Maggie: Imagine it, 16189 words of this high quality

Her parents had left the front porch light on, and so the fluttering, whatever the fluttering was, cast a dramatic series of shadows down the left side of the tree in the direction away from the light. Fearing that she would startle whatever it was, she’d stood up slowly from the couch and had taken several, very hesitant, steps towards the window. She couldn’t see it clearly, but it seemed to definitely be bigger than a butterfly. And she’d briefly wondered whether butterflies even fly at night. They seemed like a sunshine loving creature to her.
But it did seem much bigger than a butterfly. She remembered that it had definitely been bigger than the tree’s bellybutton, and that had been bigger than her palm. Standing in her living room, behind the piano, she was at least ten or fifteen feet away from both the tree and the fluttering. It looked like it had several sets of wings, and now she thought that it was probably three times the size of the bellybutton.
Suddenly, she froze as whatever the fluttering was froze by the tree. Without the fanning action of its wings, it almost disappeared in the darkness. Claudia had moved even closer to the window, leaning over the upright piano precariously up on her tiptoes with her hands keeping her balance on the top. She had squinted and moved even closer to the window until her nose had almost been touching it. Still, she hadn’t been able to see the fluttering at all.
She’d thought for a moment that it had gone away just like it had the morning before. And she had glanced longingly to her right and to the stairs up to her bedroom. Giving up, she’d turned one last time to the tree with her nose by this time pressing up against the window. And it had been then that the fluttering had swooped towards her.
It had come towards her so fast that she’d lost her balance jumping away from the window in shock. The fluttering had swooped to the window without pausing and then away again, past the big tree.
Claudia had remained standing in the middle of the living room for another fifteen minutes, still staring out the front window until her father had shuffled back in.
‘Claudia, why are the lights still on? You’re hard enough to get up in the morning. Give your mom and me a break and go to bed.’ He’d walked over to the front door and had turned off the porch light and the living room light, leaving them both in darkness.