When Chelsi and her family walked in the door of her Granny’s house for thanksgiving they were greeted with hugs and thoughtful notions. But one question waivered around the home “Where is Lisa?” Lisa is Chelsi’s cousin, she was the type of girl who is always worried about any and everything on the planet. She was staying with Gran’ for the holiday season. But every time the question arose it would deteriorate into the day’s conversations. The question stuck with her throughout the day. She couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t around.

“I thought she was spending the night with y’all,” Chelsi’s grandpa said sounding slightly disappointed like it was her fault Lisa is missing. 

“Yeah, I remember her telling us that you wanted her to stay with you guys for a few days,” Granny claimed, adding to the confusion. 

“I don’t think she ever showed up,” Chelsi said, starting to get worried.  

“Oh, well you know how that girl can be, always gettin’ into some trouble,” her mother said seeming to be frantic and bothersome. 

Then the oven dinged Granny and Chelsi’s mom advanced to the kitchen to help prepare dinner while her dad and grandpa went to the family room to watch football. Chelsi wasn’t at all interested in either one of those activities so she decided to go for a walk. She grabbed her iPod out of her mom’s purse and headed out the door. Putting in her earbuds, opened Spotify and shuffled a playlist called “70-90s Classics”, then headed past the mailbox and turned left on the sidewalk. Walking with confidence like she knew where she was going. Chelsi had stopped in her tracks, looked around at the glistening sky. The leaves were in the midst of falling, she loved the sea of orange and yellow trees, it calmed her and made her feel welcome.                                                                      

After a while of Bon Jovi, Elton John, and Journey, she got tired of music and took her earbuds out and stuffed them in her pocket. Still walking, she found herself at the old abandoned playground. Failing to see the to not enter sign she proceeded on, heading to the swings. As she sat on the cold plastic swing, her mind wondered. Finding herself in a pit of unknown emotions. She stood up, trying to get rid of the feeling she had in her chest. Walking around the playground her arm grazed the cold metal bar that was holding the swings up, which leads to her having a flashback… 

Chelsi was crying, but she didn’t know why she looked up to see her mom struggling to lift something out of the van. Chelsi gets off the floor to help her mother, grabbing one side of the unknown object and lifting it up, out of the van. 

“Listen to me, it’s going to be ok, we just need to get it to a place further away from everyone,” her mom says ushering her to the woods behind the playground. 

As we move the heavy mysterious item past the swings and through the jungle gym, they stop. Chelsi is pondering on a good spot to put it…

Coming back to reality, Chelsi falls to the ground. Feeling dizzy with fear she tries to lay still for a minute until this feeling passes. When the feeling finally settled she decided to start heading back. When Chelsi got back to the house, she wanted to take a shower to get the dirt off before dinner was served. She went up to the bathroom, started the shower while she went to go get a towel. 

As Chelsi is in the shower, she dozes off while staring at the glass barrier. Her attention was caught by water droplets trickling down the glass. She started to sense a memory coming to her. She was in her mother’s van, it was raining, we were parked by the playground. She didn’t know why but her clothes were covered with mud and her mom wasn’t in the car. She knew she couldn’t leave the car but she forgot why…The thought of her muddy clothes made her scrub her skin harder, trying to wash off the memory of the dirt. She found it difficult to feel fully clean, so when she got out of the shower she felt the same as she did going in. 

When Chelsi had gone downstairs, her mother was finishing up the last touches on her famous pumpkin casserole. 

“Dinner should be soon hun,” Granny claimed from the side of the oven where she was cutting the turkey.

“Can’t wait, it smells delicious,” her dad said while walking into the kitchen.

Chelsi, with her attention, caught on the knife. She started to get disturbed, the thought of stabbing and enjoying it like she has done it before. She was confused with the feeling. She wanted that power back, she felt it was taken away from her. 

Chelsi’s mom noticed the lengthy stare and jumped toward her “May I see you outside” she says to a frozen Chelsi, nudging her to come back to reality. 

“Oh… yeah, sure…” she says, sounding distant.

When they get outside her mom starts to freak out at her, going on about getting caught and being careful, but Chelsi wasn’t listening. She was too focused on why she felt that way and how powerful it was. As her mom kept going on and on, Chelsi started to think about how she could have gotten to the point of craving power. But before she could recover the memory her mom snapped at her. 

“Hey! Listen to me, I’m serious if…” she started to explain but Chelsi just muffled the noise to look around at the trees again. There was a sudden knocking on the door. Chelsi’s dad opened the door and told them to stop chatting and come back inside and help with the table. 

Later, after thanksgiving dinner was over Chelsi and her family had gone home to get ready for the yearly trip to the ice cream shop. When Chelsi was adjusting her necklace, her mother came in the door and asked if she was ok, trying to go back to the conversation that Chelsi clearly didn’t want to talk about. 

“What did we even do?” she finally asked her mom. 

“You seriously don’t remember,” her mom replied looking concerned. 

“Remember what,” Chelsi yelled, still very confused, eagerly wanting to know what happened. 

Her mother looked shocked and almost upset. She looked like I had a serious life-threatening problem. Still confused Chelsi stormed away, having been frustrated with her mother she headed to her car to leave ahead of them. She was never allowed to angrily drive but she didn’t care she was so over it, she just wanted a way out. Driving around she had noticed that there were police cars outside the playground she was at earlier. She goes to park the car and tried to see what is going on. 

