Andrew had never really liked his grandmother. In his heart, he called her a crazy old hag, and nothing she said ever sat right with him. Grandma was a small, wrinkly woman with scraggly white hair. The large frames of her round spectacles made her eyes seem twice their size. It was unsettling being watched by those large, slightly yellow eyes.

She walked with a wooden cane that was a tad too long for the hunched old lady. Since Andrew was a child, he'd been deathly afraid of that cane. It had various figures carved onto its surface- words in a language Andrew couldn't decipher, shapes not explained in his Geometry books, and eyes. Everywhere. Andrew could've sworn he'd seen the eyes twitch and move. Of course, grandma denied such a thing and his parents laughed it off. 'A child's imagination is such a curious thing!' they would say.

Indeed, a child's imagination is a thing of wonder. Andrew had a vivid and marvelous imagination; his only source of entertainment in his youth. Growing up in a remote farm on a hill outside of town left scant opportunities for socializing, if any at all. On top of that, grandma would not allow Andrew to go to school. She told his parents that she could not bear parting with the child and requested that he be homeschooled.

As though eliminating his hopes for making friends wasn't bad enough. Grandma would often intrude into his imaginary world, turning it from a safe haven into yet another source of terror. Every bedtime story she told him would keep him up till dawn. She would speak of heinous things and vile creatures of her imagination that then became a part of his. From his overactive imagination they turned into cold nightmares. Every flicker of light was the eyes of a savage beast, and the howling winds were the calls of monsters on the hunt for their prey.

Little Andrew had no one to share his woes with. The only other human interaction he had aside from his parents and his grandma was with milkman Joe. He came to the farm every third Sunday of the month to milk Bessie the cow, but kept mostly to himself and spoke more with Bessie than with Andrew.

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One night, Andrew's parents had been in town visiting some friends, and Andrew was at home with grandma. She was hobbling about the living room, etching shapes onto the floor with the bottom of her cane. Andrew studied her from the couch where he lay upside down, feet up on the headrest and head resting on the seat. At length, he asked her why she was making a mess.

"Hush child," she replied irritably. "Do you not see how busy I am?"

Andrew knitted his eyebrows. "And just how are you busy, you old witch? Stop messing up the floor! Bet you're gonna make me clean those up later!" he yelled.

"No! Don't you dare get rid of these!" she crowed. "You wouldn't understand. It's for protection!"

"You really are a witch," He narrowed his eyes.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

She merely smiled back, a smile that sent shivers up and down his spine, and continued with her protective measures against who-knows-what. When grandma was done, she turned to the living-room window and just as she did, a branch whacked hard against it. Andrew jolted upright. The eerie sound of the raging winds indicated that a storm was coming. Lights flickered on and off in the house that suddenly felt too big for only two people. Despite his fear of the wretched old lady, Andrew scooted closer to her.

"It's stronger than I thought!" grandma cackled. "Come, boy," she reached her wrinkly hand out to him. Under the circumstances, he accepted it without another thought. She drew him closer to her and wrapped her big shawl around him with one hand. Her other hand was raised towards the corner window.

Draped in grandma's shawl, Andrew could barely see beyond her hand. He could make out glowing shapes floating beyond her outstretched palm. He clutched tightly at his grandmother's skirt. Enemies became friends under such circumstances, one must understand. Eventually he shut his eyes and left it all up to fate. He thought that if a typhoon was to blow them away, at the very least his parents who were far away would hopefully survive.

The whirling winds began screeching, making sounds of torture and pain. The air pressure was so strong that Andrew didn't dare let go of grandma no matter how much he wanted to cover his ears with his hands. His speeding heartbeat echoing in his ears helped to block out some of the sounds.

Through it all, he didn't dare cry. He may not be very brave but he was no crybaby.

"It's okay to cry if you're scared, you know." Grandma patted him on the head. The time around them seemed to have stopped. It felt as though everything, including his heartbeat, was on pause. Like time and space had collided around them. He looked around. It seemed vaguely like they were in space. It wasn't dark; a hazy blue light surrounded them and there were bright starlike beings everywhere. Then Andrew was pulled back to reality in a flash. His mind reeled from the sudden change.

The storm had stopped. The house was a mess; picture frames had fallen off their spot on the wall, furniture had toppled over, and glass objects shattered. Andrew only saw all of that for a short moment. By the time his mind had to recover from the sudden nausea, grandma swirled her wrist and the picture frames slid up the wall to their respective places, the toppled furniture sprang back up, and the shattered glass pieces floated as though they were attracted by a magnet and attached themselves to become whole again.

Andrew caught every movement but it only registered in his brain much, much later. He took deep breaths to calm himself and looked up at grandma who remained unfazed. "What happened just now?" he asked and as he had expected, she shrugged. Experience told Andrew that grandma wouldn't explain anything so he decided against wasting his breath. He went up to his room and laid down. The events that had come to pass just moments ago replayed in his head. It occurred to him that he might have imagined the entire thing. He decided he had not. After a while, grandma came up to his room.

"You've done well. I expected you to cry," she said as she ran a hand through his hair. "Sometimes, it's okay to cry."

He contemplated shortly on those words and on why she was offering them to him.

"Will you ask me no further about it, my dear?"

"Will you tell me if I ask?" He asked meekly. The crazy events had taken their toll on him and he wasn't snapping at her. But that was okay because she wasn't snapping at him either.

Grandma gave him a smile for an answer and Andrew felt calm inside. A bit too calm, as he found that he could not help but drift off to sleep before getting another word out. He decided that he would do so the day after. He never got the chance because the next morning, he woke to find that grandma was gone.