Chapter Sixteen: Miranda’s Dark Side:

Miranda didn’t show her colder side until I was eight years old. Up until then, everything had been nice. I thought that she was my friend. When I saw her, Miranda would be smiling. We always played together. Grandma and Doris didn’t seem to mind. Some of the other people around the house gave me strange looks.

“Does she always have to talk to herself?” I heard Mama ask one day.

“It’s just an imagery friend,” Grandma told her. “This will pass soon.”

“I whisper it would hurry up,” Mama complained. “It’s just embarrassing.” I didn’t care at the time. I was just happy to not be lonely anymore. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters when I was young. All of my cousins lived out of state. Doris would be too busy around the house to entertainment. Mama didn’t have much of an interest in me. There was Grandma, but she was a bit busy at times. So having Miranda around was a welcome change. Then, I met Addie.

Everything was still fine then. She didn’t complain when I started to pay more attention to Addie. In fact, Doris and Grandma welcomed her with open arms.

“So nice to see you making friends,” Doris said.

“I already had a friend,” I told her. “Miranda was my other friend.”

“Of course she is,” she said. It kind of hard the way that Doris said that. She and Grandma treated her like an imaginary friend. But Miranda wasn’t imaginary. She was just as real as you and I are. I didn’t understand it. Miranda didn’t seem bothered.

“It’s okay,” she said. “They just don’t get it.”

“But why?” I asked. Miranda hugged me from behind and rested her chin on my head.

“You are a child and they are grown-ups,” she said. “Grown-ups can’t see me.”

“But what about Addie?” I asked. “She’s a kid like me.”

“But she’s not you, is she?” she asked. I looked up to see her forcing herself to smile. I couldn’t tell if she was mad at me or not. She would get like that sometimes, but nothing would come of it.

That was until Mr. Grieves warned me about her.

Now, I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time. He never gave a name. I just found myself back in my room and went back to bed. The next morning, Miranda awoke beside me.

“Where did you go last night?” she asked. I turned my head. How did she know I was gone if she was asleep?

“The swamp,” I said.

“Why did you go there?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t know.” I didn’t tell her about Mr. Grieves. Why would I? His words didn’t make any sense at the time. Miranda didn’t press the issue any further. Pretty soon, she would always be asking me questions whenever she saw me talking to someone I didn’t know. She didn’t sound upset or anything. Miranda just wanted to know. I would just tell her and everything would be fine. I didn’t think anything would change.

That was until I met him.