Amelia looked at herself in the mirror. She liked to wander up in the attic, she’d always felt comfortable there. Sometimes it was just her, and other times she sensed — she called it the shadow. She wasn’t sure when she’d first become aware of it. Sometime in the last two years more or less.
But she also had a feeling that the shadow had always been there. She wasn’t scared of it exactly — it wouldn’t make sense to be scared of it. That would be like being scared of your own dreams. And the shadow was something that had definitely come out of her dreams, she was sure about that.
The best way to know if it was there was to look in the mirror. It’s not that she could see it exactly, more that her own reflection looked different when the shadow was there. Older somehow, but not really older. More like the idea of being older, even though she looked exactly the same.
She shook her head. So many times she’d been tempted to tell somebody, to explain it. It’s hard to keep something like this to yourself. But she always ended up realizing just how crazy it would sound. And she definitely didn’t want anyone to think she was crazy.
Besides, she had a feeling that if she told anyone, the shadow wouldn’t like it.