Echos

I remember seeing her as a child. I was young, but I still can recall thinking her presence to be odd and forced. Then it was myself, younger sister, and youngest brother. I believe I was nine, and my twin siblings trailed behind me at five years old. Our mother and father were upstairs, and we were in our pajamas playing about in the basement.

Our house was grand, and the back sat up against the intricate waterways of the marsh that cut through the land like wire. The basement had full doors and windows that ran from the floorboards to the ceilings, exposing the pale landscape beneath the moonlight.

We were hitting each other with pillows and flinging blankets about. My siblings and I were giggling joyfully, with the definitive high pitched tone children possessed ringing in the air. We could hear mother and father settling in for the night, and our nanny had yet to tuck us into bed. She was likely cleaning the kitchen or fast asleep on the couch after a long days work. We took advantage of our solitude.

It was the first time we saw her. In the shadow of the night, there was another young girl. She held a yellow blanket in her left hand, suckling on it softly. Her feet were bare as she walked through the dewey, undercut grass. She was clad in pajamas as we were; soft white trousers and a button down top that had a faded in color over time. The blanket was odd, for she looked a bit too old to be holding onto such a thing. She was certainly a few years older than me.

Lily, my younger sister, ran up to the window, pressing her palms on the glass, "Look!" she squeaked.

Caleb and I joined her at the window, our persistent breaths fogging up the glass.

Lily began to tap on the window, attempting to get the little girl's attention, but she just kept walking. Lily banged harder, and I heard a rustle of footsteps from upstairs.

I sighed, "Lily, it's probably just the neighbor. And now you've awaken Beth with your noise."

"No," she insisted, "I know her."

I looked at her quizzically as Beth began to stumble heavily down the stairs into the basement, abruptly disrupting my thoughts. I came out of my daze and upon peering out the window I noticed that she was gone.

Lily and I shared a bedroom opposite of Caleb. Our beds side-by-side were lit only by a candle gifted to us from our grandmother. I lay facing her, holding my stuffed alligator tightly.

"Who's the young girl you knew?" I asked.

Lily pursed her lips, "You don't know?"

I squinted my eyebrows in confusion and shook my head no.

Lily played with her stuffed bunny's ears and said nothing before she rolled over to face the wall and fall fast asleep.

The next morning, with the twins busy in lessons, I questioned my mother in our kitchen. Morning light poured through the paned windows, illuminating the dust particles floating through the air. Cigarette smoke arose like a plume from behind an upheld newspaper.

"Do the Shaws have a young girl?" I asked.

My mother, occupied by the paper, ashes her cigarette and looked up at me as if she just had recognized my presence. "Where are the twins?" she questioned, ignoring my query altogether.

"In lesson."

"Hm," she hummed. She rested the cigarette between her lips once again and got back to reading. Then, as if struck, threw it down. "Why do you ask of the Shaws?"

"I'm only curious if they have a girl."

"Pigs, they are," she said.

I didn't catch on, and she must have noticed the puzzled look on my face.

"Their boys," she said as she then flicked the newspaper upright again, "Always in my garden." She went back to reading with that.

Then there was the night in December. Before that, the only thing that had ever frightened me were my own nightmares. Lily and I were playing in the basement- again. The night was still and cold, and we were up way past our bedtime. We could hear our mother upstairs bashing pots and pans, attempting to relentlessly prepare for our upcoming holiday party, despite the fact she was a shot cook.

We had built up an unsteady sort of fort, with a cluster of chairs and blankets forming what we had called a playhouse. It had become our most recent obsession, and oftentimes we had slipped out of our bedrooms to meet there at odd hours of the night.

The air felt odd. A certain quiet fell over the house, and my heart began to palpitate with an unusual anxiety. I came to with Lily no longer with me in our playhouse. I crawled out from within our nest of blankets and found Lily peering out the window in a bizarre manner. I began to shake her shoulders but her gaze would not break. That is when I followed her line of sight and landed on what was capturing her attention: the same young girl from before. She was wearing the same pajamas, holding the same blanket, and once again was wearing no shoes. Although this time, she was glaring through the window not any less than twenty feet away from the house. I heard Chester, our Westie, begin to bark from upstairs.

"Lily," I whimpered nervously. When she heeded no response I started to frantically shake her shoulders. The girl then began to prowl towards the house, and Chester barked more and more violently upstairs.

