From my book of short stories – A Short Walk

Dead Until Twelve

I didn’t know any different at the time, we had been together for so long it felt normal. Yet it wasn’t.

At first I thought it was just an imaginary friend, that’s what they had told me when I was small. They said I had made her up as company. Being an only child can have that affect they said. Yet I didn’t name her, she did.

Her name was Amelie. My name is Sylvia.

We played together, went to school together, walked and talked. She was even there when I slept. Amelie would tell me about herself, about the toys she had, about her parents too and her life. She had a little brother she talked about all the time too, I sometimes wondered if he was her imaginary friend. It never occurred to me to not want her around, it didn’t seem an option. In fact, Amelie made my childhood and life much easier and happier. I always had someone to talk to, and she seemed to know an awful lot.

She would also sometimes talk of a darkness, tell me there were things out there that weren’t safe. I would feel quite panicked when she spoke of the dark, as if a heavy blanket was being thrown over me. The light fading and breathing became difficult. But only for a moment, Amelie would see my distress and stop talking. An odd detached silence the only thing that would bring us both back to normal.

For a while though while very young, most people found this whole thing quite charming. They thought it adorable I had such an imagination, such an active mind they would say. Even when my grandmother would visit she would always say.

“She makes it seem so real”.

I knew they couldn’t see Amelie, because I couldn’t either, she was just a voice. Yet she was so much more, she was a person, just without being a person. There would have been no way to properly describe that to anyone. I wanted to though, just could never find the words.

School was rather easy for me to a point, I didn’t have many friends and preferred to keep myself to myself. This may have been because I had Amelie with me, I didn’t feel the need for the company of others. And to be honest, she didn’t care for many other people. Sometimes being quite mean with the things she would tell me about them, or things that sounded so outrageous, I could only presume she was making it up. She was great at school work, and so by extension so was I. She gave me all the answers for tests or when asked a question by the teacher. Possibly part of the reason I didn’t have many friends as well, I seemed to be a bit of a swot and always had an answer. Usually the right one, and I worked out quickly that annoyed people, but I just couldn’t help myself.  

My spare time away from school was just myself and Amelie. We would walk into the woods and over the surrounding meadows, listening for the robins and sparrows. Hoping to catch sight of seasonal wildlife. I usually had a pocket full of nuts and seeds hoping to see some squirrels. She always knew the best places to find them, taking me through a dense bit of woodland and crossing a small stream. It snaked its way through the fallen branches and dark moss, giving the most wonderful smell of fresh damp earth. I wasn’t sure why this was her favourite smell, mine was the meadow. When the afternoon sun warmed the many flowers, it gave a hazy golden glow that took my breath away. The perfume of the wild flowers catching on the breeze and making me smile and sigh at the beauty of it all. We loved nature.

One day we had been walking through the fields, making our way to the woods, when Amelie suddenly wanted to go the other end of field we never passed by before. We made our way towards it, away from the worn path, tramping through the higher grasses. As we got there Amelie stopped us and began looking wistfully into the small wooded area. It was the edge of the reservoir and was fully fenced, but used to be as open as the rest of the countryside apparently. She had told me she had gone that way once, before the fences were there. But she couldn’t remember why. No-one was allowed up there now and by the look of it hadn’t for decades. PRIVATE LAND, KEEP OFF signs were posted most prominently.

We were just about to head off on our normal route when suddenly the atmosphere changed. Despite the rays of sunshine splashing onto our face, and the warm summer air, an icy chill ran through me. Followed very closely by what could only be described as fear, heart piercing fear I had never experienced. A shadow lurked behind the fence in the thicket before us. I wanted to turn but instead just stared, transfixed by what must be a trick of the light, shadows didn’t move by themselves.

“Are you ok Sylvia?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. The voice behind me broke my gaze but did nothing for my heart rate. We never bumped into anyone up here, just their presence was out of place to what we were used to. Although my gaze had been broken, the brightness had not returned, a chill remained and so did the shadow.

“I’ve never seen you up here before, I didn’t think anyone came up here anymore. Are you ok?”

I studied his face before speaking. I had never seen this man before, yet he seemed to know my name. Maybe he was friends with my parents? He must be local to the village or how else would he know my name? There was something extremely familiar about his face but I couldn’t quite place it.

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you. I’m just a bit hungry and my mother is expecting me for lunch. Good day”

And with that, before I even knew what was happening, we were running back towards the village and our house. I wasn’t hungry, this I knew for sure. My stomach was in knots and if anything I felt sick. But on we ran, not stopping until we got home. My mother was most surprised to see me, usually we would be out in the woods for hours, not half an hour.

“Are you ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

I didn’t know what I looked like, belt I felt pale. If that can even be a thing. I felt like my guts had been wrenched out and my very being drained of blood. Seeing that shadow and meeting that man had left an impression.

