The Ghost Of The Drowning Girl

Prologue

      The house had a shrine. A beautiful little shrine to a beautiful little girl. A shrine to the owners of the house's late daughter, or late sister. Like any shrine to a lost family member, it had all of her favorite things surrounding her picture. Things like paper cranes she made with her sister, the origami foxes she could never quite figure out. Things like old birthday cards, telling her to have a great first year, second year, third year, fourth year, and so on. . . stopping at age fourteen. Then there were things like cards done in all black, the writing inside smeared ink, for written while crying. There were things like participation trophies and certificates awarding her of a prize for something great. There was piles of the girl's favorite books, hard and paper covers worn from being so loved. The picture of the girl sat in the center of it all, periwinkle blue ribbons decorating the frame, her favorite color. The girl herself smiled at the camera, she wore a bikini top and shorts as she held an oar while standing on a large wooden platform, floating in a lake, the lake behind the house, her flip flops off to the side, the girl's dark hair held back from her face with sunglasses on her head, letting a pair of warm brown eyes sparkle like the lake behind her. In front of the picture, was a note, a note of four letters, reading the girl's name in artsy hand writing. Amia, was her name, meaning 'beloved'. And beloved she was, even after her death.
     It was two years after she died, when the Parrons adopted me, I could not stop feeling empty, everytime I looked at the shrine, I felt like a replacement, for the daughter, the sister, they lost. And I'm sure anyone else would feel the same way.