“Hey Mr. Butler, what’s going on here,” she had asked the officer while walking closer to the scene. 

“ oh, some idiots buried a body in those woods,” he said with a chuckle. 

“ have you identified the body yet,” she asked out of curiosity. 

“No, unfortunately, nobody knows her” he claims sadly.

“ may I take a look, I know a lot of people around here,” Chelsi suggested. 

“Yeah, it’s worth a shot,” she said with a shrug. And led her to the woods where the girl had been buried. 

When she had finally made it to the body, Chelsi could smell the toxic body fumes mixed with bleach. She had covered her nose with her sleeve and looked down at the lifeless body lying at her feet. She took one look at her and everything had come back…

“Oh my god,” she said, putting her hands over her face. She felt a chilling breeze brush her neck. 

“That’s…” she takes a breath, having trouble speaking,

“It’s Lisa,” Chelsi said crying in her hands.

Little did officer Butler know, she wasn’t crying because she was dead, she was crying because she knows how she died. 

“I have to go,” Chelsi said in distress, trying to get out of there as soon as she could. Luckily, he let her go and to “ tell her family,” he said to her. She bolded out of the scene and to her car so fast. She was headed back home to go see her mother, the only other person who would understand and comfort her. When she got back home, her mom was at the door getting ready to leave. Chelsi gets out of the car and runs to her mom, hugs her tight, and starts crying. 

“ I- I did it, mom…” she cried out, the lump in her throat growing bigger. 

“I k- killed her…” she cried out again. This time catching her breath. 

“Oh, shush,” her mother says while patting her head. Feeling like a crazy person. 

“Lisa is- is dead,” Chelsi says to her mother with utter pain, 

“and it’s all my fault” she starts to panic. Thinking about getting caught and the more things she could be capable of doing.

“you gotta get away from me,” she wailed, pushing her mom away. 

“Oh don’t be silly,” her mother said trying to comfort her daughter. 

“No I’m serious, you have to leave, I’m not safe,” she said with a stern look on her face walking further away. Believing that at any moment she could blackout and go kill-happy. 

“Honey, you didn’t mean to do this,” her mom goes on to explain that they were both very drunk and were just trying to get home. 

“Your lying mom, I remember everything,” Chelsi said disagreeing that what happened was a mistake,

“I remember, I had a knife…” she expresses her disbelief further. 

“You were helping me chop carrots for the pot pie” her mother claims, still trying to explain to her the story. 

“No, mom stop, I grabbed the knife out of the drawer and stabbed her,” she said in a tone that worried her mother, she sounded proud. 

“Honey,...” her mother said, trying to calm her down, but it just angered her more.

“Stop!.. Trying to hide it,” Chelsi screamed with a manic half-smile, that chilled her mother to the bone in fear. Her mom’s face is now changing from concern to complete and utter terror. She thought to herself ‘that is not my daughter’ but it indeed was her daughter and she was out for blood again, only this time she wouldn’t have anyone to clean up the mess. 

Chelsi’s mom, now paralyzed in fear, yelled out for help. This only fed Chelsi’s raving persona. Instead of backing down, she cheered with her mother. 

“Yes, come, watch, come see the show” Chelsi yelled out with a bone-chilling chuckle. Every word that came out of her mouth felt like a bullet wound right in her mother’s heart. She felt as though the knife in her daughter’s hand would do less damage than the words shooting out of Chelsi’s mouth. Wishing for a way out, she started to reason with her. 

“Just go ahead and do it” she tempted her daughter,

“You talk a lot of game for someone with a clean knife” she entices her further. 

“Now where is the fun in that,” Chelsi chuckled again. This time trying to sound more intimidating. Her mother tried to run but was afraid of the consequences. Suddenly, the front door opens and her father emerges from the door. Seeing the knife in Chelsi’s hand he puts his hands up. 

“Okay, Chelsi,” he says moving closer, 

“We don’t want to hurt you,” he gets louder as he edges closer, looking over past his wife, she looks behind her, two men in scrubs, holding cuffs and a syringe. 

“We are just here to help,” he says, gesturing to them to come closer as well. 

Chelsi gets angrier as she notices the two men getting closer, she starts to feel vulnerable. The weight of whatever came over her was descending, she let out a cry. 

“No, I didn’t mean to…” she yelps as the men start to cuff her arms back, taking the knife away from the scene. She lets out another yelp but it was cut off by the sedative they gave her. 

Ever since Thanksgiving night, Chelsi spent a little almost a year in a psych ward, and then another two months in rehab from overdosing a month after being let go. Chelsi was tried in court for both the murder of Elisabeth Coray and Alexis Smith, an eight-year-old girl who died years ago, those cases were never solved.  She continues to grow further away from that girl on Thanksgiving day. Though her criminal record restricts her from many things she works a full-time job at a bakery just around the corner to her granny's old house and plans to branch out and open her own someday. Her father visits her shop every day to buy one sweet treat before work, Chelsi and her father have grown a stronger bound and they always remind each other that they will always have somethin’ to be thankful for.