Sleep Tight.

When I was very small, my grandmother and grandfather bought a house in a small town in Illinois called Baylis. It was a big, two-story house with a storm cellar and rickety stairs going up. The storm cellar to me was the scariest place on earth, until you walked up those rickety stairs at night. The house was built in the early 1900s by a retired sea captain for his wife. As far as I understand, she died shortly after they moved there. After his wife died, the captain rattled around that house by himself for another 11 years. He died supposedly of a broken heart from the loss of his wife.

The first time I heard about him was from my grandmother, and I was small so I thought she was just scaring me so I'd go to bed. But, boy, was I wrong! I didn't see the captain until I was about seven or eight. Back when the house was built, they didn't have electricity in it and there was no light in the stairwell. At first, when I would walk up those stairs, I would hear extra footsteps and creaking. I was too scared to turn around and see what was following me, so I just ran and jumped in my aunt's bed. This happened about four nights in a row. On the fifth or sixth night, I went up and again heard the footsteps and creaking.

This time I got brave enough to turn around to see if it was a person behind me, and trust me it wasn't! I stood very still and very dumbfounded. It was a wrinkled up, hunched old man with a cane, a pipe hanging from his mouth, and an old-fashioned sailor's cap - the blue kind with the steering wheel in the middle. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! But I swear he was there. He looked like cloud or, better yet, like how fog sets on the ground over water. He was clearly shaped, but was cloudy inside the shape.

I couldn't really make out specific facial features, but could tell his eyes, nose, mouth, and that pipe hanging form his lips! And that hat - it was like it was hanging in the air all by itself! I don't know why even to this day, but somehow I just knew he wasn't going to hurt me. As I stood there with my mouth open, frozen in that spot, staring, he began to come in clearer. Everything about him that was cloudy before began to take on real form.

I guess he materialized right before me. I started feeling a little less scared and raised my hand to reach for him. And guess what? He reached back. He actually raised his hand and pushed it toward mine. When his hand got close enough to touch mine, it felt so cold, and I shivered, and my hand went right trough his. After he got his so far he began to close his fingers around my hand and then when I blinked he was gone! I never actually saw his shape again, but every night he would follow me up to bed and whisper in my head to sleep tight and not to be afraid.