My son brought home a drawing of a family of four, even though I only have one child

It was a rainy afternoon, and I was sitting in the kitchen, stirring my cup of tea, when my eight-year-old son, Lucas, arrived home from school. He walked in with an excited smile, holding a folded piece of paper in his hands. "Mom, look at what I made at school!" he said, with an energy that made me smile back.

"Let me see, son!" I walked over to him and opened the drawing. It was a simple but cute image: a family of four people, with a house under a blue sky and a bright sun. I could clearly see two adults, a boy, and a girl. But for a moment, I froze. I only had one child, Lucas. So who was the girl in the drawing?

"Lucas, who is this girl?" I asked, trying to hide my surprise.

"She's my sister! I drew her for you," Lucas smiled with a sincerity that sent a chill down my spine.

"But son, you don't have a sister... It's just you," I said, trying to understand what he was trying to say.

"She lives in the basement, mom. I'll show you!" Lucas said, with a strange gleam in his eyes. He seemed too excited for it to be just a joke.

"Lucas, what are you talking about? There’s no one in the basement," I replied, trying to stay calm. I knew the basement of our house was locked and had been unused for years, and we had never mentioned a sister.

But Lucas was already heading toward the basement door. Before I could say anything, he opened the door with a creak and stepped inside. "Come on, mom! She’s waiting."

I hesitated, my heart racing. Something wasn't right. I followed him to the basement stairs, feeling a chill run down my spine. The basement lights were off, except for a small lamp in the corner, where a shadow seemed to move.

Lucas was ahead, with an even wider smile. He looked back, beckoning me with a finger and said, "She's over there, mom!"

Slowly approaching, my breathing grew heavy, and I could feel the tension in the air. When I finally reached where Lucas was, I looked toward the dark corner. A figure was facing away from me, a girl with long, dark hair, wearing a simple, flowing dress. What disturbed me most was that she seemed... to be waiting for me.

"You’re scaring me, Lucas. Who is this girl?" My voice trembled, and a cold shiver took over my body.

Lucas looked at me as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "She's my sister, mom. She lives here. We play together all the time."

The girl then slowly turned around. Her eyes were an intense green, almost supernatural. She smiled at me, but her smile seemed empty, as if it were something... beyond understanding.

"Hello, ma'am," the girl said with a soft, ethereal voice. "I’m Clara."

I didn’t know what to say. She looked as real as any other child, but something about her didn’t fit. She didn’t seem... alive. I looked at Lucas, my son, waiting for an explanation.

"Lucas, what’s going on? Who is she?" My voice faltered, and my hands began to sweat.

"She’s always been here, mom. I met her in my room. She told me she was my sister, and that I drew her like you asked," Lucas replied with total innocence. But his words were like a distant echo, not making sense to me.

The girl, Clara, looked at me with her penetrating eyes. "I’ve always been here, waiting," she said calmly, but the way she said it, with a tone of something... immortal, left me stunned.

Before I could ask more, Clara took a step forward, and the lamp’s light flickered. I felt an inexplicable pressure in my chest, as if time had slowed down.

A sense of something old, something buried deep in the house, seemed to slowly reveal itself. The girl smiled again and said, "I was once part of your family, you know? But I was... lost."

I felt a mix of confusion and fear, unable to understand what was happening. Suddenly, Lucas turned to me, with a melancholic smile on his face, and said, "Mom, you’ll understand. It’s just a matter of time."

The room went silent, and I saw the girl disappear into the basement shadows, like a breeze fading away. Lucas looked at me, but now he seemed distant, as if something had changed in him too.

I never saw Clara again, but that night stayed engraved in my memory. Every time I look at Lucas’s drawing, with the family of four people, I wonder if the answer to all this is hidden in the walls of that old house.

Maybe Clara was part of a story I couldn’t understand, but that somehow had always been there.

And who knows, somewhere, she’s still waiting...