Jack

Lyra hadn’t spoken in months. She had stayed in her room ever since the accident. Her life seemed vacant since the fateful day a brother and sister wandered too close to the rocky precipice near the edge of the forest. Lyra hated remembering. She hated the thought of laughing or smiling when her favorite playmate would never again join her giggles. For a year she was only surviving because she had to, alive yet lifeless. Lyra’s family was losing hope. During the first few months, everyone whispered about the 6 year old who lost her twin, “the poor dear who didn’t deserve it”. Eventually however, the talk died out. It seemed like everything except Lyra would return to normal. Even her parents were learning to live with it. Then it happened. It started off with a moving truck and a ‘house sold’ sign across the street. With the new neighbors, the Taylors, came a young boy as old as Lyra, the age Jack would have been. Every day he strayed closer and closer to Lyra’s house until she could see him clearly from her window. Lyra watched as he played gleefully, as happy as her brother always used to be. Whenever her parents weren’t home, Lyra would slowly approach the kitchen window. She would stare, transfixed, at the carefree boy tearing through her lawn. One day in the middle of spring, the boy looked down from the apple tree he was climbing and the two locked eyes. Grinning, he beckoned for her to come outside. She hesitated and resisted. Each day the boy would look straight at Lyra and, always smiling, would ask her to join him. After almost two months, she finally gave in. Summer arrived and her whole world burst in a happy glow. The little boy grasped her hand as she stepped outside. He pulled her eagerly into the lush meadow. She threw her head back and laughed as the heavy fog of sorrow in her heart was lifted. Her mother and father were so overjoyed to get back their ebullient little girl that they went and personally thanked their neighbors. Confused, the Taylors welcomed Lyra’s parents for stopping by but said that they got married last fall and are expecting their first child this winter. Nobody knew who the boy was, nobody but Lyra.