Chapter 3

I slowly pulled back one of the planks of wood as I entered the gloomy abandoned house again.

The home was cold and dark... empty of any life, but there was this air about the place.

An atmosphere I couldn't quite explain.

I looked around slowly, as I was all alone here.

So I took a deep breath in, my eyes closing tightly as I took in the area and when I finally open again my blue eyes I see I'm back in that time with the sunlight beaming through clear glass windows and the whole home filled with love and life.

Life at least... but as I stood there in the now past living room, I looked around slowly, searching for my mother... searching for my grandmother.

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"

I froze up the second I heard a young teenage girl yell this at her mum. I looked around quickly, till I saw Emily, still my age, slam down the stairs, an older grown-up Marnie following after her in despair.

"Please, Emily! Just talk to me!" Marnie begged, rushing down the stairs, "What's wrong, dear?! Please!"

"You KNOW what is wrong?" Emily yelled back at her, before pointing at Marnie, her mother and adding in cold callous words, "Just LOOK in the mirror!"

Marnie had tears now balling in the corners of her eyes, as she tried to take Emily's hand in hers but her daughter only yanked it away in fury, saying in contempt.

"Don't EVER touch me."

Before she pulled away completely, leaving the house with the door slammed violently behind her. It swings a little open again though by the force and an old Marnie just dropped to her knees, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Marnie!" I called at her, not able to watch her looking this distraught and I approached her quickly, getting to my own knees and falling beside her, "Please, d-don't cry..."

Marnie is still only in tears, as she continued to stare in heartache at the door.

I closed my eyes as I hugged her, but when my arms wrapped around her I felt them go through empty space and a cold voice said to me in the distance.

"I didn't mean for you to see that."

I opened my eyes, seeing Marnie was gone from me, and I slowly got back to my feet as I turned to look at her.

Emily...

"Why do you hate her so?" I asked the young teenage girl and she only huffed back in reply to me.

"How could I not?" She asked, shrugging her shoulders with little empathy, "My mother was always away in the clouds..." She looked so bitter as she uttered on, walking passed me and towards the backyard of the house, "Never really here in the real world."

"But SHE LOVED YOU!" I cried back at her, chasing after the girl as she strolled in cold steps to the yard.

The backyard itself was full of so many flowers and bushes in full bloom. I gazed around at its beauty for a few seconds before my eyes drifted back to Emily, except this time I saw a younger Marnie – looking around mid-twenties- plating the hair of a four-year-old girl who was sitting on a cushion, picking petals off of a big red flower.

Marnie so delicately took different locks of her daughter's hair and folded them against each other so gently... the plat looking so intricate and pretty.

"When I grow up, Mummy..." Young Emily said to her, a small bubbly smile on her little mouth, "Will I be as pretty as you?"

Marnie had the warmest of loving eyes a mother could possibly ever have and she kissed the top of her young daughter's head as she told her.

"You, my dear, will be even prettier..."

Emily smiles bigger now, looking up into her mother's blue eyes and I can't help it. I felt a smile growing on my own mouth now as well.

"Anna..."

I blinked my eyes for one half of a second and I found I was back outside in the cold grey weather... the yard dead with cement paved all over where the flowers and bushes used to be.

I could feel her cold eyes watching me from the door and I slowly turned around, seeing Emily there... watching me with hate.

She's a young girl my age again and she only folded her arms before turning and walking back inside... the sky letting out a rumble as thunder drummed all across the land.

"Emily!" I called to her, rushing inside after the girl and the house, once again, is cold and empty... so dark and shadowy... so lifeless and hollow.

"Why do you keep coming back here?" She asked me then, as she was standing at the exit, waiting for me to leave.

"Because I-" I began, afraid to say the words... because I knew they were all but lies, "I wanted to see you."

"No." Emily said back fast, calling my bluff... I had never been good at lying, "You wanted to see HER."

I shuddered back that second when I heard her response.

I asked her again, "Why do you hate her so?"

And Emily coldly glared at me as she approached me in hard steps, coming right up to me and yelling in anger.

"SHE LEFT ME when I was just A BABY! I was so young and SHE WASN'T THERE FOR ME!"

"But she would've if she could've!" I yelled back and Emily swung her head from side to side in a hard shake – complete denial.

"Get OUT." She then yelled at me, suddenly shoving me hard away and I felt the strength of her push. She felt so solid to me... and tears only began to rise in my own eyes as well.

"Emily..? Please..?"

"OUT!"

I looked at her, feeling the same heartache that Marnie had felt when Emily yelled at her in my vision.

"I u-understand, Emily..." I tell her, as tears run from my eyes down my cheeks in such deep utter pain, "She wasn't there for me EITHER."

At that second Emily stopped. She looked into my eyes with sad ones of her own and I continued.

