I paused a final moment upon the weather beaten porch.  I stood motionless before the large wooden door that had blackened with time as had the rest of the house I had thought abandoned.  Once a construction of great beauty, filled with the riches of its time, now loomed before her in the darkness like the gray and black body of some ancient and ominous close-mouthed creature waiting in its dusty bed for some unfortunate soul to dare its boundaries.  It was beyond the limits of reason how it remained standing for three hundred years, but stand it did in all its defiant glory. .....

     I could no longer bear the sight of the morbid face and was about to look away when the crone took off the hat and dropped it to the floor, releasing a cascade of thin, white hair.  I froze at the sight of her eyes.  Wide and gray, their piercing stare held me fast so that I was helpless to move or even close my own eyes.  All I could do was watch as she took my left hand and lifted it level to my breasts.  I was revolted by the feel of the almost skeletal grip, but despite the commands of my brain, I could not move to tear free.  She lifted her sharp, tangled dagger of a nail and set its point on the soft underside of my wrist. .....