Each night as the sun lowered to the western horizon to sink into the far misty sea, the fishermen in the cove would work a little faster, folding and rolling their nets and stowing them back in their boats now that they had dried hanging on the poles that lined the shoreline of the cove. Once the nets were stowed, they would check the mooring lines of their boats one last time and hurry up the slope toward home.
Mothers who lived in humble houses up the slope from the cove would begin calling their children home, their voices musical, each different from the next and each calling their own children to their thresholds with their particular song. Timid children, hearing their songs, would drop what they played at and run home all knees and elbows, knowing that Nightbeast had awoken and was coming down from the mountain. Bolder children would casually walk home, giving each other knowing looks of boastful pride, knowing that one night they would stay out until the village was dark and bravely face Nightbeast together.
But not this night.
Once the fishermen and the mothers and the children were safe within their homes and the heavy drapes were pulled and pinned over all the windows, only then would lamps and candles be lit. Then the mothers would serve up the supper she had brewed all day over the coals in the fireplace while the husbands would lay the curfew over the coals to let them sleep and cease sending smoke up the chimney.
Families would eat then, nervously listening for the sound they dreaded, and when it came as it did every night they would set down their spoons and lay their hands on their laps and stare at the table. The sound grew louder and become a tremble beneath their feet, then a shaking and a deep rumble.
Nightbeast was walking toward the village, and all over the village the people would pray silently that it would pass them by.
