It all happened in an old, two story house on the corner of Chestnut Street.
The first time Emma saw the house – on a Friday afternoon somewhere in September in the year she turned eight – she thought it looked old and somehow, if that was possible for a house, tired and done. She thinks, sometimes, that that was just her active imagination or perhaps, as a child, she had been able to see things that adults could not but her brain had been unable to truly comprehend and so it had settled on the house looked tired. The thing was the house might have looked old but it really wasn't, sure it was older than all the other houses in the street but it had obviously been renovated and it was newly painted, it should have looked, if not new, than at least fresh (if such a thing was possible for a house of course.) But it didn't, it looked old and to her – and to the social worker who brought her here, Cindy, too if her sudden intake of breath and her clear reluctance to leave Emma here were anything to go by – it seemed like it could fall apart at any second. The strangest thing about the house however – at least to her and, as it turned out, to many others in the street – wasn't how old the house looked but the color of the door. It was the strangest shade of green and for the live of her Emma couldn't remember ever having seen a green door (at least not that kind of green) and especially not in a neighborhood like this.
That is really the strangest part about the house, Emma realizes much later, it's neither the fact that it looks so old nor the green door, it's the combination of it all existing in this street.
Because the street itself, the neighborhood, is perfect even Emma could see that at the time even though she was just a child. The houses were bright, there was laughter everywhere, children played on the streets or walked their dogs, there were white picket fences and smiling parents, it was, in short, the kind of street one wanted to live in. (The kind, Emma found out later, that only really seemed to exist in movies and on TV because the truth was that it looked perfect on the surface but on closer examination it was never actually perfect.) But the house on the corner, the one she was going to be living in, didn't look like it actually belonged in here; it was too old, too different, and too wrong. And yet, at the same time, it really did belong here, the house (while older) looked just like all the others and, if one saw pictures of the street, nothing about it looked odd. That's why nobody thought it odd to bring children there, that's why she was on her way because nobody thought something was wrong about it.
But on the outside it looked wrong.
But that was on the outside, on the inside it looked finally looked perfect, Emma suspected it looked exactly like all the other houses in the street – bar a few alterations – and any feeling of wrongness she and Cindy had when they stood outside evaporated when they actually entered the house. As soon as she entered the house and actually talked to the people that would be Emma's new parents – and they looked really nice the first time she saw them but Emma had learned by then that they always looked nice the first time they met them and their true colors usually didn't show until after the social worker left. The point is that once Cindy talked to them she calmed down and any reservations she had about leaving Emma here disappeared in a flash. It was always, and would always, be the same: Cindy (or another social worker) would talk with the new parents, tell them a little about their new foster child and then she'd smile at Emma and say: "Everything will be alright" and "Call if you ever need anything." (But Emma learned not to call, she learned to live in the home they gave her, it was easier then moving all the time.)
By the time she arrived, on that Friday afternoon, the strange things in the house have already been happening for quite a while.
Emma is kind of glad about that because she fears that, if they were like some other foster parents – the one's she'd known and the ones she'd only heard about by then – that they would somehow find a way to blame her. And she hadn't known enough about Jameson's then to know if they were those kind of parents or the kind that would actually love her and take care of her. But the good thing – and really the only good thing about the whole haunting thing – about it is that since it had been going on for so long and they couldn't blame her than that meant that they couldn't harm her because of it or send her back to where she came from. (She was still looking for a home back then and hoping that in some way she would be able to get one even though she learned later she never really would.)
According to Thomas, her new foster brother who was about three years older than her – the only actual son of her new parents – the rumors were (the legend, the story) that whatever was happening at the house, and nobody could really figure out what it was, had been happening for a long time, long before even they moved into this house. Nobody really knows, Thomas tells her, the truth but some say that long ago there was a little girl, about her age, with long blond hair and she disappeared one day and was never seen again, but that was many years ago. (It should probably be noted at this point that Emma was wrong about her new foster parents: they really, really wanted to be her parents but as she learned later there were too many things going on around them for them to actually succeed.)
