And Mira

By megomike

Death is a dagger
Concealed in a cloak.
Viewed through a mirror
Obscured by smoke

Megomike

So begins the story of Mira. For most, the war is over, but for one girl, it has just begun. Set just after World War II, AND MIRA starts out in the gentle surroundings of a nursery school in Midwestern United States. Not yet two years old, Miras dreams are filled with the image of a deformed, emaciated child she does not quite remember. When one of the children at her school succumbs to pneumonia, she cannot help but feel that it is not one of the typical deaths common to children in her day but rather somehow connected to the chalky child of her dreams.

AND MIRA is a traditional-style ghost story set against the backdrop of American pop culture from the 1940s to the present day. Unique to this story, AND MIRA follows the haunting of the protagonist and her loved ones from the beginning of her life to the very end. As she grows, so matures the ghost that haunts her dreams and memories, and his appetite for the deaths of those she cares for evolves as well. Mira must make her way through a world that does not believe in ghosts to determine the identity of this tortured phantom that threatens everyone she holds dear before it destroys them all!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546218012

megomike

Megomike was born in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and currently resides in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. He has two teenage children, Maddi and Amanda who are the inspiration for many of his creative works including the children's story Brave Sir Daddy not yet published. Megomike is able to express creativity every day working as a teacher and administrator, and has his Master of Education from National Louis University. He enjoys quiet weekends watching Netflix with friends, and not-so-quiet weekends beer tasting with other friends, and spends a good amount of time fishing and antiquing with family at their vacation home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He enjoys collecting pop culture items from the 60's through the 80's, including vintage toys, and is proud of a hardcover library of Hardy Boys, Ian Fleming, and Stephen Lawhead works. And Mira is Megomike's first published work. You can contact him through me-go-media.com, or by friend requesting Nathaniel Mirras on Facebook.

Book preview

Prologue

THE CHALKY CHILD

I am telling you this story not by my memory, but in my memory. I must ask you to try to hear my thoughts, take whatever cues I leave, and fill in the blanks. Like a dream you wake up and remember only part-way, and my whole life is like that. Not quite a memory. Not quite a dream. Because I cannot talk, at least not in the way you would understand. I do have language, but my spoken language doesn’t make sense yet to most people. While I don’t speak many words, I hear them and understand what many of them mean. I have a good sense of what has happened, but simply cannot tell you my story with the spoken word.

Because, you see, I am 18 months old.

The world turns and its happenings occur in a ruthless cycle. It is light. I wake up. It is dark. I sleep. I process what the adults say. I interpret what the other children do. Yet I am unable to speak clearly about what has happened to a child I knew not long ago. I can only remember, or dream, and hope that you too can find sense in my thoughts and my memories. I am too young to understand whether what happened to that boy was a dream or a memory, or even real, but I hope knowing his story will help keep you safe.

My very first memory is of a crying child. Not the boy in my story. No. Another child. The sobbing baby I remember might even be me, but I’m not sure. I’m certainly quite unpleasant, if it is in fact me. I don’t think it is. In fact, I’m quite sure it’s also a boy. I don’t know how I know, since I’m not quite sure what makes a boy, but there are boys in nursery, and this creature seems to be more like them than like me. The howling child in this memory, or perhaps dream, is pale, chalky white, marred and miserable. Its skin is cracked and wrinkled, but covered in a chalky film as though perpetually in a cloud made from cleaning the boards after school. I’ve never heard such a cry! Not from myself, nor anything in this world, or from any of my friends.

Well, I don’t suppose I have friends, but the other children in the nursery school. The adults call them my friends and I am encouraged to refer to them as such. The truth is I do not like most of them very much. They spend their days and mine stealing my favorite toys, and finding new ways to brutalize each other. They cannot talk either, and their thoughts, whimpers and memories are all focused on food, their mothers, biting and tasting, and pulling hair, often mine. Friends would not pull my hair…

But I never have heard a cry from any of those little beasts that is the same as the child in that brief early memory. It is the cry of a trapped animal, sweet yet sad. It is angered, frightened, yet also frightening. It evokes pity, yet implies flight. An anguished, horrifying cry. While you desire to extinguish the poor child’s pain, there is also a foreboding to it. Attempting any sort of comfort to this little one would certainly lead to death. It is a fleeting memory of a chalky child in the process of having soiled pants removed and changed by an adult, who clearly hates and fears it. Why? Why is this little one so hated? Who is this adult? It isn’t Mother. Is it simply an image conjured from the base descriptions of the few adults I know? But then why is this adult’s fear, its hatred, so palpable in my mind? Who would fear a baby?

