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Three years ago, my neighbor's son Marcus, just 12 years old, watched his little sister Emma drown in their backyard pool while he was supposed to be watching her. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in July that became the day that destroyed an entire family. Marcus had been distracted by his phone for maybe five minutes, but when he looked up, Emma was floating face down in the deep end, her tiny arms spread wide like she was trying to fly underwater.
The guilt consumed Marcus completely. His parents, Sarah and Tom, were too shattered by grief to help their surviving child. Sarah spent her days in Emma's untouched bedroom, clutching stuffed animals that still smelled like strawberry shampoo. Tom threw himself into sixteen-hour workdays, unable to face the pool that sat covered like a blue-tarped grave.
Two months after Emma's funeral, Marcus started showing up at our house every day. He seemed drawn to our daughter Lily, who was eight years old, the same age Emma had been. At first, my husband David and I welcomed the distraction, thinking it might help him heal. David even started teaching Marcus to ride a bike, patiently running alongside him. It seemed healthy, watching this traumatized boy slowly come back to life.
But then Marcus began asking Lily increasingly strange questions about what she remembered from when she was smaller, her favorite toddler songs, games she played when she was Emma's age. "Did you like to dance to music in the kitchen?" he would ask with unsettling intensity. "Did you ever pretend to be a butterfly?"
I noticed him studying our family photos with laser focus, particularly one of Lily at age six wearing a purple dress covered in silver butterflies. The way he stared at that photograph with such concentration made my stomach turn, like he was memorizing every detail.
Then Marcus started bringing over Emma's clothes, asking if Lily wanted to try them on. When she would indulge him, spinning in dresses that fit perfectly despite being meant for a different child, Marcus would get this peaceful, relieved expression that scared me more than any breakdown could have.
Even more disturbing, Marcus began correcting people who called him by his name. "I'm not Marcus," he would say quietly. "I'm Emma. Emma came back." When I mentioned this to Sarah, she seemed almost hopeful. "Maybe it's her way of communicating with us," she whispered through tears.
When I suggested professional help, Sarah told me Marcus had started humming lullabies that only Emma knew, songs she had made up specifically for her daughter. "They're her songs," Sarah insisted, gripping my arm desperately. "Word for word, note for note. How could Marcus know them unless she was teaching him?"
The breaking point came on a humid Tuesday night in September. I woke to soft humming from Lily's room. When I pushed open her door, I found Marcus sitting on her bed in darkness, having climbed through her third-story window. He wore a pink nightgown with embroidered roses, gently brushing Lily's hair while she slept, whispering, "Emma's back now, Emma's going to take care of you forever."
When I screamed, he didn't run or look guilty. Instead, Marcus turned with this serene expression and said, "Mommy, I told you I'd come back," in a voice softer and higher than his natural tone, with inflections I had never heard him use.
David called the police while I positioned myself between Marcus and my daughter. But Marcus just sat peacefully, continuing to braid Lily's hair and humming that mysterious lullaby, completely calm as sirens wailed closer.
The next morning, Lily asked why Emma had visited her and thanked her for promising to be her new sister. Those words froze my blood because Lily had never met Emma, and we had never mentioned her name in our house.
We moved across town within a week and obtained a restraining order when Marcus showed up at Lily's new school three times, each time wearing Emma's clothing and carrying notes signed "your sister Emma" in delicate handwriting that looked nothing like his usual scrawl.