At 5:15 AM, the doorbell rang.

I trudged up to the front room. Who would be calling at this time of day? There was no one at the door. Could it be a prank?

I stood gazing out the pane of glass bordering the door, and a small brown rabbit hopped across the walkway in front of the house. It seemed unlikely there were people with mischief on their minds anywhere near.

Maybe I’d hallucinated the sound of the chime. I returned to my bedroom but before I got back in bed, there it went again. A single note, clear and loud, the first note of what had once been the traditional eight-note doorbell melody.

I returned to the front door, turned on the outdoor lights and waited. No hand appeared at the doorbell. I heard no shuffling of feet. Nothing.

And then the bell rang again.

I woke up my dad, thinking this might be a smoke detector or other alarm I didn’t know about. No. It was the doorbell. He slid the apparatus off its bracket on the door jamb. The chime inside still rang, and he took the batteries out.

It was damp out after a storm earlier in the night. The button was wet. There must have been a short.

Still, I went to bed wondering who was calling.