The first time he tells her the story, on her first night at the house in fact, she thinks he's just trying to scare her like most boys his age will do. Because they always think – something she's learned quite quickly but she supposes all children do – that just because she's eight and they're older than her that she'll just fall for their stupid little tales but Emma, Emma is smarter than that. He tells her that at night, when the darkness is dense, lights will suddenly flicker, doors will open and close for no real reason and she'll hear strange sounds, sounds she'll never be able to place and at times – though he tells her it's only happened to him once and he's never been sure if he dreamed it or not – she'll see things that nobody else will and nobody will ever believe her (even if they too will see and hear some strange things.) There are other things too, things he can't quite describe and everything gets worse the longer she'll live here (at the beginning, when they first moved in here, it was just a little and they'd always thought 'it's just the wind.') Thomas tells her that the rumor is that the ghost – because that's what everybody's going with not that Emma believes a word of it - will eventually kill the people that inhabit the house. He tells her that sometimes people die but most people, most people move away before that.
She doesn't believe him, not even a little and when that night her door opens suddenly and closes again and the lights in the hallway flicker she thinks it's just Thomas trying to scare her. (Because that is just the kind of thing a boy his age will do.)
But when she finally gets sick of it – and she does try to pretend it's not scaring her for the longest time but she's just a little girl and after a while it does get to her – and goes off to confront him she finds that he's asleep in his bed. And he's not pretending either because the strange things are still going on, and suddenly she's just a little girl in a strange house where things are happening that scare her and she's all alone. She could have woken him and perhaps he would have laughed but he might have taken care of her anyway. The thing is she didn't know enough about him or this new family to know if she could wake him without creating problems for herself. So instead of waking him she goes back to her room, quietly, and crawls into her new bed (with red sheets which she kind of hates because she really doesn't like that color.) She's not afraid; perhaps if she repeats it enough times it will one day become real.
And then, just when she thinks it's finally over, she sees her.
Standing in the doorway, the little girl of the tale she supposes. Just a little older then her with long blond hair – just like her in fact – and wearing a beautiful dress (though Emma herself would never wear a dress like that.) She doesn't move, doesn't say anything, the little girl jus stares at her and Emma does nothing but stare back. She looks sad, Emma thinks, sand and tired and lonely. So lonely in fact that for a moment, a tiny instant, Emma forgets that it's a dead little girl and wants to go over and hug her, just to make her smile. She wants to play with her and hang out with her and make everything better for her, but she's dead and so Emma can't help her anymore. She's not sure how long they look at each other but eventually the girl speaks and suddenly she's very cold (and the world is cold and suddenly she just wants to run.)
"My room! This is my room! Get out!"
And then Emma screams, as loud as she can – forgetting in her fear that she was trying not to make her new family angry – and then, just as soon as she appeared, the girl is gone. And then her new father – a man whose name she feels she should be able to recall but she actually can't – is by her side, telling her everything is okay. And the mother – whose name is Lucy at least Emma thinks that's her name –makes her a cup of hot cocoa to make her feel better and Thomas (who before had tried to scare her) now offers to sleep in her room. And Emma feels at home here, Emma thinks that with time this might become her favorite place (even if there is something strange about this house.)
Her new father tells her that everything is alright, that it was just a dream.
And Emma, Emma believes him.
The thing about the house, and all the strange things that happen in it, is that after a few weeks Emma actually gets used to it.
She even gets used to the ghost of the little girl, though apparently, as it turns out, she is the only one who can actually see her. Thomas tells her that though sometimes he almost sees something he's never actually seen the ghost and besides, he tells her when she finally asks him, he's not even sure if the girl had ever existed. Perhaps, he says, all the strange things that have been happening are somewhat normal and they, with the imagination of a children, have just made it worse. At first Emma believes him but after a while, though the strange things somehow fade a little – or perhaps she gets so used to it that they no longer register – the little girl never does.
Still, despite all that, Emma is happy, really happy for the first time in a very long time.
(Perhaps even for the first time ever.)
