Hidden Truths

Prologue

**Edited**

"Papa? Who is that man over there?" I asked my papa. I've seen the man cloaked in shadows a few times before. He has this odd red glow about him.

"Timothy?" My papa asks, "you know Timothy, Genevieve," Papa said jestering to a man with red unruly hair.

"No, not Timothy, Papa! That man over leaning against the wall! The odd man with the cloak papa!"

"Sweetheart, darling, there is no man like that here. It's the middle of the summer, nobody is wearing a cloak. Nor is anyone standing by the wall. Now go along and play now." I looked back at the man with the cloak then and saw he was gone. So were the others cloaked in shadows.

So forgetting about the shadow people as my five year old mind liked to do, I went off to play with my cousins and brother.

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A year after my mama was put in an insane asylum, I went mute. I was twelve now. I had enough of people not seeing the shadow people and I knew if I talked again about them, I'd end up like mama. So, I stopped talking altogether. People started to wonder what was wrong with me after a month of not talking.

The cloaked man and the others were still there and he seemed worried, he started to get closer for a while, not trying to scare me. It seemed as if he wished to only protect me; another thing I found odd about the man. Still I didn't speak to anybody. This remained for three more years.

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The day before my fifteenth birthday the man just vanished yet the others remained. They were solid now and if I reached for one of them I'm sure I could have touched them and yet there was this veil of darkness around them; the shadow wasn't gone, more like I was just seeing through it.