My granddaughter, Brynnan, still dressed in her princess girl pajamas, came down the stairs to the basement bedroom where I had slept the night before. She turned off the lights in the room, climbed on the bed, and said the same thing to me which she had said most every morning since I got there ... “Tell me a story, Grandma, a scary story.”

And so, lowering my voice to a whisper, I slip out of bed and walk slowly, ever so slowly, around the room, and begin the story ...

“Long, long ago, in a faraway land, there lived a little princess girl who loved to sing and loved to dance. But one day, when the sky was very dark, the little princess girl heard something, or someone, coming out of the nearby forest land. That something, or that someone, was getting closer, closer, closer to the little princess girl.”