Mother

Recently we experienced a great loss, my mom's sister died. She didn’t have a husband, but she was survived by her year old daughter Leah. My husband and I took care of her. As soon as the girl learned about her mother's death, she closed up and stopped leaving the house.  

She basically refused to move somewhere, so my husband and I moved into an apartment where they used to live with her mother. We thought that after the funeral she would agree to move in with us because living in that apartment became unbearable. At night, the running water would turn on and off by itself, the same thing happened with the lights. The doors and the floors creaked as if someone was constantly running from room to room.  

I tried to get the apartment sanctified, but it didn’t change anything. One night, as usual, I could not sleep, and as my husband slept next to me I heard the whispers coming out of Leah’s room. For some reason, I was very scared, but I decided not to wake my husband up. I quietly turned on the light and went to her door and listened to what was happening there. I only heard the voice of my girl. - I do not want to sleep; I want to play with Kate (her doll). I will play a little bit and go to bed. I opened the door and she was sitting in the corner behind the wardrobe, hugging her doll and looked at me anxiously. She was peeking from behind the corner with such wariness as if I was her enemy. 

- Leah, who were you talking to now? - I asked. - With mom ... Shiver ran down my spine. I put her to bed, hugged my husband and also dozed off. Then for another week the girl was constantly talking with someone, and I stopped paying attention to it, putting everything down to stress – the child lost her mother, and talking to herself was not the worst thing to help her cope. The apartment continued to try my patience. One afternoon when I was cooking dinner, I called Leah several times to the table, but she said she wasn’t hungry. Generally speaking she was not very fond of food and it was hard to get her to eat. Her mother not the most patient of people, and when Leah refused to eat, she forcibly dragged her to the table. 

So when I probably for the tenth time called Leah to have lunch, I heard a terrible roar and then crying. I immediately ran into the room and saw a scene that I couldn’t explain. A huge wardrobe fell on the child. Luckily it didn’t crash her by hitting the bed with one of its corners and leaving the space between the wardrobe and the floor. Leah was greatly frightened and until the end of the day she was in hysterics. That night I again heard her crying and asking for forgiveness. I went to calm her down, and she climbed into my arms and hugged me tightly. She kept staring at the same corner, as if someone was standing there. And she looked very frightened. - Leah, who's there? - I asked. - Mom ... - she whispered softly. – Leah, why don’t you tell your mother that you are letting her go and that she should leave? – But mom doesn’t want to leave! 

When it was the fortieth day after her death, Leah and I went to the grave and laid flowers, handed out treats to children to commemorate the dead. Everything got quiet after that. We sold the apartment and took the girl to our place.