Clairvoyance

Chapter 1

"Miranda ! Where have you been?!"

My mom is at the sink, cleaning the counter. Her fingers gripping the sponge. She turns and scowls at me.

I meekly respond, "I took a walk".

"I signed you up for these expensive therapy sessions and then you don't show up for them? I don't understand".

Damn. I was hoping she forgot.

Tuesday's and Thursdays are my days for therapy with Mrs.Charmaine. My mother think's I'm too quite for a 'kid' my age. I couldn't wait for her to hurry up and leave me alone. Hopefully she can go back to her crazy housewife mode, a.k.a. Mr.Clean in a female clone.

"Well those sessions AGAIN cost me and your father an arm and a leg, the least you can do is put in effort Miranda !" she yells up the stairway because by this time I'm already trekking up to my room. My mom wasn't always like that, she used to be carefree and eccentric. Somewhere between my ninth and eleventh birthday she became, more and more negative. Actually if you think about it; a lot of things went wrong then. My sister Kim started doing drugs back then and she was only fifteen. I found out about it then because I accident;y found her drug stash in her drawers. When I asked her, she played coy so I let it go hoping for the better that she'd stop.

She didn't.

On the night of my 11th birthday she killed herself overdosing on anti-depressant pills. That night I cried my eyes out because it was like I killed my sister. I knew about it, but I didn't say anything. My sister's suicide was a catalyst to the change coming to my family. My dad drugged himself in work even more and my mother her obsessive house duties. They didn't even seem intimate with each other anymore. In the mornings, my mother used to cook my father breakfast first, because he got up before anyone. Now it's everyone for themselves. We stay isolated as a family keeping distances from one another. Our house is somewhat big so  no one has to bump into anyone unintentionally. Perhaps on the outside looking in we look like a regular, upper class family. On the Inside looking out, where anything but. 

Before my sister died I guess you could say I was the 'good' one out of us two. I rarely got in trouble and my grades were good. After my sister's death I slowly and gradually became quieter and more exclusive within myself. When I was ten, sometimes while other kids hung out at the movies or fair I'd lock myself in my closet and just write. Sometimes it was about something and most of the times it was about nothing. Only once did I write about my sister.

Walking into my room was like walking into a hotel room. It looked untouched,unused, un-lived in. My friends? Never really had any. Kids at school would try to be nice but I'd always push them away. I was not to be called on for answering questions, because I wouldn't give one. My life, in a nut shell, was an empty space. The only thing I thought worth accomplishing was my writing. I wrote about whatever was willing to come to my mind. It was as if my hand was the fountain to my thoughts and the faucet a utensil. I've never gone a day where I wouldn't write. It's supposed to therapeutic, so in a way my parent's money is being wasted in more ways than one. I just like being in my own world.

Birthdays at my house went unnoticed so it was no wonder on my 16th birthday that the house was eerily quiet. I used to sniffle and silently cry; not anymore. It was as expected as the burning in your lungs when you voluntarily held your breath. This birthday was unusual still.

"Hello, I'm home" I stated to no one.

"Miranda, Oh My Gosh is that a chest I see !" someone squealed from the hallway. Scared shitless I turned around but didn't encounter a masked prankster or anyone for that matter.After about another five minutes speculation I continued to my room.

"Always in that dang room Miranda, no wonder you don't have a boyfriend" the voice said again. Practically pissing in my pants I ran to my room, shut the door and flew to my closet. Maybe this house was just playing with my head. That was it. Not two minutes later did my sister fabricate inside my closet.

"Hey lil'  sis!" she said. I screamed inside my mouth.

"Shh, it's okay" my sister cried. Like hell it is, I covered my ears and was praying for my mind to become sane.

"Ha, you're not crazy Miranda.. I'm still here" Kim pouted.

"Wha,w-w-what is this some sick ass birthday joke. Hiding inside the ground for 6 years?" I asked already knowing the answer.

"NO, I'm not real, but I'm not imaginary either.. I'm...mmph what am I exactly" pondered my sister. As this weird lapse in my sanity continued I slowly got up and tried to back a away into my room.

My sister snapped her head around , all the way like three hundred and sixty degrees all the way. "Hey!  Where are you going?" she asked.  That was it.

I bolted out of my room, down the staircase past the kitchen and into the garage to grab my mom's car keys; but before I could unlock the doors my sister reappeared in front of me.

"Gahhhh !" I yelled, and fell.

"Wait, Miranda you're not crazy. Well yeah you sorta are but, it has nothing to do with you being able to see me all of a sudden" my sister explained.

Hesitantly I slowed my footsteps and turned around.

"What?" I asked.

"Miranda, I've been in this house since the day I died, you've only just now begun to see me and I don't know why".

That was the final straw. I let the blackness engulf me like a cold hug.