Fear crawled up the backs of Beryl and Zelda, clutching at their throats so hard they could not swallow from the fear. Something ferocious was coming for them, and Beryl’s skeptical mind was going to have to give a little and allow her witch’s instincts to prevail if she were going to survive this night.

  “What do we do, Zelda?”

  “My book!” Zelda cried as if salvation had sprung to mind. Rushing over to a tall bookcase, she withdrew a weathered, leather-bound volume from the shelf and brought over to Beryl. “These are my mother’s old spells. There’s one in here to protect your home.”

  “We haven’t time for that!” Beryl exclaimed. “We have to get out of here, now.”

  “I’m afraid this book is all we do have time for, Beryl. We can’t go out that door. He’s too fast, and we ain’t got time to get anywhere.”

  Zelda opened the book and flung through the many pages, almost tearing some of them as she went. Moments later, she found what she was hoping for. It was a spell titled, Home Shielding. Holding the book open so that they could both read aloud, they simultaneously recited the words written in old handwriting on the page.

  “Home of brick

  Home of wood,

  Evil roams

  Where goodness should.

  Home of love

  Home of light,

  Shield this house

  From evil’s might.”

  Beryl thought it seemed like such a silly spell—nothing more than a badly-worded poem. Yet it must have carried great power with it because she could have sworn the house tremored after the incantation.

  “Is that it?” she asked Zelda. “That’s all we do?”

  “Dammit, Beryl!” Zelda exclaimed, offended. “My momma was just like your Aunt Nacaria. If she wrote a spell, it worked. Didn’t need nuthin’ else.”

  Suddenly the door shook!

  Something began banging on the other side, banging violently. Beryl feared the door might bang right off its hinges. They clutched each other, both pairs of their eyes fixed, unblinking, to the front door now shaking furiously. For Beryl, it was as if the walls and furniture faded into some distant background leaving only the door in the room. Even the color of the foam green carpet melted away into nothingness as the door struggled to hold itself in place.

  “It’ll unhinge from the frame,” Beryl said.

  “No, it won’t. We cast the spell. It’ll hold.”

  “How good a witch was your mother?” Beryl asked.

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  “I guess we’re gonna find out.”

  Almost paralyzed with terror, Beryl held onto Zelda’s arm for assurance and denied her burning eyes a soothing blink. She thought to herself, now I know what real fear is. No longer was fear just something on a movie screen, or something in the faces of patients’ families unsure their loved one would survive. Beryl understood now that fear is thick and blanketing and when experienced, crippling.

  The door began a series of rests followed by another onslaught of bangs and shakes. The force so strong it seemed to be bending the door inward as if the wood were somehow now flexible. The women wanted to scream but didn’t. Screaming wouldn’t help, but that wasn’t the reason. They were simply too scared to scream. At once the shaking stopped as a silence fell over the house. The soundlessness was not comforting. It did not signal victory. It signaled the anticipation of something else they were not ready for.

  “It’s not over, is it?” Beryl whispered.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Beryl pulled free of the mental protection their closeness offered and walked slowly towards the front window. She knew she must look outside. She would be able to see if he were still at the door if she could just bring herself to look outside. Terror had all but crippled her. To part those drapes only to find some menacing stare glaring back at her would send her right over the edge.

  “I am a witch. I fear nothing,” she repeated over and over to herself as she reached out for the curtain fabric. “I fear nothing.”

  Slowly she watched her own shaky hand touch the fabric and begin to pull the drape aside. The very touch of the material sent chills down her spine. Her breaths were labored and her muscles tense. Her entire body felt constricted. With one brave swoop, she jerked the curtains back and peered into the blackness.

  “Can you see anything?” Zelda whispered from a few feet behind her.

  “Nothing. I think he’s gone.”

  She pressed her forehead to the glass in attempts to see outside without the glare of the room’s light. The cold pane against her forehead felt good. Without warning a pair of eyes rose from underneath the windowsill to meet her own. She opened her mouth to scream but screams still would not come. It felt like an eternity, standing locked eye to eye with those glaring red eyes. She couldn’t move. She wanted to but couldn’t. It was as though she were being held in place by her own body. Shock. She observed the creature’s breath fogging the glass from the other side. It mesmerized her for a second until the beast let a slow growl emerge from behind those sharp teeth. Before Beryl had completely recognized what the sound was, it raised into a monstrous roar.

  She leapt back from the window. Gleaming fangs dripped with saliva behind the glass. She saw the bristly hair along the cheekbones and forehead. She saw the pulsating snout of the monster and his eyes now ablaze like burning coals. He lifted a hairy paw to the glass. His sharp talons made the pane shriek against the razor tips.

  “Go away!” Zelda yelled.

  The beast roared again. His cry shook the glass and sent Beryl toppling backward into a side table. For a moment as the lamp shattered on the floor, Beryl thought he’d broken through the glass. The room was darker now without the lamp. Being unable to see into the blackness outside the window made their fear multiply. They held each other once more and moved to the center of the room. They couldn’t tell if his fiendish eyes were still watching from the window until a high-pitched cry echoed from the chimney.

  “He’s on the roof!” Zelda shrieked as they now heard the shuffling and scraping above their heads. They sank to the floor in wait.

  More wails ensued, and even more noises from above. The sounds of clawing at the shingles and the wood beneath, made them shiver. The loosening shingles sliding over the ones still attached sounded like sandpaper being rubbed over their heads. He was trying to claw his way down on top of them. But he never dropped from the ceiling. Occasionally the scraping above would cease as the front door shook again, then the window--then back to the roof. Beryl and Zelda spoke nothing as the series of attempts to infiltrate the house waged on. None met with success.

  “I don’t think he can get in,” Beryl said eventually. “Looks like your mother was a great witch after all.”

  The realization provided some comfort, but not much. The clock showed that it was not even midnight yet. It would be an exceedingly long night huddled together, waiting to see if he’d find a way in and if this was going to be their last night on earth.