Imaginary friends.
We’ve all had them.
Oh, sure, we all get the occasional creepypasta about them, but at worst they’re just a symptom of a treatable mental illness. They’re never actually real.
And yet…right now I’m not so sure.
I don’t know if it was my daughter’s imaginary friend that did this to her. But what happened to my daughter – only two weeks ago, no less – was a horrific tragedy, and I don’t think the imaginary friend she had before that was completely non-compliant in it.
Okay, let’s start at the beginning.
I used to be a normal mom. My name is Ella and my daughter Susan is five. And now, she’ll always be five. Forever.
Okay, off-topic there…
Susan used to go to kindergarten outside town (we live in Blackthorne, Ohio). Her teacher, Miss Adeena, actually lives two doors down from us and she’s been nothing but an angel to me and Susan. Especially during this awful time… I honestly don’t know what I would do without that wonderful woman.
But it was during her kindergarten that this fiasco started.
I came to pick her up and she told me she’d made a new friend at school.
“Oh, really?” I asked. “And what’s their name?”
“Thelma!” she said cheerfully. “She’s invisible and lives in a giant playground world full of stars that she created!”
At this point, I of course figured Thelma was imaginary.
“She sounds wonderful!” I said.
“She is!” said Susan. “Miss Adeena told me to stay back and clean the toy corner during breaktime. At first I thought it would be boring, but then Thelma showed up and magically cleaned it, and we spent the rest of breaktime playing together!”
Susan always had such imagination…and she was such a big talker.
On the car ride home, Susan described her new friend’s appearance. “She’s black all over, and her clothes and hair are too, and she’s got little white dots sparkling all over herself, and she says she’s seven years old!”
I thought it was just adorable. At the time.
That night, Susan came to me saying that Thelma would be staying at our house for a week and she would be playing with her.
“Okay.” I said again, with an amused smile.
The next day, Susan came home with another Thelma story. “She opened up a way to her world during breaktime and we played in there all day! She said soon she’s gonna take me there forever!”
At this point I grew mildly concerned. “Susan.” I said. “Thelma is imaginary. You know that, right?”
Susan giggled. “No, she’s not!” she said. “She’s sitting next to me in the carseat right now!” And she pointed to the empty seat next to her.
I was relieved to know that it wasn’t anyone grooming Susan at school, but I was mildly concerned for her psyche at this point.
But through mental gymnastics, I erased my worries. She’s just pretending, I said to myself. Lots of kids have imaginary friends at this age. She’ll get over it. She’s not insane, you probably are.
And maybe I was. I know that I’m probably insane now anyway.
Susan came home from school the next day with a concerned look on her face. “Thelma doesn’t like you.” she said in the car. “She says you’re boring and always telling me what to do and she hates that.”
That night, there were more mental gymnastics on my part. Thelma isn’t real, I repeated to myself over and over again…
For the next few days until the end of the week, it was ‘normal’. Susan coming home from school every day with a new story about what she and Thelma did together that day.
Until Sunday.
On Sunday morning, Susan told me Thelma was going to take her to her world tonight.
I didn’t respond. I was an odd combination of scared, in denial and angry at myself for being worried about this. Just an imaginary friend, just an imaginary friend, just an imaginary friend…
On Monday morning, I woke up and couldn’t find Susan anywhere.
The police were called, but they didn’t find her.
And I was hating myself while at the same time trying to reassure myself that it wasn’t Thelma who did this.
And yet, just last week…
The police found Susan’s body.
She’d been discovered up a tree in the forest in our town, with seven different stab wounds and a terrified expression on her face.
And now, I don’t know whether it really was someone grooming her, whether someone else was in on the act, or whether it was something else.
If anyone here knows anything about what might have been the deal with Thelma…
Please. Tell me.