didn't want her speaking with the little boy. She wasn't sure herself, but, for reasons she couldn't explain, she felt he was dangerous. "Just promise me you won't talk to him anymore. I want you to come get me if you ever see him again, okay?"
"Okay."
That night, after tucking Teresa into bed, Angela decided to stay up and catch up on some reading. She wasn't two pages into the book when she heard noises coming from her daughter's room. She put the book down and quietly made her way to the last room down the hall. She leaned her ear towards the door and listened. She recognized her daughter's voice but it was too muffled through the closed door to make out what she was saying. She opened the door to find her daughter standing in front of her open bedroom window. Teresa quickly spun around with a "cat ate the canary look" plastered on her face.
"Who are you talking to?"
"No one."
"I heard you! Was it the boy from earlier? Was it Kevin?"
Teresa lowered her head in shame and stuck out her bottom lip.
"Yes."
"Why didn't you come and get me?"
"He told me not to."
Tears were starting to fall from Teresa's eyes.
"What's wrong, Teresa? Why are you crying?"
"He told me you were a bad person. He said you were going to hurt me like you hurt him. He wants to save me."
Angela knelt down and held her daughter tight.
"I would never hurt you. Look at me."
Teresa looked at her mom with a tear stained face.
"I would never hurt you or anyone else."
"Kevin said you hurt him."
"I don't know who Kevin is!"
"He said he wants to take me with him to the "happy place".
Ice ran through Angela's veins. She looked out of the window for any sign of the mysterious boy. He was nowhere to be seen in the darkness of the night but lying on the ground just outside the window was another drawing. Angela managed to reach through the open window and retrieve the drawing. She held the drawing up with trembling hands.
The drawing was of a two-story house, complete with a mailbox and a white picket fence. The number thirty nine was hanging in the blue sky like Kevin's other drawings. The house looked very familiar to Angela. On closer examination, she could make out numbers on the mailbox? 1432. That was the number to her old house she had grown up in. It burnt down several years ago, about two months after she left for college. This drawing was of that house. It even showed her old tire swing hanging from a maple tree.
Angela's whole body was engulfed in a numbing coldness of fear. She didn't know who this mysterious boy was, where he came from, or why he wanted to take Teresa away. She closed and locked the window securely. She then picked her daughter up and carried her to her bedroom down the hall. She laid Teresa down and got into the bed with her. Angela watched her sleep until the wee hours of the morning.
The next morning at school, Angela went through the school record, searching for information on every boy with the name Kevin. After looking through all the records, she only found two boys with the name, Kevin, but neither one of their pictures was the boy she sat with on the swings. She began to wonder if she was going mad. But her daughter saw the boy too. They would have to be going crazy together. No, there must be another explanation, she told herself.
After lunch, Angela was walking through the school playground when she approached the same swing where she had first seen Kevin. Her heart started beating inside her chest. Laying on the swing was another drawing. She cautiously picked the drawing up. It was a drawing of the house she grew up in, but after the fire. The house, drawn in black to emulate the effects of the fire, was missing its roof and part of its exterior wall. Angela noticed there was an object, the only thing in the drawing that wasn't black, drawn in the middle of the blackened house but she could not make out what it was. In the smoky sky was the number thirty nine.
Angela nervously looked around the school yard for any sign of Kevin. He was nowhere to be seen. She wondered why this young boy was leaving her these drawings. Was he trying to tell her something? Was he even real? These questions weighed heavy on her mind for the remainder of the day.
That evening, Angela left Teresa sleeping in her bedroom while she took a shower. She made sure all the doors and windows were locked before leaving her alone. When she finished her quick shower, Angela walked into her room to find Teresa gone. Fear swooped down upon her. She tried to remain calm as she called for her daughter. There was no answer. She rushed down the hallway to her daughter's room to find the window wide open.
"TERESA!"
Angela frantically ran to the window and looked out. Teresa was nowhere in sight. As she jumped out of the window, she stepped on a paper lying on the ground. She picked it up and saw that it was a drawing of the "happy place". The same little boy was standing in the foreground like before but this time he was not alone. He was holding hands with a little brunette girl with green eyes. The little boy's frown was now a huge smile.
"Teresa? No, Teresa!" Angela cried as she stroked the little girl in the picture.
Angela grabbed her phone while she continued to search for her daughter. She called the police to inform them her daughter was missing and then called everyone she knew to come help find Teresa. Before long, her place was crawling with police and volunteers searching every inch of her property and the adjoining properties. They searched all night and through the next morning but no trace of her daughter was found.
Angela was devastated over the lost of her daughter and stayed locked in her bedroom for days. She told the police about the little boy and they promised her they would look around the neighborhoods for a little boy named Kevin with the description she had given them. Angela's parents drove down from upstate to console their daughter. She told them the unbelievable story of Kevin and showed them his drawings.
"That house burned up years ago." Angela's date said. "The walls are still standing but it wasn't worth fixing up. It would have cost too much money. We put the land on the market but no one has bought it yet. What does this thirty nine mean?"
"I don't know. Dad, can you take me to see the house. I know this is going to sound strange, but I believe Kevin wanted me to go there. Maybe I can find some answers."
"Sure, we'll take you."
They drove a short distance to Angela's old neighborhood. Soon they were driving down an old familiar dirt road. They rounded a corner and saw what remained of the old house. Most of the walls were still standing, but the roof was completely burned away. The walls and interior were blackened from the fire and smoke. The yard was in desperate need of mowing and landscaping.
Angela got out of the car and made her way to the entrance where the door once stood. She stepped inside, cautiously walking through the rubble. She recalled how the house looked before the fire. She walked pass the dinning room where she remembered eating so many dinners with her parents. She continued down the hallway whose walls were once adorned with family pictures. She then made her way to her old bedroom and walked inside. A remnant of her bed still remained as well as a few half- melted, weather-worn, stuffed animals.
The edge of a box, hiding under debris beneath her small bed, caught Angela's eye. She knelt down and uncovered the box. She immediately recognized it as her old jewelry box. It was charred from the fire but remained intact. She opened it. It contained a few old photos of her parents, her class ring, a ticket stub from the senior prom, and her diary. She had completely forgotten about her diary she had kept her last year of high school.
She began thumbing through it, her memories flooding back to her with each word she read .She read a few passages about dates she went on, about experiencing her first taste of alcohol, and about attending prom with her boyfriend, Scott. She grinned as she reminisced about her adolescent years until she came to page thirty nine. As she began reading it, her blood ran cold, her heart beat violently inside her chest and her hand trembled so hard, she could barely read the words.
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June 15, 2002
Today, I made the hardest decision of my life. My mom and I drove to the clinic where I had the operation. The doctor said everything turned out good, but I fill empty inside. I'm still not sure if I made the right decision. My mom said I did, but I'm not so sure. After I first found out, I played with the idea of keeping him. I was going to name him Kevin.
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