(MSSS) Best Friends Part 2

Just so there are no questions of the originality of this story and of Part 1, Best Friends Forever. I want to admit that the character "Olivia" is based on myself and actual experiences from my childhood. "Sarah" was a real person and also my best friend who attended St. Agnes Primary School with me from 1979 to 1983 until her death. I choose not to use her real name because of personal reasons. Please read my story with an open mind:


I knew it was a bad idea from the beginning. It was traumatic enough for the poor child to lose her best friend, but then to have to one to be singled out to represent her class and have to visit the coffin by herself. I told Joan. She should have gone with her up to the casket. Oh well, what's done is done. But I knew things were wrong from time Olivia fainted. She had fear in her eyes when she turned to look at the church. Only the lord knows what she saw, but whatever it was, she certainly didn't want to see it nor did she expect it.

It's strange how I didn't realize what was happening that afternoon when we returned from the funeral parlor. The house had felt darker. The shadows were longer. I blamed Olivia's hysterics on her grieving for Sarah. It was natural or so I thought for the child to feel that way. But then she started complaining about the scent of rotting cherries. You know I even threw out all the fruit from the house, thinking that was the cause. But I should have known. I just didn't understand what was happening at the time, but I guess that is how it happens. They�re tricky, you know. They make it seem like nothing is wrong. But I knew something was wrong, especially when Gran had the stroke.

I know I call her Gran, but that's how my mom is. For a long time now, even before she had grandchildren of her own, people began calling her Gran, so it just stuck. Gran had a sense about these things. You know, she could probably tell you a different version of events, but she never told me yet. We just don't speak about those things. Yes, yes, I was telling you what happened.

When Olivia screamed and Joan said �Call the ambulance! My heart just stopped. I was running to the phone when I saw her. She was standing in the doorway of Olivia's room looking at Gran on the chair. She was wearing that same purple dress they buried her in and she had that bear in her hand. You know it was strange. I was looking at this dead little girl but my mind was focused on calling 911 for help. Thank God. They came quick. She looked at me. You know. She turned her head and looked at me right in my eyes. I could never forget that.

I never saw her again like that. I mean in that form. She never allowed me to see her in that form again but boy, did I feel her! That day, when Joan was with Gran in the hospital, I was scared. Olivia wasn't acting right. Her face was so...so empty looking. Her eyes...you could tell the child was haunted.
I went about my business that day, I had checked in on Olivia and she was sleeping. I spent the rest of the morning notifying Gran's numerous friends and relatives of her condition. Then Olivia started screaming.

She was sitting on the bed, frozen in fright, screaming at the top of her lungs, her eyes fixed on Gran's chair. I tried to hold her but she was felt cold and stiff. I was talking to her all the time, saying "Olivia, Olivia, it's me baby, it me Aunty!". She looked at me once real quickly, pointed at the chair and kept screaming. She was saying the scent was getting stronger, that it was taking over her. She kept telling me she couldn't breathe. Tear's were running my baby's face. You should have seen that look on her face. That look of fear. Poor, poor child.

Olivia had fainted in my arms. I didn't want to leave her alone, but I had to call for help. Thank the Lord, for bringing Joseph in my life. I guess God knew one day, I would need a boyfriend who also happened to be my niece's pediatrician. You know the good Lord works in mysterious ways. He was a good man that Joseph. He came over right away. Olivia had developed a fever. I called Joan at the hospital and she came home right away. Our other sister Rosa also came. She lived over the river at that time. I'm so grateful to the Lord for allowing us to be together that night and those that followed. The entire house seem to take on a cold, dark, depressive almost foreboding atmosphere. I took to wearing sweaters day and night in the middle of June.

For three days and two nights, we took turns between the house and hospital, keeping watch over Olivia and Gran. Gran was getting better. The stroke had been strong, but Gran was stronger. Olivia now, poor little Olivia kept getting worse. That first night, she had raging hot fevers. She would sometimes look at us and ask us to make the scent of rotting cherry blossoms to go away. We were so helpless. Then she started to talk to Sarah. It was like we were no longer there and Olivia was somewhere else with Sarah and we were listening to their little girl conversations.

Joseph blamed Olivia's delirious conversations with Sarah on the fevers. He did everything he could to make the fevers go away and keep Olivia hydrated. But with the fever gone, he couldn't explain Olivia's other actions. She would get up from the bed and sit on the floor and play dolls with Sarah in the middle of the night. When she was with us, Olivia cried, she begged us to make Sarah go away. She said she was tired of playing.

I think it was the second night when Olivia left the bed and headed for the front door. Joseph said she was sleepwalking, all we had to do was turn her around and guide her back to bed. Well let me tell you child, it was easier said than done. Not me, not Joan, not Rosa could get that child to turn around. Where she had the strength from, I don't know, but she made it to the door and tried to get out. Joseph had to physically lift her up and carry her back to the bed. You should seen how she kicked and screamed, saying that Sarah was waiting outside for her. It was when I was sitting on the bed trying to calm her down that I felt a coldness on the back of my neck and I heard her whisper "Sarah and Olivia, best friends forever."

