d listened to my advise about how not to scare the living daylights out of his hosts.

He also brough friends. “How do you feel about sieges?”

I raised an eyebrow and went to ransack my pantry. “You’d better have Brough some defences worth the name with you, or I’m banishing your siege to the shed by the river.”

The shed by the river was an old barn in questionable condition, that could stand further ruin in ways that my house and I were less keen on.

My stranger grinned cheerfully. “Not to worry, it’ll be over by sunrise.”