Flashback

• Anya Sills, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2018

I stand numbly, looking up at the huge door in front of me.
My bag bangs against my legs, creating a tiny pocket of warmth in the freezing cold. To everyone else the house seems welcoming; mahogany panelling with tiny, intricate details, plush ankle-deep carpets, fireplaces that could emanate warmth. But I’ve been told different. Something else lurks there. Something malevolent and sly. Something that threatens to reach out its scaly hand and strangle you when you least expect it. At least, that’s what my parents told me for years. They’re gone now, though, so I feel drawn to the house like a child to a cupboard that they’ve been told not to open.
I force my legs to take me inside. One, then two, then three steps carry me through the entrance.
“Hello?” I call. My voice echoes through the hall, like one hundred people all mimicking me, each voice getting fainter and fainter. I shiver. Far off something is dripping.
“Hello?” I call again, hugging my bag closer. There’s no reply. The carpet bunches up as I shuffled forwards, turning into miniature hills and valleys of fleece.
I pass a table, and on it, framed by the dark, glossy wood is a picture. A little girl, no more than four, and her parents, all smiling happily into the camera. For some reason the image brings to me an ache of homesickness. I never feel homesick. My hand reaches out, fingers tracing the slim, silver frame…and abruptly pulls back. I clasp my hand to my chest and shake my head. I must have imagined it, I’ve often been told not to let my imagination run away with me. Shaking slightly, I reach out again, letting my hand skim the cold metal. Then I gasp. A scene plays through my head; it’s the image. The girl is jumping up and down. The mother laughs; reaching out to try and wrangle her run away child while the father cleans his glasses hurriedly on his shirt. The girl shrieks as she is caught. No, the girl doesn’t shriek, I shriek, and the parents are my parents. I lift my hand off the frame and the scene disappears. As soon as my fingers are no longer touching it, I collapse to the floor. The picture is of me, I have never been surer of anything in my life. Those people were my parents. Not the parents I grew up with, yet most definitely the ones who I truly belonged to. My whole body is quivering. Possibilities whirl through my head, diving and spinning in an intricate dance, each thought leading to another. They must have told me not to enter in case I found out the truth. They must have hidden me so no one would know who I was. They had lied to me my entire life. Then the scariest thought yet enters my brain. If the people who had raised me were not my parents, then who were they?