My family has moved a lot. Id say At least 18 times now, so I guess it was only a matter of time before we moved into a house with some unsavory neighbors and a cool mystery behind it. Most of the moves where when I was really young, like 8 years old, so being a kid I was always trying to find something cool to explore or A mystery to solve. my memory and everything about the moves are still really fuzzy. after a while the houses, the packing, unpacking and adventures in each all just blurred together. what happened in one still sticks with me though. I can’t remember which house, or when it started but I remember walking down the street with my sister. I’ll call her Sarah for privacy reasons.
She had a toy In her hand. A plastic tree with three joints that all spun around. And there where these plastic frogs that im sure you remember from you’re childhood. the ones that you pressed down on with you’re finger and they spring up. if you had siblings you probably had competitions on who could jump frog the farthest. the goal for this game was to skip the frogs at the tree and try to get them to stick to it. whoever gets the most frogs stuck in the tree wins. its kinda weird, I tried so many times to remember what that tree looked like and what that game was but I could never remember the specifics until just now as im writing. anyway we somehow used the leaves of this tree as a map.
maybe Sarah spun it and followed the direction of one of the leaves. it led to the same place every time so she was probably only pretending to follow the leaves. she always took me to a house about three houses from our own. I don’t remember a lot about it but it had a nice lawn. I remember comparing the color of the grass to the color of the plastic tree leaves. they grass was greener. it felt more real which I guess makes sense because it was real but the house was real to, but the house felt fake.
It was old but not in disrepair In spite of the fact that we thought it was abandoned. and the windows had no curtains so we would stand on the lawn and dare ourselves to look in. I hated looking in, and so did she but we did. I don’t know why we looked or what we where looking for but no matter how scared I was I still looked. I’ve always hated looking through windows at night. more then most. its kind of a phobia of mine. I just imagine one day ill see a face looking back at me. something gory and disgusting waiting for me to step outside or forget to lock the door. This might be a reason why. It still gives me the creeps when I think about it but we would always say,
“Steven? we know its you Steven. where are you Steven.”
I know we said things like that but” I know you’re here Steven” and “I know its you Steven” always seem to be the words that take priority in my mind. I don’t know why the name was Steven, but we where always just playing when we said it. we didn’t expect and answer. we assumed the house was empty. we knew it was. there was never a car parked in the driveway. the house had almost no furniture. but there was something there. I don’t know what it was exactly and I don’t know why but im thinking a stool or a chair. maybe a small desk. it was at the far right where I think the dining room would be.
that was all there was and the house was always quite and always dark. after calling for Steven for a little while longer I think we left. or maybe we didn’t. im not even sure if we went there more then once or if my mind is associating the same events that happened in the same day as different events on different days. I don’t remember ever walking back home, or walking to that house more then once. whatever the case I remember calling Stevens name again, but this time when I said it I felt scared.
maybe scared is not the right word but it was like when you say something and you get the feeling that you shouldn’t have said it. and now that you have, you feel like you’re in trouble. then my sister said his name. so I said his name again. this time it was like I had a chance to stop. the first time was a warning and I could have stopped but I didn’t. so now whatever happens. its my fault. I asked for him. Sarah wanted me to look in the window again. I never liked looking in the window but this time I truly felt I shouldn’t, and I didn’t but she told me again “look in the window” I still didn’t want to but she was older and she wasn’t worried so I shouldn’t be worried so I looked.
when I did it felt like something was behind me as I looked. like the feeling you get when you’re being watched, but right at the back of my neck. but Sarah was there and she’s my big sister. She would stop it so I still looked. and I saw the kitchen light on. that was it at first. just the light but it scared me. The light wasn’t on before and that means someone was in that house and they didn’t respond to us. they didn’t respond to two kids calling for Steven at the front of their lawn for days. and they never came out. no one every came in. either no one was in that house or someone stayed there for weeks with all the lights off listening to us. Maybe it was Steven. the last time I looked I saw the lights on. then Sarah looked and for the first time she looked scared and Im not sure but I think I saw something walk quickly past the lights. then I heard her say. “ I know it’s you Steven.”