Our Neighbor's House

Seven cold winter days ago our father left us while he went hunting. He left my older sister, Mary, in charge of me and my younger sister ,Hannah.
"i'll be gone for three days," he said. "But if i'm not back byy sunset on the third day, pack some food, dress up warm, and travel to our neigbor's house."
On the 1st day, we played games (like mother's cup, widows's leap, and crooks & crosses).
On the 2nd day, we did our chores.
And on the 3rd day, we were struck by a strange lethargy, and barely moved at all.

That evening, the sun set bloodred in a white sky. And when i saw it...I knew our father was dead.
The next moring i did as our father said: I packed up food for us to eat and i boiled some water for us to drink and i pulled our warm cloaks dwon from thier hooks but when i readied to leave, "OUR FATHER WILL RETURN" my sister said. "WE'll STARVE IN THE SNOW IF WE LEAVE NOW."

We spent the night arguing and went to bed angry. Which i now regret. We didn't leave the next day either. But my sister was different. No longer angry. She was......happy. She said a man had come to the door in the night. (yet i heard no knock). (And there were no footprints in the snow outside).
She said, "He was a tall man, in a wide-brimmed hat, with a smile that showed all his teeth." But anything else, my sister would not say.
 

In the morning there was a little food missing and half the water, and matches, were gone. The pea-green cloak had dissappeared too and had my sister. My little sister cried all morning. There was no place in the house to escape the wailing. By the afternoon her eyes were slick and puffy. Outside, the snow had reached the windows, burying any footsteps or paths. And inside there was a stillness, like the air itself was frozen.

When we woke next, my little sister said a man had come to the door. She couldn't remember what he said or what he looked like, (aside from his wide-brimmed hat, and his toothy smile.) Somehow this cheered her. But i was furious. "HE TOOK MARY!" i cried. "I'M SURE OF IT." But again there were no tracks in the snow. So i searched the cellar, every dark corner. And i searched upstiars under our father's empty bed and beneath our cold one, convinced that somehwere in our house a man in a wide-brimmed hat had my sister hidden.

This morning i am alone. And all the food is gone along with the kindling and all the cloaks but mine. Tonight, I KNOW, a man in a wide-brimmed hat will come for me.  The sun set bloodred in a white sky once again as i grab my cloak and leave in seach for my sisters. I walk and shiver and picture them waiting at our neighbor's house. I knock as i have arrived at his house.

My sisters were wrong about one thing: while the brim of his hat is very wide, and while he does smile (indeed, it looks impossible for him to do anything else), it is obvious, just at a glance,

HE IS NO MAN.