I’m a psychologist, and it’s my job to listen and ask the right questions. Most cases, although different in many ways, tend to become similar in terms of human nature responding to traumas:: Son of a drunken father… Wife of an abusive husband… Sister who died in a car crash… The way our brain comprehends and deals with these tragedies and traumas are all very similar. Standard. Textbook. That’s what I thought for 23 years. That’s what I thought until I met Elizabeth Hunt. Case #357b.
I invited her into my office and she quickly got comfortable sitting on the floor Infront of my desk. She didn’t talk for quite a while, just played with her doll and quietly hummed a tune, and I patiently sat there waiting for her to feel comfortable.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Elizabeth’s sudden question caught me off guard. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but this wasn’t about me.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Elizabeth?” I replied, trying to keep my tone neutral.
“I do,” she said, her eyes holding a haunting wisdom that seemed to defy her tender age. “Do you think you can help ghosts?”*
“I don’t know. Have you seen any ghosts?” I asked.
“No,” Elizabeth replied softly, twirling the doll. “But…I’ve heard them.”
“Oh? And what have you heard?” I prodded gently, hoping to coax more information.
“I’m not supposed to say,” she replied. Her eyes turned fearful and she quickly withdrew into herself, staring at the floor.
As the conversation reached an impasse, I decided to approach the topic from a different angle. “Elizabeth, I want to help you. I need to understand what you’ve been through. You can trust me.”
She hesitated, her gaze fixed on the floor. “It’s–it’s Daddy…”
“What about your Daddy?”
“He…He hurts me.”
“Oh, I see. And where abouts does he hurt you?”
Ummm, everywhere. Well…he used to. He doesn’t anymore.”
“What-what do you mean?”
“Mommy used to ignore me and Daddy…I still miss her though I guess.”
“Elizabeth, I don’t understand, what–”
“Last night, Daddy said he’d had enough, and even though I screamed for mommy to come and help me, he just kept hurting me over and over and over, and mommy never came. Then suddenly…I just didn’t hurt anymore. And then I heard mommy and daddy talking, and they sounded like ghosts. I don’t know what they were saying…and then, I was here…” Elizabeth then smiled and hummed a tune, and continued to play with her newfound doll.
I was completely speechless for the first time in my career and all I could do was tap my pen against my desk and stare at her. The tune she was humming cast an unnerving atmosphere, and I nervously looked down at the case files scattered upon my desk. And that’s when I noticed it.
Case #357b:: Eloise Hart.
What the–?…
I quickly looked up from my desk to find an empty room. No Elizabeth. No doll. No humming. Nothing.
I looked back at my desk and saw that next to the case file, was a newspaper. The headline read::
Body of eight year old Elizabeth Hunt found hanging last night. Suspected suicide.