Nothing in the chalky child’s features is any clue. In fact, there are no prominent facial features at all. It’s as though the child has no face, no features, as if someone simply pressed their fingers in white clay. It seems that I saw a similar visage along the streets one day, in front of what Mother called a theater. Two masks, one happy, one sad, but neither betraying any individuality or humanity other than the mouths’ direction of joy or pain. This Chalky Child reminds me of the dramatic mask of pain and sorrow. Grief. Despondence.

But, memories are like that, and the fog is thick. The grey-white skin is barely visible through the thickness of my memory. The skin underneath the diaper is the only to have any color, red and bleeding from the apparent digestive incompetence of this pitiful thing. Miserable…and that cry! I envision this miserable bloody mess on a small, white towel or sheet on a small table, a pair of sepia hands changing him. In my vision the table is in total blackness save a single light from above, as though the child were a villain caught in the act by a searchlight, interrogated and sentenced. Part of me perceives that it isn’t the pain of the bleeding skin or rash that causes this child’s pain. No. Rather it is the pain of having been born at all. An abomination born into a life of torture and pity, hated by all in view. This child will never have comfort, and will never know love. Not even from its own mother. That thought makes me sad. I don’t know what I’d do without Mother’s love. Somehow, I find myself loving the Chalky Child, despite the fear and discomfort I feel. What if I’m the only person that does?

That is all I can conjure from my first memory. A dream from my past. Or, a vision of the future?

Today, I no longer see that child when my eyes close, and rarely believe it to be a memory of myself. Left to my quietest thoughts, however, alone in my crib, and sometimes while even awake I hear the cry still. Or sometimes I hear it faintly in alone times with Mother, when she sings and reads to me in my diminutive room. Mother seemingly never hears, and never responds. It’s as loud as a kitchen faucet’s intermittent dripping into a pan, to me, but Mother doesn’t hear a thing. The Chalky Child’s cry exists only for me it seems.

Wait. Did I see her eyebrow twitch in that moment?

No.

Perhaps not.

My father is, well, I don’t know. He was a hero. I’m not sure what that means. I believe his job was to kill, and that he died while doing his job. I don’t know that he is actually dead, but I don’t remember seeing him or ever meeting him. My mother says he wept uncontrollably the day I was born, and that she wept uncontrollably the day he didn’t come home. And in quiet moments she says that he adored me above all things. Father was the love of her life, and mine. Then he was gone. I remember that, of feeling that love. But of my Father, I have no actual memory or mental picture of him in my life.

There are images, however, in my life, all around me, that I do see. These things I am certain of. I see a photo among our few personals in the library. It is in my immediate picture each day as I play. It sits on the highest shelf, bookended between Christie and Mitchell, and a beautiful album adorned with two large M’s, the first beginning to wear on the right side. The photo is of the woman I know as mother, wearing a beautiful white dress, next to a hopelessly handsome man in a suit. I imagine that beautiful man in the photo, adoring my mother, must be my father. The look he has, the gaze toward her, in the photo, is what I remember and feel. Even though I don’t have a mental picture of Father gazing at me that way, I know that he has. Somewhere, I remember. I feel it. The love I see in that photo is what I’m sure love is.

That’s all I remember of my family.

But there is so much more to my story.

Chapter 1

NURSERY SCHOOL

As much as I’ve absorbed over my little time on the planet, there is little I’ve been able to organize into what makes sense. Most of my memories are from the nursery school. Disorganized as such, these memories are rich and plenty. They make sense to a child. The children at Nursery do bizarre, unusual things. But they are the bizarre, unusual things that children do so well, that make us at once charming and irreverent. And the behaviors of the adults caring for us are all the things a caring adult would do. Intuitive. When adults talk to each other, it’s about guns and cinema and nasties and nations. Not intuitive. These things do not make sense to children. But when adults at nursery talk to us, they say other things, and their voices change elevating an octave, as though on television. Ellie, would you like your meal, or Bing, do not bite the other children or Andrew, give the toy back to Mira, or…

Oh. I suppose I’ve neglected to Introduce myself. I am Mira. Mira is my name, so it would seem.