“I just felt a little sick when I got up to the reservoir fence, I didn’t want to stay out. I met this weird man as well, he knew me by name but I didn’t recognise him. I think I’m going to stay in today”.

She seemed happy with that explanation, although not too happy I was talking to strangers in the countryside. Maybe I shouldn’t play so far out anymore she suggested.

“Oh, and remember to tell me if you want a birthday party before Saturday, you are going to be Twelve. Almost a grown up!”

She added that last bit with a cheery smile, I think she gets more excited about my birthdays that I do. But I hated the idea of a party, she tried every year to get me to want one. Maybe next year I kept saying. Amelie didn’t like parties either, but she loved when it was our birthday, she told me hers was the same day as mine. We celebrated together. Every year she would say things like, ‘well, when I turned eight, or when I turned nine. It was such fun when I turned 11, my brother and went to the zoo’. But this year she hadn’t really been saying anything like that, and we were going to be twelve.

Amelie didn’t want to talk about what happened in the fields, she stayed quiet about it. Nothing ever upset her, so I was very confused about what had happened.

I had always felt safe and confident with Amelie. To avoid embarrassment for my parents and being sent to a psychiatrist, I stopped speaking of her when I was about eight. She had told me that people wouldn’t understand, and my mother didn’t so it seemed best to keep it a secret. As my birthday approached though, it seemed Amelie became quieter and more afraid.

One night two days before, she very quietly said to me ‘I’m afraid Sylvia, I don’t know what it’s like to be twelve’. I didn’t understand what she meant. I was apprehensive too, we would be going to big school and everything would change. She didn’t say anything more about it and I didn’t want to upset her, I had never felt her like this. On the eve of our birthday I tried to be excited but there a heavy feeling about our house, a gloom had settled.

We didn’t talk much that night. She had lost her usual enthusiasm and I didn’t know how to help. Maybe she would feel better in the morning I thought.

I woke to the sun streaming through my bedroom window and my mother opening my door with a hot chocolate and slice of cake! I swear she gets more excited than I do about my birthday. I got hugs and kisses and told my cards and presents are downstairs. It felt nice. The house had lightened since yesterday, I looked around the room and sensed it was all different. Nothing had moved but everything seemed out of place. No my mother had left the room, I was alone. For the first time in my entire life, I was alone.

I looked behind me, I looked under the bed, out of the window, in my drawers, everywhere. I must have looked like a mad person because it was not clear what I was looking for. I felt empty. She wasn’t there. Amelie wasn’t there. My mind was quiet, when I asked a question, just a void of nothing came back. I asked if she was still there, but I knew she wasn’t, I could feel she had gone. I sat on the edge of my bed and cried. My years after that felt incredibly lonely, and life seemed more difficult than it had ever felt. School was suddenly really hard, I didn’t have someone in my head telling me the answers all the time.

I missed her greatly and never quite got the hang of friendships. No one could quite match up to her anyway. It was a personal loss I had to carry on my own, never quite getting over it until years later, although what I later found gave me more questions than answers.

Years later at the Christening of my first child, who I had decided to call Amelie and was born upon the very same day as my birthday, I met a priest. He noted to me.

“How interesting you have called your daughter Amelie, my sister had that name, and the same birthday too. Unfortunately she disappeared when she was a child, but I am so glad her name is still going strong”.

He had a sadness with his smile. I suddenly remembered something she used to tell me about her brother and what she used to say to him, and I couldn’t help but say it.

“You can always turn that frown, upside down…”

He stared at me.

“But, that was decades ago, must have been at least two before you were born, how could you know that?”

I didn’t know what to say, I was now flushed and trying to think quickly. Amelie would have known what to say I thought. It had been a burden for so long, I needed to share it, even after all this time of burying it and trying to forget. He spoke before I had the chance to find any words.

“She went missing on the eve of her twelfth birthday. Used to go walking in the woods and meadow and that day, didn’t come back. We never found her. They say she may have fallen in the reservoir but no evidence. That’s why the fences went up”.

It was heart-breaking, seeing in his face he had always wondered what happened to her. I felt the same about why she left me and wanted to end his pain as well as my own. Now I knew for sure she had been real and that she hadn’t just been my imaginary friend. She had been my best friend. Over the years, wondering now and again if I had made it all up. The sign of a lonely child and all that. But to now know her true fate was unknown and that I had found her brother, something would have to be done.

I knew the place well even though I hadn’t been back since that day. A few days before my twelfth birthday in fact, when I had encountered the shadow and the creepy man. The dark corner she had led me to, I think I probably knew then, but didn’t want to admit it or think about it.

“I’m so sorry this happened to her and you’ve had to live with this for so long, but I think I know where to look for her”…

(c) K Wicks