When she reached our back door, I heard her fiddle with the locks, allowing it to open. That is when I bolted over just in time to slam it back shut onto her fingers that were poking through the crack.

I let out a shrill scream that seemed to bring Lily back to life. When she saw me struggling to keep the door shut, she followed my suit and rushed over to assist. The girl was so small and frail, yet Lily and I were desperately struggling to keep it shut. Worn out and scared, we resulted to leaving the door and racing up the basement stairs as rapidly as our little legs would allow us to go. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, I slammed the basement door shut and locked it hurriedly.

There was silence for a moment, and we stood outside waiting to see what could possibly happen next. A loud thud ruptured across the other side of the door and we fell back onto each other screaming with terror.

That's when mother finally rushed in, silk robe and all. She looked flustered but wasted no time to reprimand us before questioning what was happening.

"What on earth are you doing up so late?" she questioned. "And why are you crying? It's not as if the dog has died?"

I pointed a shaky finger to the door, "There's someone in the house!"

"Nonsense it's probably Beth. I haven't been able to find her the past few hours."

"No," Lily cried, "It's the little girl."

"What little girl?" mother beckoned.

"The one who visits me at night. She just wants her family, but she's angry now!" Lily was utterly hysterical and on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Oh, good Lord," our mother began to gather us and ushered us upstairs, "I thought your kid's night terrors ended ages ago."

I questioned Lily the next afternoon out in the marsh. Our family had begun to flood into town like an infestation of locusts. They were always feeding off my parents anyways. This time they were honored to be a part of our annual holiday party. And, at this point in December, there was almost always a crying cousin, drunk uncle, or screaming aunt in just about every room in the house and outside as well. The only escape we had for alone time was way out into the muddied waters of the shallow marsh.

"What does that girl want?" I was determined to squeeze an answer out of her, since her alleged friend scared me half to death the night prior.

Lily was meticulously shelling for clams and not acknowledging me whatsoever. After our run-in with the insidious child, she was so shaken that she hasn't spoken since. She had spent the night and following morning in a dull gaze.

"Lily," I questioned again, this time grabbing her arm and stopping her dead in her tracks.

"Stop it, Claire!" she ripped her arm away from my grasp. "She just wants her family, but she asked for more last night."

"Like what?"

"Just forget it," and she was off. She stomped off away further and further into the marsh.

Defeated and bewildered, I made my way back to the house, only to be assaulted with questions by my disagreeable extended family.

The house was crowded with the smell of holiday foods, taken over expectedly by Beth in the absence of my mother's cooking skills. The bustle of drunken relatives was enough to drive a saint to their breaking point. For hours, I was occupied by their nonsensical questionnaires.

"How's school?"

"How's violin?"

"How's your mother? She seems disoriented."

"Is your father actually having that affair?"

"Caleb and you, child, are so underdeveloped, why is that?"

"It's such a shame," Aunt Tibby shook her head while she held onto a glass of champagne like her life depended on it.

It was dark now, and I was nearing my limitation of reprehensible questions.

"What's a shame, Aunt T?" I questioned.

"The champagne river has run dry!"

I sighed and pulled myself into the powder room to catch a breath. Splashing water in my face to faze out my approaching anxiety attack, something had caught my eye. There, against the bleak horizon and amidst the fog, were two small silhouettes. I inched closer to the window in an attempt to get a better look. That's when something caught my eye that made my heart drop- a hint of yellow held between the two. I instantly knew who the two parties were.

I sprinted out of the bathroom into the inebriated herd of relatives, each attempting to catch my attention as I rushed to find my mother.

It wasn't particularly hard to find her, as she was usually always encompassed by a cloud of smoke and wearing an obnoxiously flamboyant outfit, expensive enough to suit the taste of Grace Kelley.

"Mother!" I was out of breath from running and the dense cloud of smoke that hung low throughout the house.

"Anyways, I ran into her at the store today on St. George Street. Ridiculous little thing, hasn't a clue about life," she was going on about my father's alleged affair with an eighteen year old girl. ”I know for a fact I wouldn't let my children around that sort of person. Chlamydia must be airborne for her at the point, the poor thing. And, I would know. Because she gave it to me!"

Her small crowd ruptured into an uproarious laughter. I started desperately grabbing at her bell sleeve.

