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“I’m not sure. I didn’t understand a lot of what went on back then either. Sarah and I were best friends. We were about ten years old, maybe? She’d come over a couple times a week. Her family was poorer than ours, so Mom would feed her whenever she could. She was so tiny for her age.”
Laura nodded. “Yeah, I remember that, too. We always had the best dinners when she was over.”
“Then, one day, Mom and Dad sat me down and said they didn’t know when Sarah would come over again. They said someone took her, and her parents were trying to get her back. I knew it was bad, but I don’t think I knew to be afraid.”
“I remember getting upset we couldn’t play outside like we used to.”
Cassie turned to Michael. “Our parents were pretty relaxed. They let us play in the neighborhood wherever we wanted if we were home by dinner. But after Sarah went missing, we could only play in the backyard and only when one of them was around to watch us.”
“Wow.” Michael looked between the two sisters. “Do you remember anything about what happened to her?”
Cassie shook her head. “It’s weird, but I don’t remember anything after she went missing. I don’t know if I just didn’t think much about her after that or what.”
“That could be a response to the trauma.” Laura took a long sip of her drink. “I don’t think you handled it that well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well.” She looked at Michael and then back at Cassie. “You kept saying you were going to go outside and play with her, even after she disappeared.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I remember getting excited because I thought that meant we’d be able to play with our friends again, but then Mom and Dad would say Sarah wasn’t back yet. I was so confused. But you’d tell them she was waiting for you out back. You’d drag us all out there, but no one would be around.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “Okay, that’s spooky.”
A shiver went down Cassie’s spine. She didn’t remember any of this.
“But you were always doing weird stuff like that.”
Cassie snapped back to attention. “What do you mean?”
“You were always talking about people who weren’t there. The kids at school would pick on you for having imaginary friends at your age, and you’d come home from school and be pretty upset. I’d always give you my teddy bear to make you feel better.”
“I remember that part. The teddy bear, I mean.” Cassie’s mouth was suddenly dry. “But I don’t remember the imaginary friends.”
“You were always kind of weird.” Michael didn’t say it like an insult. “That’s part of the reason I like you, though. You’re interesting.”
Cassie felt her face warm. “What do you mean I was weird?”
Laura and Michael exchanged glances. Her sister spoke first. “Well, you know.”
Cassie looked between the two of them, and her embarrassment turned to anger. “No, I don’t know.”
Michael leaned back in his chair. His voice was light. “I always thought you had a certain aura about you.”
“An aura?” Cassie realized the irony of sounding incredulous considering she saw ghosts, but she didn’t care. “What does that mean?”
“You’ve always been intuitive.” Laura stabbed at another piece of pancake, pushing it around in syrup instead of eating it. “You’d know things I swear no one told you. You used to have the craziest dreams.”
Cassie felt the ground shift under her feet. “I don’t remember any of this.”
“I think the Sarah Lennox stuff hit you harder than you thought it did. I mean, you guys were best friends. You used to ride the bus together, go to school, and sometimes she’d get dropped off at our house afterwards. She slept over a bunch, too.”
“So, what? Her disappearance wiped my memory?”
“I mean, I don’t know for sure, but that’s a possibility.” Laura shifted in her seat, so she was facing Cassie. “Memory loss is a natural defense mechanism. Our brains do that to help us survive. If you couldn’t hand
le your best friend disappearing, possibly getting murdered, then it makes sense that, as a kid, you sort of blocked all the terrible memories.”
