Hello again Story Club members. I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most, and the keeper of the strangest, spookiest tales on earth.

Today's chilling tale comes from my beloved five-year-old listener, Oliver.

Oliver's spooktacular story is about something that should have been nothing at all,

but turned out to be something that followed and followed and followed.

Oliver and I call today's chilling tale, only a shadow.

Once there was a girl named Everin Mary.

Ever and Mary was spunky.

Ever and Mary had a mind of her own.

Ever and Mary was like Horrid Henry, Dennis the Men Menace and Ramona Quimby rolled into one.

Basically, she was always defying authority, never listened to her exhausted parents,

and truly believed that she knew best.

So when she stomped down the stairs one day into her family's traditional kitchen and declared,

I'm going to go off and

explore the woods. It didn't really matter when her mom immediately said, oh no, you're not.

Because headstrong, Ever and Mary ran out of the house anyway. Sure, her parents chased after

her down the block. Her mom waved a plaid kitchen towel back and forth as she hollered,

and her dad threatened

to ground her for all eternity.

But Ever and Mary knew her folks would cave, they always caved, and she always came out on top.

And so she ran and ran, making a bee-line straight into the woods.

Once she was surrounded by gnarled trees instead of tic-tackey houses,

Ever and Mary bent over to catch her breath.

...