Somewhere in my dream I became aware of a presence.

I was in the grip of a deep sleep, and it was a struggle to lift my heavy eyelids. Through snatches of vision, I thought I made out a pale silhouette against one wall, illuminated by the low light coming in under the curtains. Odd. I wondered if I was dreaming, or if some item of furniture in Celia’s guestroom formed the vague outline of a man, and I hadn’t noticed it before I went to bed. A coat rack? One of her gothic paintings, perhaps?

Then the silhouette moved its head.

‘Hey!’ I shouted, and leapt out of the four-poster bed, putting it between the intruder and myself.

I remembered with sudden embarrassment that I was dressed in my nightie, and I covered my breasts with my arms as a reflex before deciding to sacrifice modesty in favour of a ninja-style pose. I held my fists up, body rigid, ready to fight. I turned my head away from the stranger for just a moment to yell, ‘Celia!’ through the closed door.

The man placed his hand over my mouth.

Strangely, it felt like being touched by a cloud. My resultant scream became muffled. Somehow he had traversed the bed in a flash.

‘Shhh,’ came a low, reassuring voice. ‘I’m really sorry to have startled you.’ He smiled in the half-light, and even laughed lightly, seemingly delighted about something. He had a slight accent, though I couldn’t pick what it was.

I frowned, confused.

‘Sorry,’ he repeated, dropping his hand from my mouth. ‘It’s just that . . . I’m so glad that you can see me.’

‘I’m not blind. Of course I can see you. You’re in my room!’ I declared, baffled. ‘Celia!’ I yelled again.

‘She’s not home yet,’ the man told me.

Well, that was not reassuring.

‘You shouldn’t wake up the whole building,’ he advised.

‘Shouldn’t I?’ I challenged.

He shook his head. ‘No. Though there aren’t a lot of people here these days, are there?’

Great, he knew the other flats were unoccupied. That was not reassuring either.

‘Are you trying to scare me or something?’ I challenged boldly. ‘Because I’m not scared of you.’ I thought this was a bluff, but immediately upon saying it, I realised it was true. I was not particularly frightened. The man standing before me seemed kind of calm, and the look in his eye was not lusty or crazed or any of the things I had been led to expect of a man who would break into a woman’s bedroom in New York in the middle of the night. I used to sneak into a lot of horror movies in the Gretchenville Village Cinema when I was younger, and this person did not fit the stereotype of horror movie villain. And now that my eyes had adjusted and I was really looking at him, I noticed the other obvious thing; how he was dressed. No balaclava. No scary hockey mask. He was actually wearing a full uniform, like a military man of one of the great wars of years gone by. And he was handsome. (Yes, I am perfectly aware that good-looking people can be serial killers, and it is weird and unhealthy for a girl to notice the physical attractiveness of a guy who has apparently broken into her room, but there it is.) This guy looked to be in his twenties, perhaps his late twenties, and his jaw was so strong it brought to mind an anvil. He was lean and tanned, and his eyes were the brightest blue I had ever seen. They almost seemed to glow. Though clean-shaven, he had sideburns, which seemed a little retro to me. Beneath his cap, his hair was sandy and worn a bit long over the collar.

‘How did you get in here?’ I asked, my faux-ninja stance softening a touch. Neither of the two windows appeared open or broken. My door was closed.

‘I’ve, um, been here for a while,’ the young man replied vaguely, clenching that magnificent jaw and casting his eyes about. He’s been in this room for a while . . . ? ‘No. Wait. That came out wrong,’ he apologised. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘You know my great-aunt?’ I ventured.

He nodded. ‘Celia? Sure.’

So he knew her name at least. Though given I’d called it out, it wasn’t exactly hard to guess.

‘Prove it,’ I dared. ‘Prove that you know her.’ I crossed my arms over my chest and set my face sternly to let him know I was no pushover. A few seconds followed while he appeared to be thinking about how best to respond. ‘And why are you wearing a uniform?’ I added. I guess I was a little nervous with the strained silence. I wasn’t someone who’d had a lot of men in my room before, and certainly never after dark, and with myself dressed only in a flimsy nightie.

(I told you I had to get out of Gretchenville.)

‘You can see my uniform?’ the handsome visitor asked, again seeming surprised. ‘How clearly, exactly?’ He looked down at himself.

‘Well, it’s right in front of my face.’ Obviously. This guy might be good-looking but he was none too sharp, was he? ‘You are in the military,’ I observed. ‘Or is that a costume?’ He wore a dark cap of some kind, and his dark blue uniform was impeccably tailored, and tapered at the waist, with shiny buttons up the front. It brought to mind the dress uniform of a marine, but that wasn’t it. His uniform seemed distantly familiar, and it set off a thought in me that wouldn’t quite form. I knew it would come to me later. His cap was worn on a slight angle, and I thought it gave him a bit of a movie star look, like he was from an old war film and Humphrey Bogart was about to waltz in.

The man smiled at me, seeming amused about something. ‘Well, yes I am . . . well, was.’ Then he looked around the room, deciding . . . deciding what, I couldn’t tell. His expression changed. He came over earnest-looking, those luminous blue eyes large.

‘Um . . . look, I am sorry to have startled you, Miss. You should forget you saw me. I will, um, make myself disappear,’ he said awkwardly.

And he did just that.

My eyes must have fooled me. I could have sworn the stranger actually disappeared.

‘But . . .’ I began, and then stopped.

I glanced at the round bedside clock. It wasn’t digital, but it was one of the few modern items in the room. The hour hand glowed at the two position. Great. It was just past two in the morning the day of my first job interview in New York City and I was standing in my host’s guestroom in my nightie like an idiot, talking to the air. I half expected Celia to come in and see what the trouble was. In fact, I had half expected my mum to come in and hug me and soothe me and put me to bed again like she had when I was younger. I had always had vivid dreams – nightmares, sleep walking, sleep talking – since I was old enough to speak. But now I was far from that childhood home, my mother was long since gone, and if I had strange dreams about hunky military guys showing up next to my bed, well I would just have to deal with it on my own.

I crawled back into the big bed and stared at the ceiling for what seemed like forever before dreams finally took me.