It was the home I always dreamt of. A stone cottage on the edge of the Peak District complete with original features, exposed wooden beams, and a log-burning fire in the sitting room. The lights from the city beckoned beyond the garden gate, twinkling stars at the horizon, and I turned away with no regrets.

There was just one thing, the solicitor told me upon signing the contracts. A clause made by the seller, whose mother lived there until her recent passing. Her 17-year-old brother, Daniel, had been killed in a road accident some years previously and the statue in the front yard, under the apple tree? That was his memorial. The condition was that it stayed, of course, with the added stipulation that every year, on the twenty-fourth of April, a birthday gift for Daniel must be left at its stone feet.

I planned to remove the statue at the first opportunity. It stood tall, stone hands clasped in eternal prayer. A young man in the likeness of an angel, locks curled into white marble with ornate, feathered wings at his back. Patches of green algae marred the pale, glinting rock and, when the sun shone, his upturned face became bathed in golden light. It marred the view of the apple tree from the sitting room window, and its blank-eyed, pleading expression disquieted me.

I moved in as the last frosts waved goodbye. The wind still carried an icy sting, but the ground was softening and the garden smelled fresh and sharp, of turned earth and cut grass. Bright yellow daffodils danced in their beds, merry with the coming of spring and, as I passed the statue, I wondered if the tree branches would be full enough by summer to obscure it from view.

I kept my promise and, on the twenty-fourth of April, left a bunch of red tulips, picked from the garden, at the feet of the angel. The apple tree had recently blossomed and frail, white petals decorated the marble, gathering as a scattered snowfall around its base.

As I retreated to the warmth of the kitchen, my thoughts strayed to decorating the sitting room, the feature wall I was planning, and, by the time I reached the door, I’d completely forgotten about Daniel, birthday and all.

The following year, April twenty-fourth came and went unmarked. I remembered on the morning of the twenty-fifth. The scent of ground coffee beans lingered in the warm, bright kitchen, but rain rapped, wet and cold, against the windowpane. By the time the clouds cleared, I’d forgotten Daniel once more.

I was awoken that night by a harsh scraping. A cacophony that set my teeth on edge and caused me to sit bolt upright, the rasping so loud from the garden that it made the bed shudder. I listened, in silence, until it faded, waiting for an intruder to splinter through the door.

Everything was as it should be the ensuing morning, and I put the sound down to noise carried from the night workers at the farm further down the road. As such, I relaxed for another day or so until I heard it again. This time, I lay immovable, processing each scrape through gritted teeth. The next morning a flattened path marred the lawn, the daisies ground into the soil, as if rolled upon by something heavy. I told myself I was being foolish, tried to forget, and that evening, I relaxed on the sofa with a book and a glass of red wine. May was promising to be mild and no fire burned in the grate. Instead, I set out white pillar candles around the hearth; the flames flickered on the walls with an idyllic effect.

I had just closed my eyes, lulled by the warmth and the candlelight, when the scraping began again. My head shot up, heart racing as the noise drew closer. Increasing in intensity, the picture frames began to quiver on the walls. Fear crept across my body like languid spider legs, an ice-cold sensation prickling my skin.

I moved slowly, wrapping my hand around the cold, heavy, iron poker mounted on the wall beside the fireplace. I stepped lightly across the soft red rug covering the sitting room’s grey stone floor, coming to stop by the front door. I could smell the wine, sour on my breath, as I lay in wait, grasping the cold, twisted metal of the poker in sweating hands.

A slow tapping at the window forced me to turn my head slowly. The solar lamps lining the garden path had picked up the outline of a figure behind the glass, a tall, black shadow, projected upon the closed curtains. I gasped, a sharp intake of breath that stung my throat and made my eyes water. I could pick out the silhouette of a man, the wave of the hair on his head, the curve of his shoulder and, upon his back, a pair of large, feathered wings. The shadow figure swayed a little before it turned. I heard scraping and rasping, gradually receding, as it made its way, back towards the apple tree.

Then: silence.

It took me a long time to move from the door, to loosen my grip on the poker. Even then, I didn’t place it back by the fire, but kept it with me in bed that night, ready to launch it at the impenetrable marble.

I dared not venture outside in the darkness, but next morning, as the rain poured, splattering the garden with large, cold drops, I picked a generous bunch of tulips, tied them with a red bow and placed them reverently at the base of Daniel’s statue. Droplets of rainwater trickled slowly from my fringe as I dipped my head, stinging my eyes, and above me a blackbird sang to welcome the spring.