Maddie - part 1

I saw her at the playground the other day.  Except it wasn't her.  It was a ghost.  It had to be.  She was my mother's sister, and my mother is 83 years old.  This girl was only a child.  She was talking to my granddaughter Sarah.  I kept a close eye on them just because it was so weird to see a girl who looked just like the pictures, but nothing much happened, until Sarah came back to me and I asked about it.  "Oh her?" Sarah asked.  "I hadn't seen her before today.  Her name is Maddie."

Maddie.  That was when I got the chills.  I hadn't heard the story until I was a teenager.  Maybe because they were afraid I would be taken too if they told me too soon.  My aunt Maddie disappeared from her room decades before I was born.  She was twelve at the time.  My mother was seven.  When my mother, June, went to wake up Maddie for school (June was an early riser and Maddie loved to sleep in) the bed was just empty.  Maddie was gone.  No one had come in and as far as they could tell no one had gone out.  Except that Maddie must have gone out.  There was no other explanation.  She must have, at some point in the middle of the night, gotten out of bed, neatly folded the blankets, climbed out of her bedroom window, closing it behind her, and wandered off into the night never to be seen again.

At least not until today.  I know it's not Maddie.  I'm sure if my mother or my Uncle Pete were here, they would tell me it's not Maddie.  I've only seen pictures after all.  But the pictures were so haunting that they were seared into my brain and this girl, this girl on the playground, looks exactly like Maddie.  Her granddaughter or great-granddaughter maybe?  Maybe Maddie was okay.  Maybe Maddie wasn't too far away.  Everyone assumed she was dead, that she died within years of her disappearance, but no one knows that.  Not a trace of her was ever found.

"What were you and Maddie playing?" I asked Sarah, trying to remain calm.  Sarah didn't know the story, hadn't seen the pictures yet.  It was up to her mother when she should be told.  I was staying out of that, even though I wasn't sure if Sarah's mother ever would tell her.  Maybe it was for the best.  Some days I regretted telling Julie (Sarah's mom) myself.

"Time machine," Sarah said very matter of factly.  "But we didn't get to go back far.  Maddie said that next time we can go back much further if I have something special to show her."

That made me nervous.  This Maddie who wasn't Maddie was making strange requests of my granddaughter.  I hoped she wouldn't show herself the next time I came to this park.  "Like what?" I asked, less concerned about hiding my concern now that there might actually be something to be concerned about.

Sarah shrugged.  "I dunno.  Like a doll or stuffed animal or something."  Then she quickly added, "But not for Maddie to keep, just to play with."

I softened a bit and put my arm on Sarah's shoulder.  "Well that's nice," I said.  "Maybe she can bring a doll, too, and you can play together."  And then I couldn't help but ask, "Did Maddie tell you who she's here with?  Like a mom or dad maybe?"

"No," Sarah said, "But her parents are dead.  She says they died a long time ago."

That struck me as both sad and shocking.  A little girl looking just like Maddie, going by the name of Maddie, claiming that her parents were dead?  My aunt Maddie's parents, my grandparents, were surely dead even if Maddie wasn't. But again, this couldn't be Maddie.  This was another girl.

I sighed.  "Well, we should get going," I said.  "It's almost dinner time."

"Okay," Sarah agreed. She turned back to the playground.  "Bye, Maddie!" she shouted out with a wave of her hand.

The little girl, the ghost girl, waved back, and though she smiled, the rest of her face seemed sad, like she was in a world where she didn't belong, just like she would look if by some possibility she really was my Aunt Maddie, torn out of time and forced into a world that could never be her own.