"Mother!" I yelped.

"Ah, yes, what is it darling?"

I pointed outside through the front windows that occupied our foyer. That's when she finally realized what I was barking about, and promptly dropped her beloved Swarovski crystal champagne glass the governor had given her, and it shattered against the floor.

The residence fell silent. My father was laughing with a young woman in the corner.

"Charles," my mother shakily whispered as she made her way to the door.

"Charles!" she screamed.

My father's attention was finally caught, and as he saw my mother tearing towards the front of the house with a look of horror on her face, he looked out into the direction of which she was heading. He promptly set his glass down on the shelving and accompanied her outside into the shadowy marsh, clearly noticing what she was upset about.

A few male relatives that had noticed they were rushing after their dear Lily followed them to help. A marsh can be extremely dangerous, as most people here had known. Many people get stuck or even sink deep into the languid mud. It almost seems to suck you in. And to top it off, she was out there with someone else. I myself had known who it was, but to my parents they hadn't a clue. I wasn't sure which scenario was scarier.

I could hear my mother yelling out for her child as she threw herself into the mud, my father trying to hold her back and assess the best route in which to handle the situation. It was the one time I truly saw that she might have loved any of us after all.

A flurry of uncles and cousins went out with dimly lit torches, and I noticed that I couldn't see either of them anymore. All I could hear were the sounds of my mother's defeated screams echoing in the darkness.

As dawn approached, so did the remaining recruits of the search and rescue team. Mr. Flagler had sent in the most experienced troopers in the state, accompanied by the local police. The least he could do for his close friends while he was away on holiday. Although, the accompanying message he left with the sergeant in charge was a bit bereft of empathy. The note read, "best regards."

I sat on our wrap-a-round while my mother was consoled by an officer and her cousin Isabelle, wrapped tightly in a blanket to help with shock. Every once in a while, my father would come back to the house covered in damp mud and dirt. The sound of bloodhounds could be heard in the distance. He would just shake his head, before returning back out to the brush.

From what I could hear from the officers, they were afraid she got stuck in the mud, and as the tide came in, preemptively drowned. I couldn't help but wonder where she was really was, considering I knew who she was with before she disappeared.

The officer watching over my mother stepped aside to talk to a colleague, and I worked up enough bravery to go and speak to him. I was young, and was sure he wouldn't believe what I had to say, but if it could help find Lily, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had kept my mouth shut.

"E-excuse me, officer?" I whimpered.

He towered over me, "Yes?" he asked.

"I-I saw someone with my sister. Uh, last night. Before, you know-"

He cut me off, holding a large hand in front of my face. “Your parents report she was alone the last they saw her out there.”

“But,” I began, before being cut off once more.

He turned his gaze out into the marsh.

I turned to look, and noticed all the searchers, dogs, and troopers returning to land. That's when I discerned where the attention was being directed- I saw my father. He was carrying Lily's limp and lifeless body in his arms.

I heard my mother let out a horrible wail. She ran out to meet my father and they collapsed as one into a giant sob.

***

Five years later I was starting high school at a preparatory school in the city. Lily's death had long passed, but it troubled Caleb and I so. When she was found, she had been holding a yellow blanket. My absentee parents had identified it as her own, but I knew it wasn't. I hadn't dared to question them in the moment. It still gave me the chills, because my disparate mother clenched to it always, using it as a remembrance for her late child.

I hadn't see the little girl since that day, and I still was not entirely sure if she had anything to do with Lily's death. It was certainly odd, but I couldn't understand why one child would kill another. The only thing that had made me question if the girl was ominous in nature was due to the fact that I still not found her source of origin, her name, or where she had lived. There seemed to be no record of her whatsoever.

My mother had taken on an even more self-destructive drinking habit, and the stench of gin could be smelled from across the room, reaching out from the coffee cup in which she tried to conceal it.

My father had left almost immediately after Lily's death, and ended up marrying the same girl that had previously given my mother Chlamydia. I found it oddly amusing.

Mother was dating a man now, and I hated him beyond comprehension. His name was Charles, which I hated even more. It was as if she was trying to fill the void of my father in every way, but as a much lesser version of him. I made sure Charles knew everyday that he was not my father, and he never made any inclination to parent me.

