Five year old Ana BuFaye refuses to stay in her own bed or on her side of the room she shares with her big sister Helena. The phantoms of the night have spooked her. Stories about town are that the ancient house is haunted. But Ana doesn't need anyone to tell her that. She knows it's haunted. Because one of the haints is looking right at her. She doesn't need anyone to tell her it's haunted. She sees it. She sees an evil red-eyed man standing in the shadows under the 'tree' at night looking up at her window. What does he want? Why was he looking at her? She doesn't know him nor did she care to get to know him.
It's the year of 2469; she thought the science folks said things like that didn't exist anymore. They were never real. They say it's all superstition and anyone who believes otherwise is just plain stupid or suffering from mental illness. People say the old people, a long time ago invented a bunch of things to scare you. They saw ghosts every where because back then, people didn't have electricity nor nuclear energy to light up the nights. She knows they knew what they were talking about because she can see them and they can see her. Well, there goes one right there under her window. Howling like a crazed banshee. But can a guy be a banshee? She guesses he can for that guy under the tree is definitely one. He has been staring at her all night. His glowing red eyes tell her he's evil and wants to kill her. She hugged her teddy bear closer and swallowed hard and did her usual stint when scared. Ran and jumped in the bed with her big sister and covered her head.
It was early October but still hot in the deep South. The three year old girl who shared a room with her older sister threw her doll down and bolted out the room. From the upstairs window, she sees her father driving the hover harvester out the field toward the storage. The straining sound of the engine's gears shifting and clouds of tan hued dust signaled he was coming home. She was so excited she ignored her shoes and ran down stairs as fast as her skinny little legs could carry her. Her mother yelled from the kitchen telling her to stop running before she fell down the stairs again. But she knows she didn't fall the first time. Something or someone pushed her. But she obeyed and slowed down, holding onto the-years-of-hand-gliding-over- them smoothed rail. Her brother Jack was already outside running ahead of her. He would get picked up first and tossed in the air. She liked to reach dad first after he disembarked from the cabin of the harvester and be the first one Daddy picked up and tossed in the air.
Finally making it outside pass the squeaky screen door as quietly as possible; crossing the wide, hot porch to the steep steps as carefully as doable, she picked up speed when she was one step from the last step and leapt to the ground and hit it running. She flew around the corner of the large antebellum southern house with two ribbon accented, excessively long auburn pigtail sailing out behind her. She ran cross the huge yard into in a patch of cool grass on the west side of the house; a rare find on a hot Fall day. She slowed up a little as she passed the knobby, thick grey barked ancient fir tree she detested. She doesn't know why but she hates that cursed tree.
