"And where do you think you're going?" Not-Polly almost shrieked as Lizzy lifted herself up from her chair. "You can't go chasing after your fictional friend, he's gone!"
"I think it's safe to say he isn't fictional," replied Lizzy sardonically, "also, I know I can't follow him. I never could, no matter how much I wanted to."
She walked away from the table, heading into the darkness and as her eyes adjusted, she began to see the field she and Fred had been in before. The sky was black and starless. On the horizon, a sun was setting. It was golden, but the light it gave off was an unhealthy green.
"That's exactly your problem," Not-Polly complained, walking after her, "you always had your head in the clouds, wishing for things that couldn't be. It's why I locked him up, so that you could finally settle in the real world."
"You locked him up because you liked having that power over me," spat Lizzy. She turned to her mother, "why did you enjoy seeing me upset?"
Not-Polly gave her a flat look, "I'm part of you, stupid. So why don't you answer your own question as that's what you're doing anyway?"
"I used to think I deserved to be treated that way, but later, after Fred, I decided that it must have been because you were lonely and bitter and needed someone to punish for your life not turning out how you wanted it to."
Not-Polly smiled nastily, "and you were the main reason I never got to live the life I deserved."
"But it was more than that," said Lizzy, frowning, "because you were a person outside of me. You weren't just Polly Cronin, mother of Lizzy and wife of Nigel. You were an individual soul with your own history and secrets and hidden inner person. And that negativity that spilt out onto me, that came from a deep place."
"Maybe you should have asked me," suggested Not-Polly bitterly, "instead of only now realising that my whole world didn't revolve around you."
"Maybe I could have," Lizzy felt tears forming, "maybe we could have been friends, eventually. But you died. And so now we'll never get that chance."
Not-Polly stepped forward as if to say something, but then stopped.
Instead, a young voice said, "she was haunted, I think."
Lizzy turned to see her younger self, from when she was around seventeen, coming through the dark field towards them.
"Haunted?" asked Lizzy, "from what?"
Teen-Lizzy pointed.
In the far reaches of the field, near where a golden-green sun was setting, was a shadow floating above the strangely lit, long grass.
Lizzy squinted. What was-?
She could just make out the tendrils writhing about around the black and floating figure.
"It's a shade," said Teen-Lizzy.
"Her sister," muttered Lizzy, her skin crawling as she looked at the twisted version of a child, "mom said that her sister had been turned into a shade."
Teen-Lizzy turned to look at Lizzy, "I don't think we'll ever know why Polly didn't love us. But part of it was to do with that thing."
"Well," breathed Lizzy, "then let's go talk to it."