She wanders at the edge of the living and the dead. Dark hair, dead eyes, and cold, cold fingers. Dancing across your peripheral, she fades when you glance over your shoulder.

Closer, closer. She’s closer every time.

When her hand brushes your shoulder, you shiver, wishing you'd never looked back.

When I was in third grade, my school took the whole grade on a field trip to the local museum. The museum was -and still is- rather small, just an old house with a small building holding a display room, conference hall, and gift shop built onto the side as well as a smaller, more historical house supposedly from around the town’s founding a little ways off the side. We spent the day touring the grounds and doing activities like playing old games (one where you had a stick and had to roll this wooden wheel around without it falling over) and making ice cream with a crank. All in all, it was a fun day, except for one small thing.

In the building off the house, there is the display area (as I mentioned). It’s this big stone room (think cinder-block walls) with a bunch of cases going down each side and through the middle. On the wall by the entry door, there is this massive metal door leading to the Vault, the space where they keep a lot of the artifacts not currently on display. There are pictures and posters on the walls, and all the display cases are different types and sizes, a few being simple glass cases and others being tall wooden ones that look similar to a china display cabinet. On the opposite wall from the entry door, also next to the Vault, is the door to the house, which is your typical historic house made up to look like the time it was lived in.

Anyway, since the display room wasn’t too big, they just let us loose in there to look around at all the artifacts. This museum has artifacts from our town as well as from surrounding towns, so there are a lot of different items from different time periods, like photos and guns and tools. I like going to museums, and have always had a thing for history, so my friend and I took our time walking down one side of the display cases, looking around at all the different items.

Then another girl walks up to us from the back, and I can’t remember if she pointed it out or not, but we then notice this long glass display case filled with old porcelain dolls that came about halfway up our bodies. There’s another display case right next to it, one of the big wooden ones, though I can’t remember what was in it because we were focused on the doll case.

Now, I’m not afraid of dolls. I even have a few porcelain dolls myself, two of which sat displayed on my dresser for at least a decade. I’ve never had a problem with them before, but this one doll gave both of us the creeps.

On top of the display case there was this green cradle, which was rocking back and forth by itself as we walked up. As a small child, this set alarm bells off in my head, though it was likely someone else had just messed with it before us since it was just freely sitting on the display case without any protection. Either way, I did not like it, and would rather have just left it alone. I especially hated it after we saw the doll inside, which laid there, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling. But my friend, being the genius third grader she obviously was, thought it would be fun to touch the thing.

I told her it wasn’t a good idea, but she didn’t listen and poked it anyway. At first nothing happened, but as I turned around, I suddenly felt a gust of wind the size of a fist go straight through my back. Keep in mind that the walls are stone and there is the other massive display case shoved right next to the corner of the case where the cradle is, so any draft would have had to travel through a hole in the wall, the wooden back of the case, and the glass front to hit me. There also hadn’t been any wind before this, and it was only against a small area of my back.

As this happened, I arched my back and screamed. I ran halfway up the opposite side of the room, completely terrified out of my wits with my friend following behind me. She had to take a second to calm me down before I could tell her what happened. It was then that the real creepy part happened, and it would take me years to realize this.

We looked around the room and everyone was gone. Everyone. We hadn’t heard anyone calling to leave or anything, and had been down the back for maybe two minutes when this happened. Walking out the door into the big hall outside, we saw everyone (at least 30 kids and three chaperones) all lining up. No one had even noticed we were gone.

And no one had heard me scream.

This has spawned a lifelong interest and belief in the paranormal. I never really put much thought into the existence of ghosts before this, but it was pretty much all I was interested in for the next two years, to the point where my mother (who at the time was into paranormal investigations, but had never let me do or see anything about it before this) actually took me on an overnight investigation when I was around 10 years old. I’ve had a few other experiences after this, but needless to say this was the one that started it all.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I have been back to the museum several times since then, including a stint of volunteering where I worked in the Vault (the other kid working with me got poked in the back there, but that's another story). Anyway, after going back several times over the years, I have never seen this cradle or this doll again. When asked, I was told it could have been put in storage, though it's been 12 years and I've never seen it on display again. I have no idea if it was damaged or moved to a different museum, and since there are so many other dolls, I can't get much more information on it since I don't have specifics other than the cradle, it's hair color, and the fact that it's eyes don't close when you lay it down. So the current state of the doll and it's cradle will probably remain forever a mystery to me.

