Time moves too fast.
It's been thirty five years and it's still too painful to think about her.

Not that thoughts make much of a difference.
Everyone still talks about her.

The Haunting of Sierra.

To the people of this town, she's nothing more than a novelty.
Nothing more than a story to tame unruly children.

Even after thirty five years, I still remember everything as clear as daylight.

Sienna's bedroom window used to look out onto my bedroom window.

I didn't think much of it at first.

Then things changed when...well...when she changed.
Every night she would undress in front of her bedroom window and it would drive me crazy.

The walls between our houses were low, so one day I went out to talk to her.

She was beautiful in every way.
Her long, dark brown hair caught the sun just the right way that day.
Her tan skin looked smooth.
I wanted to find out if it was as smooth as it looked.
Her smile was infectious.
Her eyes lit up when I approached the wall.

My heart skipped a beat, I swear.

I didn't even know what I was going to say to her.
All I knew is that I wanted to talk to her.
All I knew is that I wanted to know the sound of her voice.
All I knew was that she made my hands tremble.
I stuffed them into the pockets of my jeans.

"Hi!" I yelled.
Yelling wasn't necessary, we couldn't have been more than three meters apart, but I couldn't hold my feelings of excitement in.

She walked up to the wall, a little unsteadily.
Maybe she was as nervous as I was.

"Hi." She smiled that infectious smile again.
The kind of smile that made me need to bite down on the inside of my cheeks to avoid smiling back and seeming too eager.

"What's your name?" I asked. I remember thinking that I sounded like a five year old trying to make a new friend. I wanted to hit myself in the face.

"Sienna." She was so confident and comfortable.

"I'm François." I tried to sound as confident, but it was no easy task.

"It's nice to meet you." She said sincerely.

We made polite conversation for a little while after that.

I went home that evening plagued with thoughts of her.
I replayed our conversation a thousand times in my head.
I don't think I slept at all that night.

The next day I asked her if she wanted to hang out a little.
She agreed to meet me at midnight in the field behind our houses.
I was thrilled.
That night I jumped over the wall of my backyard just in time to see her wiggle through a gap in her wooden fencing.

"Perfect timing." She said, smiling.
This time I couldn't hide it anymore.
I smiled back.
We walked a little further into the field until we found a tree to sit under.
We talked and talked for about three hours.
I felt as if I had known her my entire life.

"I've seen you painting in your room." She said, tearing a leaf apart.

"Yeah. It's just a hobby, though." I had mumbled.
I had always been an artist, even from a young age. As I got older, that passion for art grew stronger.

"Maybe you could paint me sometime." She winked at me.

I couldn't really tell if she was serious or if she was joking.

"You're already a work of art." I whispered.

The next night, we met up in the field.
I brought a pencil, an eraser and a sketch book with me.

She settled down under the tree and I began sketching her.
It was dark, but I didn't need light.
I had already memorized all of her features.

"Sit still." I whispered as I traced her eyes.

"It's hard." She said quietly.

I got lost while sketching her.
I got lost in the line of her jaw.
I got lost in the depth of her eyes.
I got lost in the shape of her lips.

"It's like looking in a mirror." She said, sounding surprised as she appraised the drawing.
She smiled at the drawing, I just smiled at her.
In that moment I fell deeply in love with her.

She went home with the drawing that night, but I'm not sure whatever happened to it.

The day Sienna went missing was the worst day of my life and it always will be.

It was an ordinary night.
Meet at midnight by the tree in the field.
Wait a little if the other one is running late.
Simple.
Nothing complicated.
At around 11:55am, I jumped over the wall in the backyard and walked towards the tree.

That is when I saw Sienna for the last time.

She was walking off with some guy I'd never seen in my life.
I followed them as quietly as possible.
They'd been walking for a while.
And then he suddenly covered her mouth and dragged her off violently.

I was a seventeen year old coward.
I never went after them.
I ran home.
I never fought for Sienna and I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself.

I never told anyone about what happened at first.
I thought that maybe she knew him and that they were just messing around.

After Sienna had been gone for a few weeks, I saw her at her bedroom window, staring out at me.

It wasn't the same Sienna.
She was covered in blood and bruises and wore a dirty, white shirt.

It wasn't my Sienna.
It wasn't the beautiful girl I used to hold hands with and laugh with.
It wasn't my Sienna.

It was something demonic.

That's when I came clean and told everyone about what I knew.

After that, I heard a lot of strange stories.

Some people claimed to have seen her lurking around under streetlights.

Some people claimed to have seen her in public bathrooms, pacing up and down outside of the stalls.

Some people claimed to have seen her staring into their living room windows.

The thing that I find the strangest is that people keep painting and drawing her.
Some sources say that her captor tortured her and painted pictures of her torture.
Some people say that the town's people keep painting or drawing her in remembrance.
Some people have made ridiculously outrageous claims stating that paintings of her keep turning up in odd places.
The common urban legends tell us that anyone who touches a painting or drawing of her will be possessed by her.

Over the years, we've had many priests, religious leaders and traditional healers try to exorcise the town.
But they keep coming to the same conclusion:
Her Spirit is cursed.