Because the house itself might look strange on the outside and on the inside it might be slightly scary but the family is perfect at least to her. She has a father who reads her stories at night and teaches her how to ride a bike – which nobody had taken the time to do before – and a mother who goes out of her way to find out what Emma's favorite food is and makes it for her and a brother who teases her and tries to scare her but also protects her and plays with her. It might not have been perfect, there might have been things that were wrong with her new family that she was too young to understand – money problems or fights between her new parents – but to her, at the time, it was perfect. And it always would be, nothing, no other family, would ever be able to take its place. The Jameson's are her favorite family and Emma will always think of them as her family (and perhaps, in another world where there is no ghost haunting their new home and no neighbors who whisper about some things and no social service that jumps the gun, it always would have been. But life is the way it is and there is nothing she can do to change it.)
The thing about the little girl is that she's somehow everywhere.
(But Emma is the only one who can actually see.)
The little girl – who eventually one day in the garden while they're playing a game introduces herself as Carla – is scared and alone (and Emma thinks that the reason Carla attracted her is because Emma was like her, alone and scared.) She's never angry, not really, the only time she actually is – the only time Emma is afraid of her – is when she screams about her room, when she tells Emma to leave. (But after a while, after a few months, the ghost stops doing even that, it's around the time Emma tells her that the room belongs to the both of them and they could share it, Emma doesn't really mind she's quite to use it by now. Though, of course, she had never actually shared a room with a dead person before.) Perhaps it's strange how used she has gotten to Carla, perhaps it's strange how much she likes her but to her, at the time, it felt normal.
She plays hide-and-seek with her in the garden of her new house; they play on the swings.
She plays with Carla when Thomas is off doing big boy things.
Her father thinks it's adoring that she has an imaginary friend, her mother thinks it's strange that she didn't have one before – apparently that is one of the things social workers warn the families about – and her brother doesn't think much about it. Or at least he never says anything about it though she suspects that Thomas thinks it's strange she asked about the ghostly little girl and then, suddenly, had an imaginary friend.
But nobody really considers that her imaginary friend is a ghost.
(Why would they after all.)
The first time she sees Dean is on the playground two blocks from her new home.
She's been living with the Jameson's – and Carla of course – for about three months when they show (and later when she's older and she understands more she'll wonder why they didn't come before that.) It's Thomas really who always decides when they're going to the playground, he's old enough – at least according to his parents – to walk their alone after all but they always tell him he has to take Emma too because it's only right that he does. That day she hadn't really wanted to go – she and Carla had been having the time of their lives – but Thomas had insisted and since he couldn't go without her Emma always felt guilty when he had to stay home.
Dean had been sitting on of the swings while his little brother – Sam she learned later – played in the sand before him. Thomas told her to stay in the playground where he could always her while he went off play football with his friends – which is really what he always did when they came here and Emma would always sit on the swings.
"Hi, I'm Emma."
"Hi, Dean and that's my brother Sam."
She smiled at the little boy building some kind of sandcastle in the sand before them – he was maybe six, Emma couldn't quite tell, she'd always found it difficult to figure out somebody's age just by looking at them – and started talking with Dean. It wasn't the most important conversation of her live, just two lonely kids who spend an afternoon talking about silly things and playing ridiculous games. The one thing she truly noticed, the one thing that stuck with her, was that the entire time they were talking and playing Dean refused to go very far from the sandbox and kept one eye on the little boy playing before. (Later she realizes that Thomas too had been playing quite close and keeping an eye on her but at the time she didn't really realize that.) She's not sure how long they stayed but after a while Thomas came by just to check on her and asks her if she didn't mind staying while he played another game, he even asked her in a joking tone if Carla is there too and then he leaves again.
Dean asks her about that of course but Emma doesn't really tell him the truth.
(What is she supposed to tell him after all? That Carla is her imaginary best friend? A dead little girl she can only see when she's inside or around her new home?)
Later, when they're leaving, Sam gives her a flower he's found somewhere and Dean smiles and waves at her. They're her friends, they are, but she doesn't really think she'll ever see them again (Dean did imply that they move around a lot.) She doesn't really think that's strange though because as a foster child she's had a lot of friends that were gone quite soon but they were still her friends.
