The Sentinel Lady

It's a dark, stormy night. The wind howls. The trees tremble. The thunder rumbles and shakes the Earth to its core. The darkness closes in, all around, devouring any speck of light left in this desolate place.


And she's there. You can see her. In this mass of horror and woe, that one pair of beady eyes is all you can make out in the grim darkness. Though the foreboding and pernicious night, perched on her reading chair, purring evil angora cat in lap, tea steaming suspiciously on the table, she waits....


And she watches. 


I was twelve years old. Thirteen, maybe. My family lived in a peaceful house in the middle of the woods. In the backyard, there was a path into the forest. You could walk through the gently rustling trees and see all the pretty squirrels. You could close your eyes and listen to a symphony of birds chirping. A chipmunk would skitter by. The mountain laurel would swish quietly in the breeze. A pretty doe and her new little fawn would stroll by, nibbling shoots and leaves. 


All was calm and all was beautiful...


Then she came. 


Like a gigantic, vile cloud of smog and poodle hairs, she descended on our peaceful existence and began to construct her evil lair about 100 feet away from our dear little homestead.  My mother and I could only sit and watch with horror as our benevolent backyard scene was turned into a horrifying nightmare.


At the end of the summer the shack was done. 


It was shaped like a mushroom. It sat right smack in the middle of my old fantastical fairyland of forest. No more twittering birds or swishing mountain laurels. No more magic. 


And it had big picture windows that faced our house. *Shudders*


Sometimes, as I walk down the stairs in the dim light of the pre-dawn, I look over across the way before I can stop myself. And there she will be, head bent over a steaming mug of tea and something suspicious on the table.


Sometimes, she's not even there. But I can feel her lurking. I know she's somewhere deep within the bowels of her lair, cackling and brewing yellow-spotted salamanders and feline tumors in a boiling cauldron of chicken broth and used tampons whilst picking at her hairy moles.

At least that's the impression that I get. And I can feel this one in my bones.


Frequently, when I chance a glance at her window to make sure she's not spying on me through a scope of a sniper rifle, I lock eyes with her evil white cat sitting on the sill. The heinous thing just stares at me with malevolent intent burning deep within its dark, soulless eyes.


Then there's the hellhound that lives outside the house. When the Sentinel doesn't have her young, attractive male slaves running around the exterior of the house raking up her leaves and doing her cougarish bidding, that demon dog is out on the watch. It barks at me when I walk down the street to get to the bus stop. I know it would love to eat my pretty little face right off if only it wasn't tied to a tree with a heavy steel chain.


With the known dangers of living in such close quarters with a witch, there also comes the unknown. Does my neck hurt because she was whacking my voodoo doll with a soup ladle last night? Did my cat really get eaten by a coyote or was he barbecued alive in her basement? Can she see me picking my nose in my underwear if I sit on the couch right here? 


There's a distinct possibility that she picks through our trash. Or maybe it's just raccoons.