The Little Girl in my Kitchen

The little girl I see in my kitchen. She often visits when only my brother and myself are downstairs.
"You're back? Where have you been?"
"Please you have to help me," she pleads.
She runs across the tiled kitchen floors and I skid after her in my cotton socks.
"Wait, I'll call ma mère."
"No, no parents," her whisper divides pass her index finger on her lips.
She pulls the copper handle down of the back door and steps outside onto the concrete pavement of my garden.
"Don't leave I'll get my brother to help you, he's brave and strong and he can pick me up over his head." I imitate my brother, raising my arms into the air.
"No, there is no time he's coming," she trembles.
"Who? Who is coming?"
"The Wūshī." The name she mutters trembles on her lips as she stands forefront of the holly tree in my garden. The bark splits down the middle of the trunk and births this creature. Hair masked its face; dark and black like the abyss of the night sky. His attire draped claret almost as if it drenched in the blood of its preys. The beady eyes of this monster forced my body into shock. It grabbed the little girl and took her beyond the holly tree. Her hand reaches out for me screaming
"Help!"

***

Twenty-years later my brother and I are sat in the front room in my family home.
"Hey Ad, do you remember the little girl that used to come into the kitchen?"

The Little Girl in my Kitchen

I look at him with my face creased and reply,
"Yeah, I think so."
I walk through my kitchen as my slippers grip on to the tile floor and open the door pushing onto the copper handle. Staring at the empty space that once homed the holly tree. I inhaled the cold, crisp air of the morning and whispered.
"Wūshī."