I can see him sitting there, just at the edge of what little vision I still retain.  Today he is nearly a foot tall, close to twice the height of yesterday.  Much taller than when I first noticed him crouched behind the porcelain thimbles in their display case four days ago.  In the afternoon I catch a glimpse of him curled up and sleeping, his head resting on old Tabitha's stomach, pillowed in her greying black fur.

Tabitha opens one green eye and regards me with suspicion, as she has every day for the last eleven years.  She had stood on my porch in the freezing rain that night, wet and bedraggled, mewing forcefully, demanding help.  I named her Tabitha then and there because the cliché amused me.  She was all skin and bone, with small patches of fur missing.  Now she's old and arthritic like her mistress, but still seems to expect me to toss her out at any moment.  She blinks lazily, then closes her eyes again, content that I won't be evicting her today.  Those eyes remind me of the creature sleeping so soundly with her, and I wonder for the first time if cats are part of his unseen world made visible.

I decide to finish my cup of tea and join them in their nap.  My tired body is grateful for the respite.

#

The next day I catch a glimpse of him as I fold laundry.  He sits at the end of the table, legs dangling over the edge.

I left a saucer of cream out last night.  This morning it was full of dead flies.  He has not come for cream, but I knew that already.  He has come to be remembered and, with the remembering, become whole.

I stop halfway through the folding; my hands are too sore to continue.  Slowly I climb the dozen stairs from the basement and, after pausing to catch my breath, I settle in front of the television.  My eyes are too weak to read for long; the radio too full of incoherent noise and screaming voices. The soft glow of the set soothes me, and I doze.

When I awake, the laundry is folded and put away.  

#

The woman from the State comes out on Thursday to make sure I am still alive, as she does every other Thursday.  She clucks over how thin she thinks I'm getting.  She frowns and makes noises about how a woman of my advanced years should not live out here all alone in the middle of nowhere.  Then she gets in her car and drives away.

I'm not alone: I have Tabitha, and I have him.  But of course I can't tell her.  She already has that look about her, the one that say she's about to recommend the State lock me up in a home somewhere so I'll stop being a worry to her.  It will be for my own good, she'll say.

That's what momma and papa said too, back then.  It's for your own good, Mary.  The doctors will take good care of you.  They'll help you, Mary.

They hadn't believed me.

He followed me home one day.   Just -- followed me home.  I'd come upon him and some of his kin dancing in a circle in the little stand of elm trees at the edge of our peanut field.  They were small, barely a half-foot tall, and brown skinned. They never spoke; they just moved on their thin little legs round and round in a circle.  I thought I was being quiet, but he must have seen me as I tried to slip away.  The next morning I caught a glimpse of him sitting on my dresser, watching me sleep.  His tiny face with its too-large black eyes regarded me in surprise when I sat up and smiled at him, and he vanished.  But he came back every day I opened the window for him, and within a week he was as big as me.

He was my secret, my mystery.

I was twelve years old.

He stayed with me for four years, my secret friend.  He never spoke, never actually did anything except watch it seemed.  But my room was always picked up and my bed made, so momma never had an excuse to whup me like she did my little brother.  And if I became a sickly child who seldom left her room, well, it wasn't like I was going to inherit the family farm.  The best they hoped for me was a marriage to a local boy, or maybe a scholarship to the State College for Women where I could learn to be a teacher or secretary.

I took ill the summer of my sixteenth year and couldn't work in the fields, couldn't help momma around the house.  I hardly left my room. Momma never questioned that my room was always neat and--when I wasn't sleeping in it--my bed made.  I guess she just assumed I was a clean and tidy child.

One night I lay there in bed gasping and sweating, and I knew in my soul this was the end.  I lay there and cried to myself, afraid to be alone but not wanting to wake anyone.  I felt his weight settle on me.  I opened my eyes.  He was there, lying on top of me, and I could see myself reflected in those deep black eyes.  He was as tall as my father, but still reed thin, and I remember it was like he weighed nothing, just a little pressure.

