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The hills hereabouts are full of the Hidden Folk, just like back in Norway.

They're fine-looking folk, the elves, with an eye to beauty themselves, and sometimes it so happens that one of them casts an eye on a fair young maid and marries her. And then she's never to be seen again, for she becomes a Woman of the Hills.

Well, there was a fine young girl, and didn't she just disappear one day, and weeks and weeks go by and everyone agrees that she must have been Taken.

Well, and so she was. And on her wedding day she says to the Blue Man that's to be her husband—they call them the Blue Men for their clothing, you know—“Let me just step outside to take one last look at the beautiful red Sun.” And she does that.

You could call him the house-wight. I first encountered him directly in a dream last year. (And yes, he's a he, whatever that means.)

That's how I learned his name. His name says a lot about him (and, probably, something about me, as well). When you know someone's name, it's a bond. Whether you will or whether you won't, it makes a relationship which, like all such, needs ongoing maintenance.

These last few days, I've been hearing things fall in the house. I get up, I go look: nothing. It isn't Craig: he's not here. It isn't the cat: he's asleep on the bed. Yes, the house vibrates when buses hit big potholes on Lake Street, but it's not pothole season yet. (Ah, the joys of urban spring.) Yes, the house ticks and pops when the temperature falls below zero. But those sounds I know, and this isn't them. Ice falling from the eaves? No, these are indoor clatters, I'm sure of it. I'm hearing things fall in rooms where nothing seems to be falling. If we call it the house-wight, that makes as much sense as anything.

A little guy with a beard and shining eyes? Shadows sliding in the far corners of vision? My human mind connecting up stray incidents into patterns that don't exist? A subtle way of externalizing my mental and emotional relationship with my environment? All of the above?