Claudia wiped her hands on the tea towel and swept the chopped vegetables into the strainer in the sink. It was a quiet morning. Her five-month-old daughter, Victoria, was asleep in her stroller in the middle of the hall and every now and then, she threw a glance at her through the kitchen door.

Victoria had always found it easier to fall asleep if she was being pushed up and down and she loved the stroller. She would spend hours just sitting sedately in it, watching the world go by around her.

That particular morning, she was as quiet as a mouse. Claudia finished cleaning up the vegetable peelings and then, suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone going up the hallway stairs.

She turned quickly in alarm in time to see a pair of men’s legs disappear up the stairs. The man was wearing trousers in a dark, heavy material with turn-ups and he was wearing dark, short boots. He seemed to go up the stairs slowly, measuring each step.

Claudia registered all the details in a split-second, before coming to a rapid conclusion: It was a burglar.

She was terrified. Living in a quiet village, the door was hardly ever locked but she rarely worried about the danger of anyone coming into the house, especially when she was actually there. At first, she froze, unable to think clearly, but her adrenaline was pumping up her courage. The thought of Victoria, asleep and vulnerable, in the hallway spurred her to action.

She looked at the knife she had just been using but quickly discounted it and rummaged around in one of the drawers for something to use to protect herself and her child.

Some months before, her husband Michael had sawn the legs off a table to make it lower. One of the legs was still in the drawer. She remembered how often she had teased him about throwing it away. She sent up a mental prayer that he had taken no notice of her. It was the perfect weapon.

There was no option. She would try to grab Victoria and make a run for the back door.

The next few minutes were a frenzy of activity

She waited for a few seconds to pluck up courage, holding her breath but as soon as she got into the hallway, her panic suddenly evaporated.

Victoria was not asleep. She had somehow managed to rock the stroller up against the wall and was busy stuffing flowers and leaves from a poinsettia into her mouth.

Claudia was stunned. Her daughter’s mouth was full of red petals and white sap was running down her chin. Some of the leaves had obviously started to choke her and she was trying to cough them up. There was not a moment to lose.

Even now, years later, Claudia describes the next few seconds with all the intensity of the actual moment. She says that she was filled with an absolute calm.

At that moment, she knew – just knew – that the man had not been any burglar. It had been her grandfather, a doctor who had died years before she herself had been born.

She could not begin to explain why she is so sure but there is no doubt in her mind. Had he not alerted her, she would have never realised that her daughter was in danger. The ghost had saved Victoria’s life.

The next few minutes were a frenzy of activity. Claudia swept the child up into her arms, terrified that she was either going to choke or get poisoned by the leaves and sap, pulling out what she could see and hitting the child on her back until she seemed to have coughed up all she had in her mouth.

While she waited for the ambulance, she went upstairs to get a few things that Victoria might need in the hospital: a sweater; a blanket; her changing bag. It never occurred to her to look for the mystery man. She knew that she would not find anyone.

Within an hour the drama was over. Victoria had been taken care of at the hospital and was pronounced fine although the doctors agreed that she had probably been saved in the nick of time.

Claudia did not volunteer information on how she had been alerted to the danger.

She will never know for sure who she saw going up the stairs but she is sure that her grandfather is Victoria’s self-designated guardian. She sleeps easier at night, knowing that he is up there, keeping a careful eye on her.

This is the first of a series of short stories The Sunday Times of Malta will run every Sunday. It is taken from The Unexplained Plus (Allied Publications) by Vanessa Macdonald. The first edition was published in 2001 and reprinted twice. It was republished, with added stories, as The Unexplained Plus. The Maltese version of the book, Ta’ Barra Minn Hawn (Klabb Kotba Maltin) is available from all leading bookstores and stationers and from www.bdlbooks.com.