My Shadow

A Ghost Or Two?

Kimberly Watkins
I keep hearing Anastasia talking to someone and as soon as I go see who it might be she says they left. I look around and don't see how they could have left that quickly. They left? Sometimes it's she left and sometimes he left and now it is they left. I decide to look around further and see footprints and they look old though. Nothing is making any sense. It's always when she's outside that she talks to either her or him or both of them. I hear murmuring, but I can't imagine where the voices have gone to. She won't tell me what they are talking about. I finally couldn't deal with this anymore and she was placed with another foster family.

Caseworker Austin Collins
This young girl talks to invisible playmates. She did it so much that her original foster mother couldn't cope with it anymore. We did a psychological evaluation on her and nothing seems wrong with her. She was asked why she didn't talk to her imaginary playmates inside and she said they only came to visit her when no one was around. What is disturbing me most is how real these people seem to her. I had her draw them and she did and then I had her draw her with them. I start looking at the pictures and they could be her parents. They both have blue eyes and brown hair. I have heard that people who lost their parents to death sometimes have had visits from them. Anastasia is a sweet young girl who needs a good home. I finally place her into dr Flynn's home and his wife and children accept her. He has a nice home with security gates. The first month Anastasia was there the alarms went off regularly right before they heard her chatting with her invisible friends. The alarm company said there was no evidence that anyone had breached the gated areas. No videos of people being around.

Dr John Flynn
These aren't invisible friends or ghosts that she is talking to, they are real people who are very clever. The alarm system might go off but there is no video proof of anyone there at all. She is playing outside when they talk to her, but no one sees anyone. Rihanna said the drawings that Anastasia is creating of the friends have aged as she has. It was ten days after we first got her that the alarm went off and that day was the first time she saw her friends since we had her living with us.

Rihanna
I looked at the drawings that Anastasia has been encouraged to draw of her friends and noticed they age as she ages, their hair changes in style and length and their clothes were different each time, some were the latest designers. I am beginning to to believe these are real people. Ghosts don't normally wear the latest in fashions. At least the ones I have heard about. We know that they haven't harmed her or tried to take her from us or the previous foster home. We are starting to believe that they are very likely related to Anastasia in some way. We had someone dig deeper into her family history. It was like she had never been born. The name on her birth certificate was given to her by a hospital worker. The baby girl was born to a Jane Doe. The Jane Doe signed her rights away. The John Doe signed his rights away. Later when someone tried to adopt Anastasia it was challenged. It was challenged each time.

Anastasia
I finally turned 18 and the visits stopped after security was tightened up because a patient of dr Flynn's got onto the grounds to steal his prescription pads. I did see them in a crowd at times. I saw them at my high school graduation. I started asking them questions, questions about who they really are to me. They wouldn't tell me at all. I somehow got a full scholarship to any college that I wanted to attend. I got into Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale. My test scores were off the charts high. Apparently I also was offered boarding as well. Apparently a benevolent person wanted to assure I got the best education I wanted. So they definitely went above and beyond because it included an apartment a car and all expenses covered through a flexible spending account that deposits twenty thousand a month.

Jane Doe
I cry as I watch Anastasia get on the plane to fly to Harvard university. I am being held close by John Doe. These are the names we were when we had her. I have no idea why they gave her Anastasia Rose Steele as her name on her birth certificate. I knew the questions were going to start and they did and we had to tell her that we couldn't tell her anything because we could place her in danger.

John Doe
It was the name we could follow up and locate her. Not many Anastasia Rose Steele's in the world this name made her easier to find if they moved her around. That drug addict patient screwed us by breaking into dr Flynn's home for his prescription pads. We were elsewhere at the time and no one was watching over her. We had to stop seeing her after someone got a photo of us with Anastasia and it had to be pulled and quickly. Our faces were about to be made public along with Anastasia's and we can't risk her life for any reason. The second it hit the paper she would be a target.

Dr Flynn
We actually saw them at the airport. The people from Anastasia's drawings and they were standing with four men in black.

Rihanna
John is right, there they are standing right there watching Anastasia board the plane. Mr and Mrs John And Jane Doe. All of us are seeing her off to Harvard.