She had been there for as long as I could remember. Her hair golden, and a mousy little face, always around always in the background looking in - never really part of things but there, nonetheless. Her name had been Gretchen, I think. That is what I called her, but I guess I never really knew if that was her real name.
I have tried to pinpoint the exact time, or rather, how old I was when I first saw her, or the first recollection - but it evades me. It is as if a veil has gone up, blocking out everything from that time - all the feelings, the emotions and the memory.
We had a small cupboard under the stairs, one where things like the vacuum cleaner, tools and old bits of furniture are stored. At the back though, was Gretchen. Always dressed the same way - a white gown that billowed out from her ankles, white socks with a frill around the edge, and black sandal-type shoes. She would have her hair done up in pigtails, which always seemed to be just on the edge of falling apart, but never did.
She spoke sometimes, mostly in a whisper - as if it was our little secret. I would take her food and a glass of milk. She asked for cookies, but they always sat on the plate - uneaten - when I returned, as was the milk. I would take these away, throwing the biscuits in the bin and pouring the milk down the sink, making sure my parents did not spot me. As long as she asked, I would keep on bringing them to her.
Gretchen did not age. As I grew from a young boy, into a teenager, she remained the same. This never occurred to me as being odd - it was just how it was, how Gretchen was. We would sometimes play hide and seek throughout the house when Mum was out, and Dad was working in the garage. However hard I tried, she always found me within minutes - whereas I spent hours looking, only to find her back in the cupboard under the stairs - which is the first place I would look - it would make me so mad!
As time wore on, and I became a man, other things became important to me. I would go out more with friends - the few I had - and involve myself more in sporting activities (I was quite good at basketball and played for the school and district teams). Gretchen started to fall further and further to the back of my mind - back into the dark recesses, amid the cobwebs and fog.
Thinking back, once I had hit sixteen, I cannot remember seeing much of her at all - even when the house was silent and empty, with just me in it. She hardly came to me or called to me - she just faded away.
It is strange really, in so many ways. Throughout my early childhood, she was a huge part of my life, sharing many things and always being there if I was upset or feeling down. I knew I had her as a go-to if I needed. Then, it just was not the same anymore and life moved on.
We had the cupboard cleared out one year and I recall being scared that she would be found and get into real trouble. Dad carried on slinging things out into the living room - no mention of her, no sign of her. I did think that she was hiding out in another room until he had finished, before taking up her place once more, but after checking later - I found the cupboard completely bare of anything.
Dad spent the next three weeks adding shelves and racking to the cupboard, so he could store his work tools away neatly. Once done, he proudly showed it to Mum and I. Gretchen was gone, and in fact, there would be no room for her if she did return, the shelves took up lots of space.
She did return though. Back into the cupboard under the stairs, making herself a little place to lay and sleep - squeezing underneath the bottom-most shelf and curling up into a ball - like a fetal baby in the womb.
One day, around the time I left school, so must be just before my seventeenth birthday, she was gone. I never saw her again. It is difficult to describe how I felt, maybe it was a feeling of loss, and maybe it was relief? Even now, I will sit and think of her, sitting cross-legged in the cupboard, her radiant smile and the raggedy pigtails threatening to fall out of place. Some people experience imaginary friends as they work their way through the tricky minefield of childhood, into adolescence, but few - if any - carry those memories into adulthood and recall them in any great detail.
I think about her often, usually when I am a little stressed or alone with my thoughts. Just lately, I feel like she is near, watching and waiting until I need her. I will walk into a room and see peripheral movement or slight noises. A prickle of something down my spine, as if an ice cube is slowly making its way down my back - leaving a chilly trail as it goes.
The house was an old one, at least a few hundred years I think - although I have never really checked to find out exactly. What I have done though, is research a few articles at the library - spending long afternoons under the buzz of the overhead fluorescents, set high into the ceiling above, sending down their glare so I could read. One book in particular caught my eye; it was a thick, red hardback titled tales of mystery. It was by an Author named Thomas Beck and told of a number of stories of lost children, murders and kidnappings. The thing is - Thomas Beck was my grandfather.
The book contained lots of text and the odd picture here and there, detailing various mysteries and disappearances in the local area. It was interesting flicking through the pages, some bringing a smile to my face with their familiarity and absurdness. Then, I turned to page 127, and I froze. Gretchen stared back at me from the page, her smile radiant, and her white gown billowing and blowing in an apparent breeze. Her eyes stared from the page and right into the depths of my soul.
Gretchen was eight years old when she was reported missing. No sign or trace of her since she disappeared on September 15th, 1908. She was my grandfather's sister.
My heart was pounding against my rib cage; I could hear it as well as feel it. To me, it sounded like an Amazonian tribesman banging loudly on an animal-skin drum.
How could this be? How could I be staring at a grainy, black and white picture of a lost child from a hundred years before, one that I had seen on many occasions whilst growing up.
I could feel a headache lurking ominously behind my eyes, and I rubbed furiously at my temples, trying to release the tension and the pressure.
That is when I looked up from the book - Gretchen stood watching me. She smiled warmly - one that I had seen a thousand times before, a thousand or more years ago. She held her hand out to me, small and delicate - palms-up. A tear, so tiny I almost missed it, pooled at the corner of her left eye, before rolling down her cheek and falling from her chin to the floor.
I took her hand in mine; her skin felt cool to the touch but sparked off a million memories in my mind. The overriding thought I had at that moment was to protect. My whole life seemed to have been building up to one particular moment, one turn in the road, one hill that needed climbing. It was here. I stood, smiled, and walked out with her hand in hand, into the bright morning sunshine of another late summer's day. It was September 15th 2008.
