Anna used to go for an evening walk in the local park everyday. As she was enjoying her walk one day, she noticed a young girl sitting on a bench at the far corner of the park; she was continually looking down at her hands, they were dry and rough.

It was getting darker and some people were starting to make their way back. The almost sounds of dogs barking were getting louder, but the weather was quite pleasant and as she saw a snowy white pigeon while walking past an old tree, she decided to stay for a little while.

Unexpectedly the sky went pitch-dark as if a storm was about to hit. She could feel her heart thumping as the yapping was getting louder as if they were nearing! She looked around but it seemed everyone had disappeared.

Abruptly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. The wailing stopped, she looked back and to her shock it was the same girl with rough hands, the only thing was that she wasn’t a girl any more, she looked like a century-old tattered and shabby woman. And with those wrinkled hands that had yellow nails, she tried to grab Anna. In her bewilderment, Anna tried to scream but no sound came out.

Suddenly something fell on her shoulder and she impulsively caught it. It was a locket. She heard a sound and looked up, it was the same white pigeon; it had landed on the ground and it turned into a middle-aged man with shoulder length hair and kind blue shiny eyes. He cast a nonverbal spell on that witch.

The witch under the spell bawled in anguish in a way that made Anna put her hands on her ears. The pigeon-cum-man looked ferociously at the witch and was prepared to cast another spell, but as soon as the effect of the first spell slackened, the witch vanished.

Anna was just standing there wonderstruck and drew her hands away from her ears, that’s when the locket fell and she caught the man’s attention. She stooped to pick up the locket.

“Anna, my child...” he spoke for the first time.

She was awestricken, he knew her name.

“I knew your grandfather, Arnold. We were friends,” he spoke with a benign smile and a voice so gentle.“Just don’t be scared, look after yourself and keep this locket with you always, just in case…” Frosty wings started appearing from his back and he shrunk into a pigeon again.

With the locket still in hand, the view blurred as she fell unconscious.

The next thing she knew, she was in a hospital and it took her a complete month to recover from those headaches and nightmares. Even the doctors had no valid explanation.

“Dad?” She asked his father after recovering from the trauma. “Hmmm… I heard rumours. Obviously not true that your father could do sorcery,” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah… some say so, some even say that he had witches under his command that he mistreated sometimes, and they would one day come to take revenge on his progeny, but these are just rumours by old gossip lovers, because till now I haven’t come across any witch or whatever seeking revenge…. Ha!” he said jokingly.

‘So what happened at the park did have something to do with her grandfather,’ Anna thought. And the strange part, she didn’t even know the pigeon man’s name that saved her life.