Between the Eaves

 I thought the tapping on my roof all winter was branches, 

until one day between the eaves I saw him.

A bony man, more a thing, slid back to cower in darkness, under the beams.

I told my older brother, who owns the property. 

He brought a ladder and a box.

He climbed to the hollow spot, shone a light in, saw nothing. 

So he crawled in.

I waited a minute, two, then called out, shouted. 

There was no reply, no change, only quiet dark.

My brother had always been stolid. 

It was impossible this was a joke.

I went up and thrust a rake toward the darkness that took him. 

 Right off the rake struck a wall of black moss.

As if the shadowed space had only been an illusion.

On the other side of the wall, in the attic, I found nothing. 

And nothing has come through the mossy wall since.