Most of the adults call me Mira, though I’m not sure what it means or whether it is actually a name, my name. I’m not sure if it’s a first or a last name, actually. And I’m not sure what a last name is, or why people have them, so. Some people refer to Mother by that name, calling her Ms. Mira or Mother Mira, or some such. Hard to say. Harder to remember. The adults at nursery just say Mira while looking at me and attempting to give me direction. So my name must be Mira. The other children, well, they do not call me anything at all. They simply exist as background, or to torture me.

The nursery school is quite simple, a modest little room with little color, other than the few toys available to us to play. The walls are a sort of cement, drab and windowless, as are the floors. There are a few rugs breaking up the monotony of grey, but honestly they are more a hazard to tripping young feet than a joy to the eye. The toys are very well made and truly engaging. We have blocks for building. These are quite fun but noisy when they fall and unfortunately to not add much to break up the plainness of the room. Although there are some colored smaller blocks cut into what seem to be intentional shapes and patterns one can get lost in for hours. There is an occasional animal painted for us from the numerous carved animals we use to play Ark and Zoo. I’m sure we are supposed to play farm with them, but the history of Noah and mystery of exotic zoos are so much more apt to peak our imaginations. There are spaces for us to draw and challenge our 8 hour creativity. Our creations are erased at the end of each day, leaving no evidence of our brilliance to take home to our parents.

But I don’t want to make our nursery sound awful. It’s actually quite fun at times. We play when it’s time to play, eat, and sleep as well. And the adults caring for us are very kind to all of the children, and affectionate, if sometimes distracted. And some days, I suspect these are the best days of my life, when I am most fully cared for, and everyone so fully alive. If not for the occasional bullying by some of the children it could nearly be the perfect life. Two of the children often make me feel good when I am with them. They must be my friends, if in fact I’m old enough to have friends.

Ellie is a chubby girl. She is the kind of chubby that adults seem to love in a baby. She is always hungry, and often when I see her she is eating, or planning to eat. She is anyway a sweet, pretty girl, who rarely causes a fuss in Nursery. And she IS pretty, with a perfectly symmetrical face, dark hair, and a sweet, welcoming smile. All the little boys in Nursery stop at least once a day to just stare at her face and her smile. Ellie’s mother dresses her in green, with either bright pink or yellow ribbons, unfortunately. I say unfortunate because, you know, she looks like a melon in the center of the room.

Sadly, Ellie stays in place much of the time, and waits for the world to interact with her. Such as it is. Outside of the boys’ stare schedule, interactions rarely happen unless a child runs by and pulls her hair. Sadly, that too happens a lot. The adults that are so nurturing to the rest of us seem to forget about her much of the time. That makes me sad as well. I stop by her rooted spot at least daily, to give her a quick smile or a hug. I would never want to be forgotten by all of humanity for hours each day. I wonder if she is as sedentary at home, and ignored by her family, as she is here. I can’t imagine, but just in case I visit Ellie often. Mostly I wish I were as pretty as she.

Andrew is the other child I enjoy, so to speak. He is a funny little boy that seems to only want to do whatever I’m doing. Andrew is small, light, and good-natured, but only just so, so that you wonder whether it is in fact nature or illusion. He smiles at me a lot, and his smile is mischievous indeed. All day every day I feel as though I am privy to his unknown plans and schemes, his secret partner in the day’s crimes. I don’t know why I feel that way though, since Andrew mostly follows me, and I don’t get into any trouble. Mostly. His guilty grin ensures that if we do get in trouble, and even when It’s my idea, which it often is, it would never occur to the adults to blame me.

He is the closest thing to a friend I think I have here. More factually, I suppose, is that Andrew likes to take whatever I am playing with. He doesn’t hurt me, and he isn’t mean. He just takes things from me, and plays with them, often in my immediate presence. He smiles at me, and will even give me a small hug, all while he’s absconding with my playthings. It would be comical if it wasn’t also so sweet. And he wants me to follow him and take them back. I do think he likes me because he gazes at me and tries to say my name. Or, it’s possible that he’s lazy and is just saying mama but it sounds like Mira and that makes me happy. Andrew is the baby in his family, and has three older siblings, all girls. I think that’s why Andrew likes me.

He says something which sounds like Mira and hugs me and follows me and takes my toys, and smiles at me like I’m his biggest secret, that he knows something about me that I don’t even know. That’s why I like Andrew.

