 That night she was reading in her bedroom, an open window let in the spring breeze, only crickets chirping outside until the knocking started. At first Mary Ann thought it may be the sound of a tree branch nodding against the house, but eventually something intelligent blossomed in the faint repeated rapping, and with the awareness of this, the little girl's blood ran cold. Mammy Sally, the house servant, more parent to her in many ways than her own father and stepmother,