She was seven years old the first time goosebumps prickled her skin as It watched her from afar. She was making the thousand mile journey across the pacific. At first she thought It was just the shadow of clouds passing outside the airplane window. But as night fell she was chilled beyond the cool sterile air of the cabin as It lurked in the back of the aisle. She did not realize that the presence would remain with her into old age.

She closed her eyes pretending that sleep would shake It from her existence. She dared not look behind her. It was not the thought of confronting the presence that frightened her but because deep down she knew there was nothing there. She feared that odorless, shapeless presence was a hallucination. The hair raising feeling was just a man deeply engrossed in his action packed blockbuster or a woman snoring loudly with an eye mask on.

Not quite human, not quite a being, It contained a darkness. A darkness without the warmth of the tropical night sky back home. A darkness without the dazzling lights of the city she grew up in. A darkness without the languid glow of the womb of her motherland. An empty vacuum deep enough to swallow her whole. 

Her grandmother had told her stories about this darkness. She said It is the kind that will wake with you when you get ready for school, ride the bus, sleep with you in the cramped room you share with your sister. Her grandmother spat on the ground to deter this kind of darkness. 

Now, even as they landed, went through immigration and baggage claim, as she held her mother’s hand, she could feel It trailing behind them. 

The first couple of nights in the new apartment were filled with strange creaking of pipes and whistling windows all that reminded her of It’s presence. During her night terrors in the first week, It would sit in the corner and simply watch. But as summer turned into fall and a new school year started with colorful classrooms and playgrounds games, It sank further into the background. 

—-

At 10 she was loud, humorous, friendly. She was a storyteller who could hold the attention of the entire lunch table. She was charismatic, received good grades and was a favorite among teachers. She was never alone, always surrounded by new friends eager to sit with her at the table. All their bodies, all their talking and yelling could push It to the back of her mind, but could not erase It. She decided to call It her “ghost”, hoping that would weaken It’s effect. Her ghost that sat at the back of the class, or on the other swing set beside her. 

She became obsessed with the supernatural. She had watched all the ghostbuster movies and had a plastic proton pack and pistol. She would dive into pages of library books about ghouls. Stories of paranormal sightings accompanied with blurry photographs scattered her bedroom floor. She scoured between words and images, hoping to make the presence of the ghost–her ghost, become more than a shaky outline. 

She had sleepovers where her friends would stay up all night waiting to spot the ghost. With the new ghost detector she got for her birthday, they built a pillow fort and waited.

She told stories to pass the time, spooky ones that made the other girls scream excitedly and hide in their sleeping bags. They waited all night for the ghost but nothing came of it.

When she returned from the sleepover, and washed her face in the mirror, she could see the ghost behind her. She would shake it off and pretend that it wasn’t there.

—-

At 16 she spent long days and nights indoors with the window blinds shut. With the dank humidity of a room rarely left, she and the ghost would rot away. She no longer tried to understand it’s existence. The prickly chill she felt from the ghost as a young girl was reduced to a dull buzz right below her skin. At night she would lie in bed and the ghost would curl up around her, envelope her, suffocate her, embrace her. She would become the ghost and the ghost would become her. She would breathe in the ghost. She would breathe out the ghost. Until slowly she did not feel anything. 

And then the ghost was gone. 

She sat up in bed with newfound energy. Without the weight of the ghost, without the weight of anything at all. She ripped open the blinds as light burst into the room. For the first time in days, she walked herself through the school halls, to class, to the family table, to bed, without the ghost. 

She sat in the cafeteria with all her friends laughing and talking. But what was light and airy was also vacuous. Her speech was only words, her laughter just sounds. She had spent her whole life running from the ghost, she did not know who she was without it. 

At night she wondered, “Who am I without the ghost?”

——

She decided to write her grandmother a letter, all her ghost stories spilling onto the paper. She admitted that at times, she missed the ghost. In running from It, the ghost had propelled her towards long lasting friends and given her creativity. She used the ghost and the ghost had used her. But life was easier without the ghost. She no longer stayed up late at night thinking about it, she no longer felt the ghost’s weight as she walked home from school. She also worried about it returning.

A few weeks later a letter came back in the mail. It had no name or return address but she recognized her grandmother’s writing. It read:

“The ghost is not a friend, not an enemy. The ghost is simply a ghost, but it is a part of you. The ghost may come and go throughout your life. There will be times when It’s presence is strong, times when It is weak. You cannot spend your life running from It, you have grown up together, you will always remain together. The ghost can be your greatest strength, it can be your fatal flaw. In the quiet moments of the night, when it is just you and the ghost, you must learn to live with it. You never have to love it, you don’t even have to like it, but you must accept that it is a part of you”

——-

At 18 she stood in front of an audience in a cap and gown. She looked out at the sea of people, many of them familiar and cherished faces. In the heat of May, she inhaled deeply and felt the chilled presence all around her. She pulled the microphone up close to her and began. 

“Let me tell you a story about a ghost,” she said.