We all knew we needed more than a doctor. Joan nor Rosa never told me what they saw or felt when they had to watch Olivia, but I know they each had their experiences. When Rosa told Gran what was going on at home, she checked herself out of the hospital. How Gran got hold of Guruji, I still don't know. He is not the type of person that you find, he's the type that finds you. But when he came to the house, I swear on the good Lord above, that spirit child threw everything she had at him. I felt the energy of the house change and pushed past me aiming straight at Guruji, but he barely flinched. I can't tell you much more about what happened between Guruji, Olivia and Sarah, but I spent my time praying. You should talk to Joan or Rosa, they might tell you more, but I don't think Gran will ever talk about it.

*Author's note, this story is Olivia's Aunt's account of the events described in "Best Friends Forever".

[Edited on 1-26-2004 by worldwatcher]

A very poignent story ww. Thank you for sharing with us all.

When I read it (and your first account) I was drawn to your writing style, which reminded me of "A House for Mr Biswas" by VS Naipaul. By that, I mean the attention to detail which I enjoyed about "A House..."

You have a great story telling technique, ww, so please keep writing. I'm sure your experiences - and gift to recount them - would prove interesting and fascianting to read, whether based in the "paranormal" - or, simply, the "everyday".

Thanx again ww - always a pleasure!

Thank you Genya.

I never read anything by Naipaul, but you made me curious, so I will definitely check it out.

Originally posted by worldwatcher
Thank you Genya.

I never read anything by Naipaul, but you made me curious, so I will definitely check it out.

Please do ww - it's been years since I've read him but in "A House..." he writes of quite ordinary things, really, but with a warmth and attention to detail, but set in a culture removed from my own.

OH! And Meridian *will* put in another appearance shortly!!

great!! I can't wait to see what that Meridian is up to next

Originally posted by worldwatcher
great!! I can't wait to see what that Meridian is up to next

Probaly drinking and doing Fortean things again - he is a rascal!!

Good work, there WW. I enjoyed it. Keep writing!

DE

VERY good story, keep it coming.

i forgot about this...oops

thanks DE and Vanishing Point

btw DE, I am waiting patiently for the next installation of "My ATS Story"

*grumbles* It's coming, it's coming... I like to keep teh readers in suspense, you know.

DE

lol DE

does it feel like I'm pressuring you
suspense can kill you know

That was a good additional perspective, WW! It was written just as well as the first part, too, and the switch to the character of your aunt was very authentic--the voice definitely changed.

I had this sudden flash of insight--maybe unfounded, maybe not--when I got to the point of when your Gran brought the healing man to you, and the ghosty Sarah threw her energy at him...

In the story, Olivia feels a flash of anger/hate toward Sarah's mother for her carelessness--do you think that perhaps the huge amount of energy that Sarah's being had, keeping her here and making her intent on physically harming you (which probably your Gran got the worst of, since you were pining) and wanting to 'steal' you from your mother, might have been somehow a manifestation of shock and hurt that Sarah felt and so directed it at your family--at another mother--by taking something she loved? IOW, Sarah was 'getting even' with her mom by trying to hurt your mom?

I think surely she was lonely and lost, and sought you out, but the amount of energy she had seems wild even considering she was a bright energy when she was alive (since she was so young and technically innocent) and taken suddenly and without warning...only love and the deep flaming hurt that love can feel would exhibit such force, IMO.

girl, I have thought about this often and in many different ways, but somehow it always comes back to "me". I think it was my emotions, my fears, my angers, my sadness that gave "sarah" her power. It has even crossed my mind that perhaps, I did want to join her. Being at the age I was, I know I didn't have the life perspective that I do now and when i think back on those events, it was if a dark curtain had been pulled across my life and when that chapter ended, and I thought it perhaps time for the whole story to end too.

"sarah" wasn't just my best friend, she was a sister to me, I'm an only child and she was an only child and we bonded from day one in preschool, we were really inseparable. I know at the time, we could both forsee our lives in the future with us still being friends, we had planned our weddings together, our kids, all those silly things girls do together and I absolutely "hated" her mother for taking her life and her friendship from me. Looking back, I regret never being able to put past my hatred for her mom and trying to comfort her. I'm sure she suffers or has suffered far more pain and guilt than I could ever imagine, as a mother, I know this now, but then...I couldn't see that. All I saw was this woman was the blame for my friend being gone. I think the strength of my hatred and anger towards this woman was probably the energy that 'sarah' feeded on, since it was the strongest emotion I can recall at the time.

I'm not sure whether 'sarah' was acting out of love for me and just wanting me to continue the journey with her or whether it was out of spite or revenge against the females (motherly) figures in my family. This is still the greatest, deepest and most disturbing encounters with the paranormal I have experienced and it still bothers me that I don't have answers. But again my biggest regret is never speaking to her mother again. After my experiences, my family made it a point to distance me from her family, I think perhaps they thought it was best not bring up fresh wounds, I know my mom stayed in contact with her mom for a time, but she eventually let that friendship go too. No one talks to me about this, but from bits and pieces that I have overheard, "sarah" mom basically fell apart mentally after having claimed at times that I was her daughter Sarah and wanting me to have everything that was Sarah's.

btw, it's pretty interesting that this should be resurfaced now, since the anniversary of her death passed a few weeks ago and she has been in my thoughts randomly and occassionally over this recent time. I guess the dead never really dies because of our memories keeps them going. It's giving me goosebumps as i write this now and recall that just the other day I had the thought that I was smelling cherry blossoms.