Mystery Girl

I am not sure if this story classifies as paranormal but still would like to mention it. I was 10 years old at that time. My mom's eldest sister was married to a village guy in another state. They lived in an ancestral home with a huge land surrounding the house. They had about 100 coconut trees, 3 jack fruit trees, about 20 mango trees and some areca nut trees. They used to sell the produce from these trees to supplement their livelihood. The house was more than 50 years old.

We used to visit them once in a year in May (summer vacation in India). My aunt's family consisted of herself, husband, mother-in-law, an elder daughter (18 years old) and younger son (16 years old). We needed 20 hours travel by bus (in 1990's India) to get to her home and used to reach in early morning. On one such trip our bus got delayed and we reached her home at noon. There is a long narrow sandy road that passes in front of her house. There are many houses on either side of the road. The entrance to her home has a narrow stone gate through which only humans can pass (probably made to keep strays animals out). This stone gated entrance has a small seating area with a coconut tree on one side.

As we were nearing her home, we saw a young girl about 10-12 years old combing her hair seated on the area near the entrance. She was wearing a blouse-skirt and had waist length hair. As soon as we came close to the entrance, the girl vanished. My aunt (mom's second elder sister) commented that probably my first aunt must be having other guests. After we were welcomed into their home, my aunt asked about the young girl. Everyone remained silent and then my aunt changed the topic.

The holidays were going great. One noon while playing me and my cousins wandered into their farm. On reaching a certain location not far from the house, we saw some sort of shrine built around a particular tree and it had some food offering near it. We assumed it to be some sort of worship place and continued on. (In rural India, nature is worshiped in many forms just like the Aboriginals or the native Indians.)

Later that night we heard a man screaming loudly. The screams were coming from the direction of coconut trees. My uncle rushed out with a torch light. My uncle caught him and brought him to the lighted space in front-yard. The man still shaken with fear was screaming to let go. My uncle let him go. After coming into the house, my father asked about the incident. After a long silence my aunt explained that probably the man was poor and was trying to steal the coconut tree branches to thatch the roof of his hut before monsoons. The worship place that we had stumbled on earlier was a site for worship of a female form of power that guarded their territory from thieves.

Similar stealing incidents had occurred before. Most of the thieves and poor people in the surrounding areas knew about it and never came back to steal. She said that the female form could be seen sometimes as a young girl sitting near the tree at noon time. She said that they didn't tell anyone (esp city dwellers like us) because we would never believe them and make jokes about it.

Do you think that such positive powers can exist that help you guard your stuff if you believe in them and offer them things in return?...It's very much possible that most of you will dismiss this as a stupid impossible thing or could even make jokes about keeping such powers to safeguard our homes and do away with security cameras, but I (and 6 other family members) have clearly seen this girl sitting near the tree.