I dreamt of tapping on my bedroom window. Little fingers tap, tap, tap, wanting to come in. I woke up and the tapping continued, but i had not risen far out of sleep, and I turned over and sank back down into the dark.

The dream was forgotten, as most dreams are, until I noticed small oval smudges on the window pane when I pulled up the blind. I stared at them for a while, then decided that it must have been something blown by the wind. I opened the window and looked down into the garden, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary. It is twelve feet or so to the ground so I could have missed something small.

Later, I cleaned the marks off, though they were already fading.

This carried on for three more nights and it was really starting to get on my nerves. I tried to work out what was causing it, and finally decided that it must be bats. There are a fair few flitting about here on the edge of town and I thought they might be after spiders or something around the window frames.

I didn’t — I did not think of anything unnatural. Nor did I think of anything human. There were never signs of a ladder under the window, and why would anyone want to do that anyway? There was no reason.

None of this disturbed me too much. A few peculiar dreams, I’m used to them; waking in the night; a few marks on the window. Just a puzzle, nothing more. The worst of it was that it disturbed my sleep.

I make puppets, all kinds, but mainly marionettes, carving them from wood. At that time, I was working on a difficult commission, and the sleeplessness was making it impossible for me to get on with carving the face of the main character. One slip and I could ruin a whole piece of wood, and wood is much more expensive than it used to be.

On the fourth night I dreamt that someone was banging on the widow frame, as if they had lost patience with me. I woke up and lay there listening to the banging for a while. Should I get up and see what it was? Did I want to see? I told myself off for being so cowardly and started to get out of bed.

The banging stopped.

I got up anyway, and pulled up the blind. There was nothing there, and nothing in the garden that I could see. Back in bed, it took me a very long time to get to sleep.

In the morning I pulled up the blind again, and an electric jolt of fear went through me at the sight of small handprints all over the lower part of the window pane. I may even have emitted a tiny scream. Bats most definitely had not left such marks.

I tried to take photographs, but the prints would not show up. I even called the police, but they were not impressed enough to come to my house. They filed a report, I think, but there was no break-in, nothing stolen, so I came very low down on the list of priorities.

These things were happening around one o’clock in the morning, so I decided to catch whoever was playing tricks on me. I went to bed as usual, but sat up waiting, clutching a torch. It was a long wait and I did not make it, dozing off to sleep sitting up. Banging on the window pane woke me suddenly. It was so loud I thought the glass would break. The whole window rattled.

I jumped up, dropped my torch, fumbled on the floor for it. The blind rolled up of its own accord and I saw that the window was open. All that rattling must have loosened the catch.

The banging had stopped. I got to the window without the torch and could not see anything outside. As I shut the window and pulled the blind down, I thought I heard something behind me. Slowly I let the blind back up so that a little moonlight would shine in, and turned around. I didn’t want to see, but I also didn’t want something unknown jumping on me.

There was something in the room, something small, coming towards me with odd, jerky movements. I stayed very still until it moved into the moonlight and looked up at me with beseeching eyes.

‘Pablo?’

He was one of my favourite marionettes. I put my soul, and some blood, into carving that appealing face and always regretted that I had to sell him — but here he was in my bedroom, walking towards me, his face broken, half his mouth missing, one hand smashed. Some kind of crazy dream.

I dived for the bedside light. Pablo was no longer there. I called for him, but got no answer.

In the morning, as early as was reasonable, I phoned the director of the puppet theatre that owned Pablo.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘a few days ago there was an accident. Our metal storage shelves collapsed and quite a few of the puppets were broken. We’re going to have to get rid of them and claim insurance.’

‘Pablo?’

‘Well, yes, he was one. How did you hear about it?’

‘A friend told me. I’ll come and get Pablo. I’ll repair him for you, free of charge.’

‘He’s quite smashed up.’

‘I know, but I can repair him.’

I carved Pablo a new lower jaw and a replacement hand, and glued in and received some fresh wood on the side of his face. the puppet theatre took him back with gratitude, and he has not come calling since.

I remember all of the other characters I have made, putting something of myself into their faces, their hands. They don’t belong to me any more, but I cannot help feeling that I belong to them.

I leave my window open at night.