Welcome back to Nighty Night, Bedtime stories to keep you awake. I'm your host, Rabiachadri. In this week's episode, we

encounter that most terrifying of horror story figures, the unnerving,

disturbing, and may be disturbed, child.

Whether she is monster, ghost, or even exists at all

is for you to decide.

Miriam, by Truman Capote. For several years, Mrs. H.T. Miller lived alone in a pleasant apartment, two rooms with the kitchenette, and a remodeled brownstone near the East River.

She was a widow.

Mr. H.T. Miller had left a reasonable amount of insurance.

Her interests were narrow, she had no friends to speak of, and she rarely journeyed farther than

the corner grocery.

The other people in the house never seemed to notice her.

Her clothes were matter of fact, her hair, iron gray, clipped and casually waved.

She did not use cosmetics.

Her features were plain and inconspicuous, and on her last birthday she was 61.

Her activities were seldom spontaneous. She kept the two rooms immaculate,

smoked an occasional cigarette, prepared her own meals, and tended a canary.

Then she met Miriam.

It was snowing that night. Mrs Miller had finished drawing the supper dishes and was thumbing through an afternoon paper when she saw an advertisement of a picture playing at a neighborhood theater.

The title sounded good, so she struggled into her beaver coat, laced her galoshes, and left the

apartment, leaving one light burning in the foyer. She found nothing more disturbing than a sensation

of darkness.

The snow was fine, falling gently, not yet making an impression on the pavement.

...