Mano a Mano

She did everything one would do after moving into a haunted Victorian house. Elizabeth Dress smudged all the rooms, sprinkled the window sills and door frames with holy water, and had the local priest bless the home.

About a month later, a light knocking came on the front door in the afternoon. When Elizabeth answered it, no one was there.

That night, she awakened to a ferocious banging at her back door. In anger, she opened the door.

“What the hell do you want?” she growled to no one there.

For two days, this went on. Finally, having had enough of the knocking and banging, Elizabeth spread a handful of salt across the back patio and the front porch.

The noises went away but returned the next more as rapping at her kitchen window. She rushed outside to see if she might catch the culprit, but again, no one was there.

The rapping continued for the next three days. Elizabeth finally decided to take action by salting the outside ledges of her windows.

“That ought to fix their ass,” she said.

She slept peacefully through the night. Not even the overnight rain disturbed her.

Being early, she began her morning by making toast by cutting off two slices from the loaf she’d purchased the day before and placing them over the burner to brown them before adding butter and jelly. Then she started brewing coffee.

Next, she slid the dining room window open to allow in the fresh air. As she waited for the coffee to finish cooking, she watched as a thick, dirty disembodied hand appeared on the sill and slowly probed its way forward.

Quietly, she returned the few steps to the kitchen and retrieved the knife she used to cut the bread. Returning to the window, she slammed the frame on the hand and stabbed the tip through its top.

She watched as it appeared to struggle, fingers flexing wide before it vanished in a puff of dust. The knife remained embedded in the wood of the sill.

Elizabeth opened the window, leaned out, and shouted, “I’ll do more than just run a blade through your hand if you keep pestering me.”

It did no good. The noises returned with a vengeance, louder and more persistent than before. It became so bad that Elizabeth moved out, leaving Virginia City and going to Mexico to live.

Two years later, she met the man of her dreams. He was hard-working and treated her like a Queen.

Three months after their wedding day, Elizabeth noticed the deep scar on the back of his thick dirty hand.