It looked like a normal birthday photo: balloons out of frame, cake crumbs on the rug, kids clapping. My niece, Elo, grinning in her high chair like she was queen of the party.

Except that wasn’t her high chair.

I didn’t notice at first. But when I bent down to pick up a juice pouch, I saw the faint gold lettering across the wooden leg: “Nora Jean • 1986”

I froze. Nora Jean was my cousin.

She drowned when she was two.

My uncle never talks about her. The name disappeared from the family tree. Photos taken down. Toys boxed and buried. But I remember the stories—the antique high chair he “couldn’t bear to part with,” the one he kept in the attic “out of respect.”

So why was Elo sitting in it now?

I asked him, casually, “Where’d the chair come from?”

He didn’t look up from his folding knife. Just said, “Found it behind the piano. Figured it was time.”

Time for what?

I checked behind the piano later, after most of the guests had gone home. It was shoved halfway out from the wall, crooked like it had been moved fast.

Behind it, wedged into the brick hearth, was a thin manila folder. Inside: Polaroids. Of Nora. Of her last birthday. One photo almost identical to today’s—same chair, same pose.

Except in the old one, there was a small handprint across the tray.

In something red.

I sat on the cold living room floor, Polaroids trembling in my hand. The red wasn’t vivid enough to be blood, but it was too dark to be juice. It looked… dried. Almost brown.

I wanted to believe it was paint.

I wanted to believe a lot of things.

I slid the folder back into its hiding spot, heart racing. I didn’t tell anyone. Not that night. Not even my sister, Elo’s mom. I just helped clean up, pretended everything was fine, and tried not to look at that chair again.

But it followed me.

Not literally, of course, but in my head. The next day, I dreamed of it. Nora’s eyes wide, a smile frozen just slightly wrong. I hadn’t seen her since I was five, but my brain filled in the blanks. I woke up sweating.

I called my uncle that afternoon.

“Hey,” I said. “That chair… where exactly was it?”

A long pause.

“In the garage,” he lied.

My stomach dropped. “You said it was behind the piano.”

He chuckled, but it sounded forced. “Did I? Must’ve misspoke.”

“You sure it’s safe for Elo?”

“What kind of question is that?”

I didn’t answer. He hung up.

That night, I drove back to his place. I knew he wouldn’t be home—he had a poker night on Wednesdays. I still had the spare key from when I used to walk his dog.

The chair was still there, in the dining room, sitting in the exact spot from the photo. The same pink bib still draped over the side. I walked around it slowly, kneeling down again to trace the lettering.

“Nora Jean • 1986”

I brought a flashlight and scanned every groove, every seam. One of the screws on the side tray looked newer than the rest. Like it had been replaced.

I pulled out my pocketknife and gently pried the tray up.

Underneath was another photo.

This one was newer. Printed, not Polaroid. And it wasn’t of Nora.

It was Elo.

But not from the party. It looked like a candid shot taken from behind glass. Her in daycare, coloring at a table. A timestamp from three weeks ago.

I dropped the tray.

Something was very wrong.

I called my sister. Told her Elo couldn’t sit in the chair again. Didn’t say why. Just begged her to put it away. She didn’t argue—said Elo already refused to sit in it the past two mornings.

“She cried when I tried,” she said. “Like, real tears. Said she didn’t like the girl in the corner.”

I blinked. “What girl?”

“She says there’s a girl who watches her. Blond hair. Dirty feet. She points to the pantry when she talks about her.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Put the chair in the garage,” I told her. “Now.”

She agreed.

But by the time I got there the next morning, the chair was back in the dining room.

I asked my sister, “Why’d you bring it back?”

She looked confused. “I didn’t. I told Chris to move it last night.”

Chris, her husband, swore up and down he put it in the garage. Even showed us the cleared spot.

We stared at the chair for a long time.

No one touched it.

Then Elo walked into the room.

She froze. Looked at the chair.

“No,” she said, backing up. “She’s not done yet.”