There is also a set of twins. I don’t know their names. They don’t interact with any of the other children, but play only with each other. They look alike, but I’m pretty sure one is a girl and the other a boy. I see them every day, together, playing, but have never played a game with them. They don’t talk and don’t look at anyone else in Nursery, including the adults. But they are very sweet with each other, sharing time and toys. But they don’t play with me and I don’t know their names, or anything else about them. They confuse me.

Then there’s Bing.

Bing is a little boy in Nursery that I do not like. The adults call him Beautiful Baby Bing or Baby Boy Bing but they should call him Biting Bing. That is all Bing does, is bite all of the children in nursery school, every day. The adults get angry with him when he bites one of us, but not for very long. Bing is in fact a beautiful blond boy with a cute name, and no adult can stay mad at him. So he simply never stops biting the rest of us children. He waddles around with a little hop, a little grin, and never says a word. He just waddles, hops into their arms, and grins. And then he bites. He bites us. And the adults are not immune to his waddle and hop.

There is another reason Bing the Bastard won’t stop biting, (I think I heard Mother call him that once. It made all the adults laugh. I don’t know what that word means, actually). I think another reason Bastard Bing won’t stop biting is that his mother is a mean, angry type, with a constant scowl for her son and all of us in Nursery. She never acknowledges the teachers or the other children, or even Bing for that matter. She floats in and out each day, in a cloud of disdain, and if she says a word, it is one that makes the other adults cringe.

Mother uses another word for her that also starts with B. It might be her name.

This woman hates life, hates us children, hates our parents, hates the adults in nursery, and in all likelihood hates Bing too. When the adults in nursery ask her for help with his behavior, she only yells at them, embarrasses and criticizes them in very personal ways. She hates us all. I’m pretty certain it makes her happy when he bites one of us. She certainly thought I deserved it when he bit my face a few weeks ago. She said so out loud. She said something about Mother that didn’t sound very kind, and me, and then laughed a laugh that wasn’t at all a human laugh but sick. Her laugh was miserable like the chalky child’s cry. Her face reminds me of the drama mask of pain. So similar to the mask of joy, yet in complete contrast in its expression.

She laughed that day, as I went home that night and cried. I don’t usually cry after something happens. I’m just not that type of toddler. I’m not a crier. But Bing and his horrid mother hurt parts of me that I cannot see with their words and that laugh. Bing had bitten my cheek, and it bled, leaving a thin line of open skin close to my eye. Mother was angry. And she was angry with me! She said that I should never allow this to happen to me, though I’m quite sure I don’t know how I could stop him. She was certain I would be forever marred, (like the Chalky Child), and never be a famous model, whatever that meant. My face was now irreparably mutilated. And, somehow, it was my fault, and I was bad, and I would never be beautiful. Bing caused Mother to be angry with me and that hurt in a way that made me cry, all night, in my little bed.

Bing made me bad, or so I thought. I was a disappointment already in my young life. Bing and his B-mother must be evil. I wanted them to die, which I also didn’t truly understand. When I’m older I will understand that that isn’t a nice thing to wish on people. I didn’t wish them to die out of hate or fate, but out of fairness. My father, the man in the photo, died. And he was good. He was a hero! So why should he die while they get to live, biting and spreading filth in the nursery school and in the world. That was wrong of me, however. I would never have really wished my father’s fate on another if I truly understood. I just knew that he was good, death was bad, and Bing and his mother were bad.

Fairness. Not fate.

Chapter 2

BING

I finally found sleep with those thoughts, deeply and firmly planted in my memory, along with the cry of that horrible child. You may be surprised to learn that here my story truly begins. It’s about Bing, and what happened to him. Because that was the last day Bing bit anyone. Ever. And I’m not sure if fate or fairness was the cause. What happened to Bing, the very next day, and each day forward for nearly a month was…he became…good!

Bing never bit or tried to harm any of the children in Nursery again. He never again victimized poor stationary Ellie. He stopped attempting to consume the confusing twins. He smiled at Andrew and me and didn’t try to hurt us, and even began playing with us without incident. He still wobbled and hopped and grinned, but now even the children could love sweet Beautiful Bing. And it wasn’t just what he stopped doing, but what he began doing from that day forward. He actually started being nice all of the children in the nursery school.

He would bring Ellie bits of food when she was hungry, even sharing his own when there wasn’t enough. He learned how to open the pantry to get biscuits and an occasional