“And what are you doing up?” I continued, and stepped forward to retrieve the family picture.

“You ask too many questions,” he remarked, and put the frame back where it used to be.

I squinted in the dark, and realized it was my favorite photograph. In the picture, I was sitting on my old swing set that used to be set up in the yard. Grandma was behind me, pushing the swing, and Mama was holding a cooking dish containing peach cobbler.

The lawn was green and father was laughing—he had put the camera on ‘auto-capture’ so we could have a memory of us all together.

That was back when I was about…oh, I don’t know, ten, twelve?

A roll of thunder pealing through the sky shook me violently from my thoughts, and I snapped out of my trance.

“Who exactly are you?” I said, determined for an answer this time.

Lightning illuminated the corridor for a moment, and then the crashing of the precipitation erupted all around the house. He smiled grimly.

“For now, you can call me Raine.”