“Who?” I asked.

Elo didn’t answer. She ran back to her room.

That night, I took the chair.

Loaded it into my car. Drove to the dump an hour out of town. Tossed it in a bin marked “WOOD ONLY” and watched it splinter at the bottom.

Felt relief for the first time in days.

I didn’t sleep much, but I didn’t dream either.

Until I woke up the next morning and found a small package on my porch.

No name. No return address.

Inside: a single Polaroid.

Of me.

Standing by the dump.

Holding the chair.

Smiling.

I dropped the photo.

Ran inside, locked every door.

Called my uncle.

“You think it’s funny?” I yelled. “You think this is a joke?”

He didn’t speak right away.

Then: “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what? Burned it? Yeah, maybe I should’ve. But it’s gone now.”

He sighed. “You can’t get rid of it like that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s not finished.”

“Nora?”

Another pause.

“There are things in this family,” he said, voice low. “Things we don’t talk about. But that chair—she always comes back to it.”

“You make it sound like she’s—what? Haunting us?”

“She never left.”

I hung up.

I didn’t want more riddles. I wanted it gone.

I spent the next few days at my sister’s. Helped them rearrange the house. Distracted Elo. Didn’t mention the chair.

She started sleeping better.

Stopped talking about the girl.

It felt like we’d turned a corner.

Then, Sunday morning, the doorbell rang.

My sister opened it.

No one there.

Just the chair.

Sitting on the porch.

Elo screamed.

We didn’t bring it inside. We called a pastor. He looked at us like we were nuts but agreed to come by. Sprinkled water, said a few words. Told us maybe it was time to give the chair away.

So we tried.

Donated it to a thrift shop in the next town.

We checked a week later.

It was gone from the floor.

We asked the manager.

He said, “You came back for it already.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Lady in a gray hoodie,” he said. “Picked it up Tuesday. Had the receipt.”

We asked for the security tape.

He shrugged. “We tape over it every 48 hours.”

That night, my sister texted me.

Photo of her kitchen.

The chair was in the background.

Again.

She and Chris hadn’t brought it back.

No one had.

But there it was.

She wanted to burn it.

I agreed.

We drove out to the edge of Old Sable Woods, the way our grandpa used to when we had big things to burn—old furniture, brush, whatever. Made a big pit. Poured gasoline. Lit the match.

It burned fast.

Wood cracked. Flames danced.

We stayed until it was ashes.

Poured water on it for good measure.

Then we left.

For the first time, I felt like we were free.

Until the dreams started again.

Only now it wasn’t just me.

Chris. My sister. Even my mom.

All dreaming the same thing.

The girl.

Her hair dripping wet.

Her hands sticky.

Her whisper: “That wasn’t yours to burn.”

We tried therapy.

Tried logic.

But deep down, we knew.

This wasn’t about a chair.

It was about forgetting.

Pretending.

My uncle had buried Nora’s memory. Hidden it so deep even the photos were shoved behind brick. But she’d been real. She’d had a life. A laugh. A high chair.

And maybe she just wanted to be seen.

So we did the one thing no one had tried.

We remembered her.

Not in secret. Not in whispers.

We held a little gathering.

A “birthday” of sorts.

Set up a framed photo. The only one we had left. Lit a candle. Told Elo the truth.

That she had a cousin once.

That her name was Nora.

That she wasn’t a ghost.

Just a little girl who had a short time here.

And maybe… just maybe… needed to know we still cared.

Elo nodded. Placed her own drawing next to the photo.

A girl in a chair.

With a sun above her.

We haven’t seen the chair since.

It never came back.

Not in dreams.

Not on porches.

Just… silence.

Peace.

Sometimes, healing doesn’t come from forgetting.

It comes from remembering.

Not the pain.

But the love beneath it.

If you’ve ever felt something unexplained—some shadow of grief trying to be heard—maybe it’s not to scare you.

Maybe it just wants to be seen.

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