The house is completely dark by the time they make it back home.
And it's strange because it's not that late and Cindy would never allow them to come home to an empty house. If she had to suddenly leave she would have gone to the playground to get them. What's even stranger, at least from her point of view, is that Paul (her foster-dad) isn't there either. Even if Cindy had to leave without being able to tell them, surely Paul would be here? But he isn't, nobody is – at least not when they first arrive – and the house is engulfed in darkness. The house – which already looks slightly scary – looks ever worse when it's completely dark, like it's lost all its live. Mss. Hudson, their neighbor from three houses away – who's extremely annoying even Emma can tell that – is suddenly there telling them that Cindy fell down the stairs and hurt herself and Paul had driven her to the hospital and asked her to tell them to wait for them, he should be back in half an hour.
(And Emma heard something in her voice, something she didn't understand until much later. It was, she would later realize, an accusing tone, as if Mss. Hudson had already decided what had happened. That Paul had hurt Cindy and that the kids were lucky they weren't home and, considering social services showed up the next day to take her and Thomas away, she had already contacted the authorities.)
She'd offered to stay with them but Thomas had assured her they would be alright and ushered her inside. The house was in disarray, which was odd because Cindy always made sure it looked presentable at least, papers were lying everywhere, stools were turned over and there was blood (at least Emma assumes it was blood she still kind of hopes it wasn't) on the bottom of the stairs. Thomas had started to gather the papers but they flew out of his hands just as soon as he picked them up, the lights flickered and the doors opened much faster than they had ever done before. Carla was standing at the top of the stairs, screaming and apparently Thomas could finally see her too though he didn't exactly seem to like it. She hadn't been this scared of Carla since that first night. The sound was so terrible that it took her a while before she realized what Carla was screaming but she has never been able to forget it.
"You can't leave me! You can't, you can't, you can't! You have to stay here!"
(Emma didn't understand what she was saying, she didn't know until much later that Cindy and Paul had finally gotten enough. That they couldn't deal with the strangeness of the house anymore and had decided to move and Carla, who for the first time in God knows how long, finally had a friend didn't want that. She wanted Emma to stay with her and so she'd somehow thrown Cindy down the stairs.)
Emma thinks later, much later, that Thomas's mistake had been in trying to get her out of the house. She doesn't think, even now after so many years, that Carla would have hurt them if they'd stayed. But Thomas had been scared and he'd wanted to protect her and so he'd tried to get her out. The door had locked before them and, in the end, Thomas and she had ended up in one of the corners, huddled together while Carla advanced on them. And then, suddenly, it was over, something had stopped it (later she learned it was something made of iron but back then it seemed like the man that suddenly showed up had just scared her away.)
"It's alright, everything is alright."
"Who are you?"
"My name is John and I came to protect you. It's alright you can come out now."
"Is she gone?" (Emma had thought later that her voice had sounded so small that it seemed like it came from a much younger child.)
"For now."
"So she's going to come back?"
"Don't worry; I'm going to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone. But I need you to go outside and go sit with my sons in the car while I take care of it ok."
"Is it really a ghost sir?"
"Yes."
In the car outside Dean and Sam had been sitting in the backseat (Sam had been asleep but Dean had still been wide awake.) Here's what she remembers through her fear: the car was old and there was rock salt everywhere – Dean told her later that it would protect them – and Thomas had insisted on her sitting with Dean while he sat in the front seat to somehow protect her (she's not sure he could have.) She doesn't really remember much of what came after that just that Dean had distracted her with tales and games and carried her through her fear and, eventually, she got so calm she fell asleep. She was woken up by John telling them everything was alright now and Carla would never bother them again and he also said that their lives would go back to normal now. (He was wrong about that, Mss. Hudson had made sure of that, and the next day the social worker came to take her away.)
Before he left he told them that if they ever ran into a ghost again they should use rock salt to protect themselves.
Dean gave her a necklace and told her it would protect her.
She has no idea how but she never threw it away.