Kyle  smiled as he pegged to shirt to the wire.

He and Sam had talked for ages,hours after that. Her voice semes to sound sweeter,magical than it had previously been . And he could feel her smile on his ear.

Then Mama said he had to wake up eventually. She asked him to help with the laundry. It wasn’t as if he had much of a choice. If he had refused it would have been a cooking stick on his head.

And he still couldn’t get over last night. It gave him the shivers. No one wanted to think their neighbour was a murderer and might stick a knife into their heart in a second.

He still couldn’t tell whether it was all a dream and he’d turned psychic or something and they might all die…or something.

“Mish Willy!”, Cam said and clapped his mud-kissed tiny little fingers in delight.

“Oh Mrs Willy is back, Kyle”

He stood frozen with the shirt mid air. Water dripped down his arms. He looked up. Slowly. There she was. Same old purple dress. Same old purple hat. No luggage. No vehicle in sight. She came as if stepping between one shadow and the next. And she was smiling…he licked his lips.

She greeted his mother but he couldn’t hear a thing. All he knew was that he had a scary old neighbor and she wanted to kill him in his sleep. She was talking to Mama,why was it she seemed to be looking at him then?

“Kyle, tell me,what have you been up to?”

“No…. nothing Mrs Willy”

“Really? No trouble?”

“No trouble,”  he blinked, licked his lips and puffed out his cheeks. 

She walked away without another word.

He stood there,  frozen in time. As soon as she reached the door, she turned and smiled at him from the corner of her lips.

The end!