Drilling further towards my intended target, I asked “Would you want Christie to come over?”

And then she became withdrawn, giving me simple shake of the head and headed up. This baffled me and gave me some doubts. I was worried.

If possible, she became even more withdrawn from me and was more open with my husband, as well as complete strangers when we went outside. And of course, she was definitely open and talkative with the bear, Mary. I would often find her in the wee hours of the dark night talking incessantly to the bear about everything that had happened to her during the day and of course, about Christie. I was concerned that this would affect her schoolwork. Her teacher, however, gave glowing reports of my daughter, describing her as exemplary and incredibly open. My husband was pleased, and once again, I was worried as I did not see any evidence of this behavior at home.

Just when I thought that nothing could get any weirder, Rose began crying out at night, screaming of drowning. The most peculiar happened during these extraordinary fits, the air turned damp and a smell reminiscent of the sea and river permeated the area. Worse yet, the choking fits started growing more frequent. Through all of this, Rose continued her nonstop jabbering about things to her bear, day and night. What frightened me the most was that I swore that I could see shadows vaguely resembling a teddy-bear being carried by a little girl, who was slightly taller than Rose, during the night. Then, the choking fits became increasingly frequent, happening during the day as well, but never during school, as far as I could tell. Extremely worried, during one of her fits, I took away her bear, Mary, and inspected it. Finding nothing, I was about to put it back when a small tag caught my attention. A name! “Christie Park.” Pondering, I returned the bear. The name sounded familiar, but the exact origin eluded me. Until one day, while doing the horrendous job of taking out the trash, I suddenly recalled that Rose had told me her friend’s name was Christie who gave her the teddy-bear! 

I rushed to the computer and searched the name online. I came up with an article in the news archives about a little girl, “Christie Park,” who had drowned in the river a few years ago. I gasped as I remembered a day when traffic had slowed as I was coming back from work because a child had fallen into the nearby river. It seemed so inconsequential at the time! The RIVER! I remembered! I ran to check on Rose where I had last seen her. She wasn’t in her room! She wasn’t anywhere in the house! Desperate, I streaked towards the river. She wasn’t there either…instead, a lone teddy-bear was drifting away in the river, towards the ocean. Rose was missing. I searched every where and so did the police. She was gone without a trace, not even a note. I never did mention Christie to the police, they would’ve thought me to be mad! The days passed and the search continued until one day, the dogs stopped tracking, the police stopped searching, and the helicopters stopped flying. Still Mary had not shown up. She was gone with the river.