Back when most of the world reveled in prosperity and a false sense of security; evil raised an ugly head in Peggy's Hollow. People here still speak in hushed awe, of a woman who stood up and said 'enough'. I walk through these woods a lot, trying to enjoy the peace and quiet back here. Today the sun lights up the trees ... golden, like manna from heaven. I stand here, in complete awe, and I thank God for this one small thing of beauty. And I wish it could be this way forever. But a chill settles in my bones as I look back and I remember Peggy Childs. I stand here, next to the three-hundred year old oak where the cowards in white sheets strung her up for telling them they were wrong. Where she had died alone and terrified, all those years ago.

A woodpecker works, tap tapping, as he searches out insects. I wonder if he too, will join the other birds and go south soon. I tune in to the small rustlings in the dry leaves. The little creatures are working, preparing for the coming cold. I pull my jacket tighter as a breeze kicks up, adding to the aloneness of the place. I keep trudging along, the path here almost closed off with briars and weeds. Ahead is the familiar gate, almost gone now, the white picket so rotten, it almost melts in your hand. I smile, and remember the M&M ads I watched as a child. The excitement of the tiny black and white television that was a luxury in the late fifties. Now, in the twenty first century, technology astounds and amazes. It also confounds. I look around and wish ... well, I just wish.

I am older now, than my mother was on her last day on earth. I go up the cracked sidewalk to the place where I had grown up, and I can still hear her voice. She had been happy, and loved her family. All that was stolen. By thieves in the night, thieves who'd taken it all.

I can imagine her screams and pleas. I feel the huge guilt for going with Daddy to the store. We should have been here. But we hadn't expected evil's visit that night. We had come home, and home was dead.

Mother was not afraid, though she should have been. She had stood strong. She'd spoken names and so had paid the ultimate price. It was so long ago, but it was yesterday. Evil still reigns, and its ghosts still haunt the place that I called home.