I opened my mouth to tell him how much his company had meant, then I felt something flow from him to me.  I took a deep breath and it was like inhaling candy, so sweet and warm.  The warmth spread along my body, filling me, driving the sickness and fear away.  I smiled and ran a hand along one of his ears.  It was so foreign looking, half again as long as my own and pointed sharply at both ends.  I closed my eyes and pulled him closer, wrapping myself around his warmth.

My mother's scream and the flare of the lightbulb shattered the moment.  I looked toward the door to find her standing there, her mouth open in shock.

I don't know why she was finally able to see him.  I suppose it must have been because of her own exhausted state.  Perhaps he simply forgot to hide himself.

He leapt from the bed and through the open window, disappearing into the darkness.  I burst into tears.

I realize how it must have looked to momma, me lying there, my nightdress bunched up high on my thighs, a large, man-like creature dressed only in green pants stretched out on top of me.

They bundled me off to the local doctor.  When the sheriff came asking questions, I didn't want to tell them anything, but papa yelled and made me cry.

I told them about my secret.

They tried to make me tell them who it was.  They wanted me to name a name, and they didn't believe me when I told the truth.  The doctor took everyone out in the hall and left me with a nurse who kept giving me sad looks.

When everyone came back into the room they were solemn and silent.  They sent me off to the state hospital in the city where there were other girls who had problems.  There was one girl who screamed a lot and pulled out her own hair.  Another sat quietly in a corner and rocked back and forth.  A third gave me my first real kiss.

I learned to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear, but I guess they didn't believe me.  Two years later, on my eighteenth birthday, I checked out and went home.  No one talked much to me in our little town; I guess they all thought crazy might be catching or something.  I moved to the county seat and waited tables to survive.  I didn't see my secret again.

Until last month.

#

There's several of his kin around the house.  Too many of them; they're wearing me down.  I believe.  I believe and they grow stronger, but I can't get out of bed today.  Tabitha growls and swats at them.  When he comes into the house, looking as I remember him from that night so many years ago, the others scatter in fear.  He is my secret, and I am his.

The next morning breakfast is waiting for me when I awake, and the porcelain thimbles are dusted.  I drink the weak tea and feel a little better.  I settle back into my chair with the warm cup cradled in my stiff hands.  Closing my eyes, I drift off into memory.

I returned to the farm of my family when I was nearly forty, the unmarried aunt with no prospects, come home to help her brother take care of his four daughters after his wife died of cancer.  The girls, each in their turn, grew up and moved away.  When my brother died in an accident with the tractor none of them wanted to move back.  They leased the land and let me stay in my childhood home, paying for my electricity and keeping the propane tank filled.  They also arranged with the young couple up the road to pick up my groceries for me.  They've been helping me for over twenty years now.  None of them have the heart to send me away or put me in a home.  I appreciate their kindness and send them homemade fudge every Christmas.

#

I get better in the days after he frightens his lesser kin away, but I know it's just a matter of time.  I guess that's why he's returned after all these years.  To be here at the end.  To gain strength from one of the last to believe in him.  Sometimes I feel like Peter in the movies, trying to get the audience to profess their belief in a fantastical creature.

I do believe.

Except I failed to gather the necessary applause.  Nobody listened to me then; I dare not try to make them listen now.

But I believe.

#

The woman from the State comes two days early.  The house might be perfect, but she can see winter settling on my shoulders as I become frailer.  I suppose I reek of imminent death to her, despite the shower I took that morning.  I can tell by the look in her eyes she means to pressure the girls into sending me to a home.  I plan to die here.  Tonight.

#

I gasp for breath and feel his weight settle next to me.  I sense Tabitha jump to the foot of the bed and curl up.  I gather another precious breath and feel him shift, moving his weight on top of me.  He feels as I remember: lighter than he seems, sleek, thin.  I open my eyes and see my pale, wrinkled face reflected back to me in his large black orbs.  I run a spotted hand along one of his ears, just as I had so many years ago.  I pull another ragged breath and smile up at him as he cocks his head.  He opens his mouth, and I think, after all these years between us, he is finally going to speak.  Nothing comes out, no voice issues forth, and I know a moment of disappointment.  I open my own mouth to exhale and feel the sweet taste leave me.  I watch my reflection, and in his eyes I'm sixteen still. I never stop breathing out.

I believe.

I do believe.