It all started about 12 years ago when we first moved to the top of Mililani Mauka. Although only a couple of miles away from Mililani town, the quiet, dark and cold misty nights made it feel like a world away.

We were all excited about moving into our new home and meeting our new neighbors. But none of us will ever forget that night when we awoke to a woman’s horrifying screams and the wailing sirens that followed. And while no one really knew exactly what happened, the gossip was that a toddler disappeared out of an open upstairs window.

As the months passed, the events of that night faded away and we settled into our new lives. After almost a year, my wife and I were startled awake by our 2-year-old son having a terrible nightmare. He told us he saw a scary little monster in his room. To put both my son and my wife at ease, I started sleeping next to him.

A few nights later, after I thought he’d drifted off, he suddenly sat up in fright, pointed to the closet and whispered, “Who’s that, Daddy?”

I leaped out of bed and flipped the light on … but nothing was there. Then, some nights later, he sat up wide-eyed again.

“Is it the scary little monster?” I asked. My son nodded.

“What is it doing?” I asked.

What he showed me gave me chicken skin all over: He put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Shhh … ”

The very next day, a kahu came to our house at our request. She was an older Hawaiian woman, well known in Wahiawa as a seer. With a handful of ti leaves and a calabash of water, she moved through the house and around the backyard, dipping and flicking the ti leaves all about while quietly chanting. She later fashioned amulets out of the ti leaves and tied them to the doorknobs leading into the house, and one to the doorknob of my son’s room.

We were expecting to hear a story about Menehune, but what she told us caught us by surprise. Our neighborhood, the kahu said, was built directly over an ancient path traveled not by Menehune, but by Mu — small, silent and wild, humanlike creatures.

She added that, like Menehune, there are both good and bad Mu, but most are only making mischief. Then she leaned closer, lowered her voice and said, “However, there is a very evil one lurking around here.”

While there was no way to be rid of the Mu, she explained that we could at least protect our child by building a path around our home. To further appease them, she said, we should place large flat rocks along the path for resting, and plant ohia and hapuu for shade, banana for food and plenty of ti leaf to make rain capes for them to wear during the frequent Mililani Mauka showers.

I started the very next day and worked around the clock for a month until the path was finished. Once it was completed, my son’s nightmares magically came to an end.

So many years passed that I’d almost forgotten. Then, late one night, after a particularly hard day at work, I decided to fetch my stash of pakalolo, step out into the backyard, sit on one of the large, flat rocks and roll and light a joint.

After taking a few deep puffs, I leaned back and, hearing a child cry, glanced up in the direction of the sound. What I saw, there in the moonlight, sent a chill up and down my spine. In a neighbor’s open upstairs window stood a small, hairy creature with pointed ears and cat eyes, dangling a toddler — a little boy — out over the sill.

Baring its sharp teeth, the creature grinned at me, put its finger to its lips and whispered, “Shhh … ”