"Marnie DIED... and there was NO ONE else there for me too..."

Emily is crying now and I take a deep breath, as I said to her.

"Just like YOU died and YOU left her as well!"

Emily was shaking her head again in hard denial and she slowly looked back up at me, as she said in such broken words.

"I'm sorry I died... Anna..."

I gasped, not expecting this reply.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there..."

I wiped the tears from my eyes, about to fall into her and hug her to tell her it didn't matter now...

But as I dropped towards her I only stumbled into nothing and it was then I realized I was back in that cold house by myself.

I slowly steadied myself back onto my feet properly again and left the building, not able to take anymore for today.

I hurried to school and just as I had done the previous day, I headed for my third lesson, except this time instead of becoming part of the scenery, the teacher pointed at me half-way through class and asked.

"Anna... answer me this."

I sat there frozen, listening to the teacher, my hands grasped tightly together as they rested on the desk's surface.

"Yes, miss?" I said back hesitantly and she continued.

"Where were you this morning?"

I tensed up completely now, the rest of the class laughing, or at least giggling to themselves and I slowly shrugged my shoulders as I uttered out weakly.

"I... I don't know..."

The teacher leant a little across her desk, pulling her glasses down a bit to look me right in the eyes.

"Really, now?" She asked me again and I stiffly nodded my head.

She didn't say anything else to me for the rest of the lesson, but my heart was still pounding hard against my chest and when the school day was over I was told to wait outside the principal's office.

My foster mum arrived after a few minutes, the school bell having chimed ten minutes ago.

She looked at me, so upset and confused and I couldn't even look her in the eyes. I'm terrified now of disappointing her.

Before she even says anything to me the principal waves us in and we both get to our feet, coming inside.

"Thank you for coming," The middle-aged female principal said to my 'mum', and my mother just nodded her head weakly, before asking.

"How long has Anna been doing this?"

"Two days..." The principal replied.

I can feel my mother's upset angry eyes look my way now, and I slowly sank back more into my chair... so ashamed of myself.

"Why, Anna..?" My mother asked me then, and I choked on my words.

I couldn't tell her... not here, not now.

She wouldn't believe me anyhow.

I said nothing and she looked back at the principal, as the woman added.

"She will be in detention for the rest of the week."

"Understood." My mother confirmed.

"I'm so sorry for having to call you in over this," The principal said and my mother only shrugged her shoulders, helpless in whatever way she could have replied.

As we left the school grounds and walked towards my mum's car, I could feel her sadness and hurt.

We got into the small vehicle and just as I closed the door, I heard her say to me in such worry.

Such disappointment.

"Where have you been going, Anna?"

I gulped heavily, looking her way and said with a scared smile.

"Nowhere..."

"Why have you been missing morning classes?" She asked.

"I..." I said, but it hurts me to say these words, "I've been seeing people..."

"What do you mean by this?" My mum asked me angrily. She put her keys in the ignition and started up the car, "Bad people? People who have been peer pressuring you?!"

"No, no..." I told her again, and felt so worried as I got out my truth, "DEAD people... people from the past..."

She only stared right through me when I said that. She drove out of the school parking lot and we took only five minutes to get back home.

She didn't say a single word as we drove... the silence only being broken up by the sounds of the wind blowing through the tree leaves and rain buffering against the car.

When we do pull into our own driveway, I am about to get out but I paused when my mother's hand grips me at my wrist to stop me from leaving.

"Anna..." She said to me, and I looked back at her, my eyes quaking in worry and fear, "I want you to see someone."

"Huh..?" I peeped out and she closed her eyes in tears as she added back to me.

"A therapist... you have so much emotional luggage... I think it's making you confused..."

I just stared right back at her, anger now boiling up inside of me and I snapped at her in deep hidden rage.

"I'M NOT CONFUSED!"

She doesn't startle back... her eyes just stared at me as she kept in silence before her gaze drifted away into the empty space between her and the wheel.

"Please do this for me, Anna..." She said to me, wiping the tears now away from her eyes, "Please... I don't want you to lose yourself..."

I have no words.

I just got out of the car and walked towards my home.

My 'mother' soon followed suit and as the two of us entered our house, I only went to my room and slammed the door behind me.

I leant my back against its wood, and I slowly slid down it to the floor as tears began to fall from me yet again.

"I'm not crazy..." I whispered to myself in sorrow. In pain. "I'm not..."

I needed Marnie there with me, I needed someone who understood how much I was hurting inside.

Because my foster mother clearly didn't... she didn't know me like Marnie had known me...

She didn't know me at all.

I wasn't crazy, I wasn't imagining things, I wasn't LOSING IT!

But she didn't believe me... and now I was being sent to a shrink.

My 'mother' didn't know me...

She didn't know me at all...