Mini-story: Knock Knock

The knock came late in the evening. The weather was calm and clear, and the sky was already dark. The house was quiet. The child’s parents were downstairs — two storeys below, not just one, because the house was old and cold and vast, with too many rooms — and they didn’t hear anything at all. The knock was restrained, and polite. The knock came from the cupboard door. The child opened her eyes, and after a moment she sat up in bed. Her room was dimly lit, but not quite dark. The door to the upper hallway was closed, but there was a nightlight — in the shape of a friendly frog — on her bedside table. It glowed a soft green, smiling at her, and it was oblivious to the knock and everything else. The knock came again, and the child got out of bed. All she felt was curiosity, not fear, because she was a child possessed of extraordinary confidence and good sense, and she knew that nothing harmful existed within her own home. She opened the cupboard door, neither slowly nor quickly, because…