Caleb was now ten, and spoke less and less frequently with each passing day. Despite his youth, large black bags had begun to accompany his eyes every morning when he woke up. Countless trips to the doctor always found him in good health, and so his condition remained a mystery.

It was a Friday night, and Caleb and I were home alone. Mother and Charles were on a date, and were more than likely to return home soon. It was ten o'clock at that point. We were up way past our bedtime, per usual, but I was attempting to cheer him up with his favorite game, Blind Man's Buff.

Beth had the day off, and was not present in the house. I knew mother didn't like us playing this inside the house, as the main purpose was to blindfold one of the players, spin them into a disoriented state, and call out to the "blind man" until you were able to tag any player who was not blindfolded. Beth hated when we played as well, for we were always knocking over vases and the like, and she always cleaned up the mess.

We took our loneliness as an invitation to do something we weren’t typically able to do. Caleb always liked running from the blind man, and him calling out, "Blind man!" was some of the few words he ever spoke nowadays, so it made me somewhat happy.

I let Caleb tie the blindfold around my head, and he giggled happily as he spun me around, counting up to ten. I felt myself getting extremely dizzy right as he stopped. Then, the pitter-patter of his feet could be heard as he ran off to hide in some distance corner of the house.

"Alright," I yelled, "Call out to the blind man!"

"Blind man!" I heard him yell. He was far off, likely on the other side of the house hiding in the dining room. I kept smiling as I awkwardly walked with my arms far out in front of me, trying to avoid running into one of mother's impressive pieces of art.

"I'm going to find you, Caleb!" I heard him giggle slightly, and my heart warmed a bit. At this point, his laughter had exposed his whereabouts. I emerged in the doorway of the dining room. "I know you're in here," I murmured as I clumsily made my way around the room. But, something made me stop.

I could hear muffled breathing from right behind my left ear, and it made the hair on my neck stand. I became increasingly scared, and had to force the words from out of my mouth. Has that ever happened to you? Where you are so scared you become mute? I finally mustered the strength.

"Caleb?" I whimpered, "Is that you?"

Then I heard it, "Blind man!" a little girl's voice shrieked from behind me.

I ripped the blindfold off and turned around. There was no one. "Caleb!" I called out for him. I heard laughter from down the hall along with two sets of feet running towards the garage.

I bolted after them, screaming out his name as I went, my nightgown ripping as it caught various plants and shelves along the way. As I turned down the long hall leading to the garage, I saw the door slam shut. I bound up to it and beat upon it with all my fury. Adrenaline rushing, my face turned hot and bright red.

"Caleb!" I screamed as I pounded. I could hear subdued voices coming from behind the door. I grabbed the coatrack sitting next to the entryway of the house and removed all the clothing. I then thrusted its metal against the door handle in a hopeless endeavor to break the door down. It worked.

The door handle broke and clattered against the floor. I threw the door open with all my might. I found Caleb sitting alone in the middle of a dim and empty garage.

"Caleb!" I said in relief, and I ran up and held him in my arms. I grabbed his face firmly with my two hands. "What happened?" I asked.

He looked at me, in shock, with tears running down his face. "I know," he said, "I know now what she wants."

The door then slammed us in, and the lights flickered violently off. Me and Caleb screamed in horror as we heard numerous thuds coming from every direction. We could hear the crashing of glass from all parts of the house.

The main garage door flew open with might, exposing my mother and Charles who rushed in from outside to see what was happening.

"Mother!" I screamed, "She's back!"

My mother was frantic and didn't understand. "Who's back, who's back?" she kept repeating as I tried to find my words and my wits.

"The girl!" I gasped out as I struggled to catch my breath.

"What girl?" she asked.

Caleb intervened, "The one who killed Lily!"

My mother turned pale. We sat staring at each other for a moment, and it's as if she had finally remembered me and Lily that one night in the basement- scared out of our mind over a young girl.

I myself was terrified, as Caleb clearly had known something I was missing out on.

"The what?" mother stammered.

“She said she was happy to see us again.”

That's when more laughter erupted from within the house. Charles dashed madly after it, grabbing my disfigured coat rack along the way. We all ran in after him, meeting in the dining room.

He was standing near the window, gazing out. We came up from behind him, and we all saw her. She was standing down in the grass, barefoot, with her recently re-attained yellow blanket. She was staring up at us, pointing. Her eyes were devoid of color, and she was unmoving.

