For @flashfictionfridayofficial 225 prompt: I Can't Tell
She watches, shimmery in the late summer sun. The huge truck is unloaded. Couches, tables, chairs, dressers, beds, are carried out and in, along with the boxes.
A car pulls up. The family emerges. She watches closely. An adult male, female, a male child, oh, a female child.
The little girl stops, her head crocked, like she hears something.
“Come Ariana. We have a lot to do.”
“Mom, there is another little girl here.” Her mom frowns. She looks around.
“By the trees.” Her daughter says.
“Come on guys. I wanna set up my room.” Her brother, Aaron adds.
The new family enters their new house. She watches them go.
She sits in her new room, placing her toys in place. She watches her.
“Hey, you can come out.” Ariana says. “It is okay. I won’t hurt you.”
“Squirt, who are you talking to?” Aaron stands at her door.
“I don’t know her name yet.” Her brother frowns, looking around her room.
“You’re being weird.” He declares.
“Mom,” she calls out, “Aaron is being mean to me.”
“Well she is being weird.”
A sigh comes from down the hall, where their parents are working on setting up the living room. “Behave you two.” Their father yells out.
Ariana puts her tongue out. Aaron gives her a dirty look and heads back to his room.
Her parents come in to tuck her in. “Good job in getting your room set up.” Her mom praises.
“Thanks. My friend helped.” Her parents share a look. Their daughter had a imaginary friend but she had faded away when she was five and entered school.
“What friend?” her dad causally asks his six year old daughter.
“I don’t know Daddy. She hasn’t said her name yet.”
“It is the move.” Her mom says. She lays next to her husband. “The stress most have brought Dawn back.”
“She said she doesn’t know her name.” There is something about how his daughter was talking that raises hackles deep in him.
“We don’t need to worry.” The words are automatic. The belief in them though…
Aaron watches as his sister seems to talk to herself. She sits in the backyard, by the tree, the big one. Their parents say it is Dawn come back. He knows better. It is something more. Scary.
“I know. It is good. I have been lonely too. Friends are important.”
He stands, hands fisted. She is a dweep and dork but, she is his to protect. He doesn’t know how to do that from this unseen force.
“It is okay. I won’t tell.”
“You aren’t allowed to keep secrets.” Aaron calls out.
Something presses against him. It is cold and heavy and pushes him back a few feet.
“It is okay. You don’t have to.” Ariana calls out. The power lets him go.
He turns and runs into the house, calling for his mom.
“Aaron, what in the world?” Her ten year old son is sobbing and shaking. She kneels, drawing him into her embrace.
When calms down some, he hiccups out, “Ariana’s friend tried to hurt me.”
“Aaron sweetie, there is no…”
“It pushed me! It’s cold hands pushed me.” He cries out.
A shot of fear adrenaline rushes down spine. All she has feared, those at the forefront and those hidden deep in her subconscious, come rushing up.
“Stay right here.” She hurries out to where her daughter sits playing in the back yard.
“You shouldn’t have done that. I know but I wouldn’t tell.” Her mom stops dead, listening. “He will. They will be mad.”
“Ariana.” She stops, jerking her head towards her mom, “What happened with Aaron?”
“She didn’t mean to, mom.” She says standing up, “she didn’t hurt him.”
She grows quiet. Her head drops. “Mom, I can’t. She wouldn’t like it.”
“Ariana Grace, I don’t like you keeping stuff from me. Something hurt and scared your brother. Now I want a name.”
“I have too.” She addresses her unseen friend, “ it will be alright.” A sigh as she turns back to her mom. “Mary Husband. This is her house.”
“Yeah mom. A long time ago. She lived here with her mom and dad. And a bunch of brothers and sisters. A lot, lot mom. She has been so lonely here by herself. She saw me when we came and was excited cause there was finally a little girl here.”
Her mom felt her knees grow weak. No way her six year old daughter would be able to make up such a story. Her imagination is great but not that great.
She feels the force before she sees it. The same coldness her son describes presses against her, leading her back. Her feet trip over something. She falls down. Looking down, she sees a grave stone. It is crumbling, obviously very old. Still she can read the inscription.
“Mary Louise Husband. 1782-1788.”