When you’re young, you don’t question what you see. Everything is real, from unicorns to peanut butterflies. Your parents may not see them, your imaginary friends, but you know the leprachauns were the ones who stole your socks and the big pink elephant that hides beneath the couch broke your mother’s favorite vase. Most people have one or two, you hear, but you have many. You’re never quite sure whether that’s good or bad.

There’s one, named Charlie, who plays out in the treehouse, swinging on a the rope that used to hold a tire. Another, Sally, jumps on the bed, her fiery hair leaving black scars on the ceiling as she shrieks with laughter. Jeffrey, who wears a tu-tu and walks around in your mother’s heels. Katie, who likes to make your father’s drills run when no one is looking. Lacey, who steals your dolls and toy cars and breaks you mother’s jewlery. Don, who lays about the couch drinking what you think is rootbeer and flicking through the TV channels late at night. Ricky, who likes to chat when your mother turns off the lights.

Ron, who sits at the foot of your bed and stares when you try to sleep. Jess, who wails out on the balcony every night. Michael, who pushed you down the stairs. John, who likes to bite and tug your hair when you leave the shower. Martin, who often plays with the kitchen knives.

Stanley, who hangs in the hallway, glaring at you as you walk to your room, his choked breaths heating the back of your neck. Maria, whose head drips read and sobs in a language you don’t understand. Nicholas, whose head’s on backwards and back’s lined with cuts and scars, chains still around his ankles.

You’re young, and you know they’re there. They never leave you alone. Always there, always watching, whispering or screaming in your ears. You have to hide your head at night, snug beneath your covers. You wait until the sun rises before you fall asleep.

You stop telling people about them, because they stop believing you - that is, if they ever had in the first place.

From five to fifteen, you’ve become too old to have imaginary friends. You’re too old to crawl into bed with your parents, too old to have a nightlight in the wall, too old to hug your stuffed bear close to your chest at night.

You never sleep, but the nightmare never stops. So you succumb.

You’re no longer scared of Stanley who hangs in the hallway or Martin who plays with knives. You comfort Jess who wails on the balcony and have staring contests with Ron at the end of your bed. When John bites you, you bite back, and now you are the one pushing Michael down the stairs. Maria still wails, though now you can speak to her, and together you both scream your worries at the top of your lungs.

Now Mother cries at night, when she thinks you cannot hear her. She wails away into her pillow, and you wonder what has happened. Father drinks, and Ron has taught you that it is not rootbeer but in fact alchohol you smell on his breath each time he pulls you close. His eyes grow wild, his voice harsher, and you believe he has started hitting Mother. Not that she doesn’t deserve it, you feel. For Mother has started hitting you, and you are sure Father is not far behind.

You’ve grown with the monsters in your closet and beneath your bed, formed with their whispers in your ears at night. You know death better than you know life, having lived on the precipice of it for as long as you remember.

You think of it now, as your mother weeps and your father screams. You think of it when they shove those rancid pills down your throat and tie you to the bed at night. You think of it when the doctors poke and prod at you like a frog to be disected.

You think of it when you sleep, you think of it when you wake. You think of it every moment of every day, and you wonder what it feels like, that sweet escape of death. You wonder what it tastes like, what it sounds like, how it might dance across your body when next it comes for you.

It is freeing, the ghosts tell you. A release. And you wonder if they’re right. How easy it would be, to drift away into nothingness. That freedom just within your grasp.

But you find yourself unable to reach for it. There’s too much to do, too much to see. And, God knows why, you still care for your parents. They are trapped here as much as you, unable to leave the confines of their own feable minds. They cannot see, cannot hear, cannot feel. To you they crash against their tiny cages, wild in the face of their captivity. If only there was a way to show them, a way to make them believe. To give them back the minds of the young.

And so you take the kitchen knife, and the gun in Father’s drawer. You crawl into their bed at night, marveling in their warmth while they are unaware. You think about those times, when you were young and happy, when Father pushed you in the tire and Mother showed you how to bake. You imagine their arms around you, loving you and oh so gentle.

You wonder what will happen to them, once you’ve freed them from this life. Will they go Beyond, or drift here like your ghosts? You do not know.

You kiss you mother’s forehead and your father’s cheek. As they stir, you cock the gun, the ghosts whispering in your ears. Do it, they say. Let them go.

And just like that, you set them free.