Mother held a hand to her mouth in shock. She had noticed the yellow blanket being held and was attempting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. She did not like the full picture.

"Charles," she muttered, "You must do something."

He turned back, horrified, and nodded slowly. "Yes, yes, of course," he stuttered. "Call the police, and I will go outside."

My mother teared up and she nodded slowly, before running to the phone only a few feet away in the foyer. Her hands shaking, she was trying miserably to dial the number to the sheriff's department.

Charles opened the front door, clutching tightly to his impromptu weapon of self defense. He slowly cascaded down the lengthy stairs that led up and down the house. Her finger following him with each passing movement.

Mother was frantically speaking on the phone, crying out for someone to come and help. Caleb and I watched, petrified, from the window. Although her finger was following Charles, her eyes never left us. He had finally made his way to her, and they appeared to be speaking to each other, with her continuing to hold our gaze.

Mother hung up the phone and darted out after him, against our pleads for her to stay. As she ran after him, her silk black dress flew behind her in the wind, and reflected the minimal moonlight towards us. She finally reached them.

She grabbed Charles' shoulder and spun him around to face her. Charles then preemptively slew the sharp point of the coat rack through her abdomen.

Caleb and I screamed in horror as we watched her desperately grasp at the object in sad attempts to release itself from her. Charles finally ended her misery, pulling it out as streams of blood spattered in all directions, staining his white dress shirt as he went. He then looked up at us, tears welling in his eyes, and opened his jaw in a deep screech, forcing Caleb and I to cover our ears in distress. Charles then used the weapon on himself, impaling his chest and collapsing defeated to the ground.

My mother and Charles were finished with, and the girl began he ascent up to the house, never once breaking eye contact with us along the way. As she came through the front door, I held Caleb behind me, shielding him from an attack and taking that responsibility upon myself. But she didn't attack us, she stood in the doorway, staring.

"What do you want?" I screamed, so loudly it hurt my throat.

She seemed to ponder this, and I realized her skin was a light, pale gray, and her face was disfigured. She reminded me of the little pigs we had to dissect in biology class.

She finally spoke, "Do you want to see Lily?"

I shook my head in disbelief. "Do I, do I what?" I gasped. I slowly moved Caleb and I further and further away, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

But she did notice, and she began to inch towards us. She never closed the gap in between, and was matching our steps.

"Do you want to see Lily?" she questioned again, her head cocked to the side.

All I could do was stare. She pulled a long blade from behind her back, and threw it down at my feet.

"You know what to do," she said.

I slowly bent over and picked the knife up, observing my reflection in it. I held it firm in my grasp, and turned towards Caleb.

He started to cry, "No," he whimpered and backed up against the wall.

Tears fell down my cheeks, and I shook my head, "I'm sorry."

 ***

When the police finally arrived, they found me outside surrounded by my deceased family members. My nightgown was drenched in blood. I was clasping at the yellow blanket, holding it close to my chest and sobbing.

They took me back to the police station, and attempted to decipher what had happened. I didn't even mention the girl- they wouldn’t have believed me anyways. So, I just admitted to all of it. It wasn't as if I was innocent to begin with, I had killed Caleb. Why this was? I had neither recollection or memory.

They subsequently institutionalized me. It was a proper building, along the river, with a nice view of the marsh. Dreaded thing. The nurses let me keep hold of my blanket, and they soon began to acknowledge that I would never let the thing go.

Each night, two nurses would change me into my night clothes, plain white button downs. They would tuck me into bed like the child I was. Many of them did not believe I could have done it. At this point, I didn't know if they were right or wrong.

Every night, my nightmares got worse. Sometimes, they would have to sedate me, and I would be trapped with my memories of what happened. I never saw the girl again.

One night, I had awoken from a particularly horrid dream. I couldn't stand it anymore. Instead of crying out to the nurses, I had a different idea.

I was in the juvenile wing, so it was not as well guarded. The nurse at the front often reminded me of Beth, as she frequently fell asleep at the desk, dead to the world.

I took my slippers off and made my way out by the marsh, clutching at my blanket. I stood at the banks contemplating what to do. I began to wade in, each footstep getting stuck deeper and deeper into the mud, barnacles and clams tearing at my flesh. I sunk into the earth. When I was finally unable to pull my ankles from the mire's grasp, the water line was above my head, and I finally allowed myself to rest.