Just like Her

Greetings, I am Lucy Smith and this story is about something that happened to my twin brother, Edward Smith, and I, during our childhood that we want to get off of our chests. I'll tell my part of the story first.

It was 1997, and we were 7 years old at the time we were moving across the country to a small town called, well for the sake of privacy let's just call it Ashville, into a pretty big house that was built in the early 19th century and was cheap as most people assumed it was haunted.

Ed and I had just finished helping mom move all of our boxes into our room when Ed suggested that we check out the area.

"Ok, but stay in sight of the house and don't talk to strangers. Dinner is at nine you two," Mother said. Or more accurately, yelled at us as we were already down the stairs at that point.

"Where are we going first, Lucy?"Ed asked while anxiously fidgeting with the collar of his shirt.

"Hmm...let's check out that park we saw while we were moving the boxes,"I said excitedly remembering that somewhat run down park that was only a few minutes away from the house.

We ran to the old park. Many saw it as run down and falling apart but through our young eyes, it was perfect.

We spent all day playing on the slides and swings and we even managed to find a small muddy grotto that was tucked away between some trees and bushes, we claimed it as our new secret base. As the sun began to set we heard our mom calling for us to come home.

"Race you there,"I said sprinting ahead of Ed. It was only when I was halfway to the house that I realized that Ed wasn't following me.

So I went back to find Ed talking to a strange looking woman she was tall but slightly pudgy looking and she was wearing an old looking maternity dress.

"Umm...Ed we have to go, mommy, is calling us for dinner,"I said to Ed grabbing his arm and pulling him in the direction of the exit. For some reason, that woman scared me.

"Mommy told us not to talk to strangers. Remember Ed? Who was that woman anyway Ed?"I asked curiously.

"Her name was Mrs Bella and she said she used to live in our new house. She's really nice, Lucy,"Ed said before breaking out into a sprint.

"Last one there's a rotten egg,"Ed yelled back at me while giggling to himself.

"Hey! No fair your cheating!"I whined at him as I sprinted after him.

Ed reached the house first. I was only a minute behind. We walked in panting and covered in mud.

"Look at you two! You're all covered in mud! So did you two have fun?" Mother asked.

"Yeah. We did we even found a secret base to hang out in by the park,"I said proudly.

"And I meet a really nice lady named Mrs Bella who said she use to live here in this house,"Ed said happily.

"Ed, I thought I told you not to talk to strangers," Mother scolded.

"Um, sorry, mommy,"Ed said quickly apologizing.

"It's ok. Now you two go take a shower and then you can have dinner. I made beef stew, your favorite," Mother said cheerfully.

I headed up to my room and went into the bathroom. I got undressed and got into the shower but while showering I heard strange noises, but since mom had already told us before we moved that the house was pretty old and would make weird noises so I ignored them, and got out of the shower.

After getting out of the shower I looked in the mirror to make sure I was fully clean. What looked back at me was a young girl with light brown hair, let down so I could wash it, and big teal colored eyes. She was small being only 5ft.

After examining myself in the mirror and being satisfied, I put my hair up into two pigtails, I then got dressed in a light pink dress with a big red heart in the center that said, "flower power." Then I slide ankle socks on before heading downstairs to get dinner.

We all sat down at the table and began to eat our beloved beef stew.

"So sweeties how do you like it here?" Mother asked.

"I love it!" we both said in unison.

"Well that's good then," Mother said cheerfully taking all our empty bowls to the sink.

"Can we watch TV until bedtime mommy?"Ed asked Mother with puppy dog eyes.

"Sure go ahead just remember to go to bed for 10," Mother said kissing us both on the forehead and heading up to her room presumably, to read one of her books.

We spent the rest of the night watching shows like Rugrats, Arthur and Dexter's Laboratory at 10 we both headed up to our rooms, and got changed into our pj's and got nestled into our beds.

"Goodnight, Ed,"I said already half asleep.

"Goodnight, Lucy,"Ed said falling straight to sleep afterwards and I followed him 5 minutes later.

I woke up about four hours later, according to the alarm clock on my bedside table. I groggily got up, rubbed my eyes and headed to the bathroom as I needed to pee, but as I wandered the halls I began to hear a faint sound coming from somewhere in the house it sounded like crying.

I ran back into my room as fast as I could and woke Ed up.
"What's wrong Lucy you have a nightmare?"Ed asked concerned.

"No I heard crying coming from somewhere in the house,"I said

"Hmm...I'll go check it out you stay here,"Ed said before heading off to investigate the noise.

Ed turned the corner and saw....End of chapter one