Seven year old Merry Baker woke up on blood stained sheets, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her mother was at her bedside in an instant, ready to clean her wounds once again. “What on earth happened this time?” Merry’s mother, Abigail asked. “The monsters did it,” Merry cried. “They cut my arm with their sharp green claws.” “Nonsense,” Abigail said. “You need to get that imagination of yours under control before you end up killing yourself in your sleep. How many times do I have to tell you, there’s no such thing as monsters?” “Yes there are!” Merry had lost her patience for this subject a long time ago. “There are so monsters.” “Well then, where are they?” “In my dreams,” she sighed. “Always in my dreams.” Abigail grabbed a bottle of ointment and a clean rag from the bedside table. “Well dreams can’t hurt you, now can they?” Merry held up her right arm and pointed to the blood dripping down to her elbow. “Pfftt,” Abigail huffed. “Monsters didn’t cut you Merry. You did that to yourself and I’ve half a mind to punish you for it. How many times do I have to tell you to stop hurting yourself?” Merry looked reluctant to answer her mother’s rhetorical question, but she’d gotten a stubborn streak from her father that never backed down when she knew she was right. “I’m telling you monsters cut me in my sleep. The same ones Poppa...” “Don’t you spread those evil lies Meredith Ellen Baker!” Abigail shouted. “You let your poor Poppa rest in peace.” Merry looked sheepishly at her blankets. Momma didn’t like it when she talked about Poppa’s monsters. No one did. Especially the doctors. Poppa saw the monsters when he was alive, but no one believed him either. Merry believed him. She saw them once too, the day they killed him. Abigail finished dressing the wounds and looked down at the red blotches spattered on Merry’s white sheets. She tsk-tsked and shook her head. “Time to get up. We’ll take these here sheets down to the riverbank to wash them.” “Do we have to do chores today?” Merry asked hopefully. “Course we do,” Abigail replied. “Can’t do them tomorrow, now can we? Tomorrow’s the Lord’s day. First we have to stop at Turner’s Market, then the yarn shop, then it’s off to the river. Come on. Get up and let's get going.” “Yes Mother,” Merry replied and pulled herself out from beneath the covers. Abigail gathered them up and went off into the kitchen to pack them up for the trip. Merry sat in her room on the bare bed thinking about her dreams. From the corner of her eye, she saw a little girl standing just outside her closet. She let out a gasp and whipped her head around to get a better glimpse, but no one was there. She knew she wasn’t crazy, even if the doctors said otherwise. One second ago there was a little girl with long black hair standing beside the closet, in a white dress with black polka-dots . She was 100% sure of it, but she wasn’t about to tell Momma that.