“Baxter, slow down this instant!” Kay pulled back on the leash as the yellow Lab led a mad pace toward the moonlit lake. Darkened trees circled the silver-hued waters. Bramble spikes nicked at Kay’s shins as she ran to maintain command of the Labrador retriever. 

With a sudden jolt, Baxter stopped, sniffed the ground around a row of hedges and emitted a mournful bark. “What’s wrong, boy?” Kay put her hand down to the ground and touched a sticky substance. She looked at it under the streetlight. “Blood?” 

“Who the hell are you?” a voice bellowed from the bushes. 

Kay felt the nape of hair on her neck bristle. She leaned down and grabbed the dog’s collar. “Let’s get out of here, Bax.” 

“What’s the hurry?” said a man as he stepped from out of the bushes. Slight of build with rough-hewn features and a shock of slick, black hair, the man moved toward her. “The party’s only begun!” 

Baxter growled and pulled on the leash yanking it from Kay’s slippery hold. In two seconds, the man lay sprawled on the ground with a ninety-pound dog on his chest. 

“Get him off o’ me! I’ll leave ya alone.” 

“Come here, Baxter,” Kay called the dog. He obeyed, but stood between her and the stranger. 

Blood glistened across the ridge of the man’s nose. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” the stranger said as he rubbed the blood with the back of his sleeve, “got this for grabbing this.” He held up a handbag. “It ain’t worth it anymore.” 

“Good for her,” Kay said, “Teach you to stop robbing women and scaring them to death.” She stepped further away. 

“Right. So you ain’t scared of this?” A silver flash cut the air as the man wielded a large knife toward Kay’s face. 

“Now throw down your jewelry… the gold watch and that thing on your neck.” 

Kay felt her turquoise-studded watch, pulled it from her wrist, and threw it down. “Here.” 

“And that too.” 

“No!” Kay touched the cross, an heirloom from her grandmother. 

“I guess I’ll have to take it.” 

Kay backed away and tumbled over a tree branch. 

Almost instantly the knife glinted dangerously above her. “Is it worth your life, lady?” 

As she choked on the rank smell of tobacco and stale wine, a gray mist descended on them, its intensity covering them and the stranger. The flutter of wind chimes tingled her ears. Kay sat up. Bewilderment replaced fear. Out of the mist came a man in a white suit surrounded by an aura of violet and gold. His soft features reddened with an intense fury as he turned from her to the thief. Anger lit the emerald of his eyes. Words bellowed like the force of a cyclone from his lips and the thief crunched down in fear and confusion. “Leave her be! Leave her and never come back!” 

The thief scrambled up and took off running as Kay’s astonishment faded. 

Baxter hid behind her knees as this interloper closed the gap between them. A smile crinkled the edges of his thin lips, and his palms flew up. “Peace. Be not afraid, Kay.” 

She stood immobile then backed away. “Who… who the devil are you?”

Hurt creased his brow and his glow dimmed a moment then resumed its bright appearance.

“Do not be ungrateful, Kay.”

“I’m getting out of here,” she said. “First the thief, now you! This must be a bizarre nightmare, one manifested like a Salvador Dali painting.” She turned to run, but a firm and gentle hand held her in place.“No, please listen to me, Kay.”

“Who are you?”

“Suffice it to say I have known you for a long time. And I know your gift did not protect you tonight.” He stared a moment at her neckline. “But this did.”

Kay fingered the cross as she stared up at her strange rescuer.

“A gift too, I see,” he continued.

“Gift?”

“Why is it you mortals forget what’s precious within, the precious gift God gave you? It is there, Kay. Yet you neglect it.”

“First a thief, now a lunatic! I should have listened to my brother and stayed out of the woods at night. What do you want?”

“I’m not here for material rewards.”

She stared hard at him. “You’re not getting that either, bud.”

He shook with laughter. “Oh, Kay, is that what you think? Here, come away, the danger’s not over. Hold my hand, let the dog go. He will follow.”

For some unknown reason, Kay allowed the being to take her hand. His touch felt like a feather yet carried strength beyond hers. She looked down at Baxter. “Follow me, boy,” she called, and then Kay’s feet lifted from the ground. “Oh, no!”

“Hold on, Kay!”

As they rose above the earth, Kay cringed. “Don’t worry, I won’t let go.”

Over the treetops and past the empty playground toward the opening to the park they flew while Baxter, a dot below, chased them through and out of the park. “Please,” Kay begged when they reached the outskirts, “please put me down!” In an instant her feet touched a soft patch of grass. “Whoa!” Her voice echoed the word several times until dizziness and her panting subsided. “Are you an alien?”

“No. Don’t go in the park so late.” He handed her a silver whistle on a black nylon cord. “Here, if you need me again.”

“A whistle? I can whistle for you?” She examined the tiny instrument with its indecipherable scrawl on one side. “Your name?” She looked up and the mist reappeared around the stranger and he vanished before her eyes. Only the dog stood beside her. Baxter nuzzled her hand, and she hooked the leash back on his collar. “Come on, boy, we won’t tell anyone about this.”

 

****