Invisible playmates: Anna and the angels

This fantasy short story is about Christa, who is worried about her eight-year-old daughter, Anna. The girl is in contact with supernatural powers and talks to invisible playmates – angels. Christa is looking for ways to protect Anna from these influences. The situation is further complicated by a series of inexplicable events.

'I wish you wouldn't tell the child so much about these things.' Christa's voice sounded tired, as it does when something has been said many times without anything changing. She knew her mother would either remain silent out of offence, or try to convince her. Christa didn't know which she should fear more. Luckily, however, it was already after seven in the evening and time to go.

'Anna, let's go home. Give Grandma a kiss and then we can leave.' She hoped this would spare her the usual lecture. It looked like she would be lucky, because 'Grandma' had her lips pressed tightly together and her eyes were shining suspiciously. Christa's young daughter, Anna, ran out of the living room and threw her arms around her grandmother's neck kissing her on the cheek. Grandma stood a little stiffly at first, but then she relaxed and accepted her granddaughter's embrace. She said nothing in response to Christa's deliberately cheerful 'Good night, Mum. See you tomorrow.'

When the front door finally closed behind Christa and Anna, the woman breathed a sigh of relief. Having someone to look after Anna after school was a blessing, even if it was difficult with her grandmother. Christa worked until after five o'clock and didn't want the child to be alone for so long. Although, it occurred to her, maybe anything was better than this.

'Why was Grandma acting so strange, Mummy? She didn't even say goodnight properly.' Anna's voice brought Christa back to the present, and she replied, without much conviction: 'No, sweetheart. Everything's fine.' There was a short pause while the little girl thought hard. 'No, that's not true. She looked at me like that, you know. Did you have an argument?' Christa berated herself for resorting to a white lie, but she was reluctant to discuss the problem with her eight-year-old daughter. So, she sidestepped the question, saying: 'Grandma will be back to her usual self tomorrow, so don't worry.'

Anna said nothing more. Instead, she hugged her mother and chatted briefly about school, her friends, and how the teacher had given her a star that day. Because she had drawn so beautifully. 'What was in the picture?', Christa asked. When Anna proudly replied: 'An angel, Mummy', that strange feeling flashed through Christa again. 'Angels', she thought bitterly. It had all started with angels. Her mother hadn't been particularly religious, so Christa hadn't been raised in that way.

She had been baptised Catholic and had only ever been inside of a church on rare occasions, just like her parents. But when her father died two years ago, her mother had changed. One of her friends was into fortune-telling and similar practices, and earned some extra money by reading cards. Christa's mother started to take an interest in these things, which wasn't a problem at first. Then one day, she came home and said, fascinated: 'Believe it or not, I had contact with my personal guardian angel today.'

Helga, her friend, had discovered a new passion: angel cards. This seemed to distract Christa's mother from her loss and appeared to benefit her, so Christa refrained from commenting. However, over time, her enthusiasm turned into something of an obsession, because Grandma went to see Helga at least three times a week to seek advice from her guardian angel. She even took Anna with her once, but after an argument, she promised not to take the child there anymore. Helga didn't charge Grandma, but that didn't make things any better, because Grandma's flat had been transformed into a kitsch shop full of winged creatures.

Now, angels were everywhere. On every shelf, and of course on the walls. There were beautiful creatures with serious faces, as well as naked children with tiny wings. They were simply everywhere. Then Grandma and her friend fell out. There had been disagreements about who was actually the medium. Grandma had discovered that she could hear the voice of her guardian angel just as well as, if not better than, the medium, and that she also had the strongest connection to these beings.

What Christa called the 'winged terror' then began. Grandma made a lot of new acquaintances and knew many angels by name. She talked about them as if they were members of her bowling club, much to Christa's disapproval. No outing or trip to the cinema could be planned without consulting the angels. Old friendships ended because 'the angels say that person is bad company'. She drew little Anna into it, too. The girl was probably the first and only child to be assigned invisible playmates.

Once, Christa joined her grandmother and daughter while they played Ludo. They had set up pieces for all six players and took turns rolling the dice for everyone. Anna said excitedly: 'The angels are playing with us, Mummy.' She pointed to the empty seats and tried to introduce the invisible players by name, for which she received a stern telling-off from her grandmother. Christa took her sniffling daughter home, hoping that she would now have had her fill of the angels. But the next morning, Anna had simply said: 'They're not angry with me, and Grandma is fine again. They told me that last night.' Then, innocently, she added: 'You mustn't say their names, otherwise they won't come to us anymore.'

Since then, Christa had been desperately looking for another place to live, but it wasn't easy. As a single parent, money was also an issue, but Anna didn't want to hear anything about it.

The situation was slowly becoming frightening, because Grandma would sometimes stand there with her head tilted and move her lips silently. Once, Christa mentioned in passing that she would like to know if her colleague would be hired after their probationary period. Her mother raised her hand, closed her eyes, and after a while said: 'No, she won't. She'll have an accident.' Christa found this rather distasteful, but when she heard a week later that her colleague had died in a car accident, she felt terrible. She didn't mention it to her grandmother, but she looked at Christa several times with a strange expression on her face. She smiled in a way that Christa didn't like at all.

Christa felt increasingly uncomfortable in her mother's flat. The angel figurines frightened her. She felt as though they were sneering at her behind her back. She became seriously concerned when she found herself turning around quickly only to see the peaceful, smooth faces she had expected. She didn't admit to herself how frightened she was by her mother's expression when she emerged from the kitchen. She then threw away all the angel figurines in Anna's room. The child didn't say a word about it.

Yesterday there had been another argument because Christa wouldn't let Anna spend the night at her grandmother's house. This hadn't been a problem before, but Christa was now afraid of it. Anna begged to be allowed to go, and her grandmother took offence. Anna didn't ask that evening, but it would be an issue again by tomorrow at the latest. Christa was afraid to let her daughter sleep in that flat. She had had nightmares about it, but couldn't remember them exactly. She only remembered waking up drenched in sweat, her mouth still open from screaming, and her jaws cramped. Around her, she could hear this noise. A terrible noise, like wings. But she had also heard it when Anna was nearby and in her grandmother's flat.

That evening, when Anna had fallen asleep after praying extensively to the angels, the telephone rang. 'It's me, Grandma. I'm sorry. I'm an old woman and sometimes a little strange.' Then came an artificial laugh that Christa had never heard from her mother before. 'I just don't want to be alone at night sometimes. Let the little mouse sleep with me tomorrow. You know the flat is so empty since Papa died.'

'Empty?', Christa thought. 'Hardly, if you count your winged lodgers.' But against her will, she was touched. 'We'll go for ice cream and then maybe to the cinema tomorrow. After all, it's Friday. On Sunday morning, you'll pick her up, and you'll have the whole day to yourselves.' Grandma sounded more reasonable than she had in a long time. Maybe it was Christa herself who was seeing things that weren't there. Christa agreed, as if under duress, and then hung up.

The next morning, Anna was in a surprisingly good mood. She was usually grumpy in the mornings. She looked happy and threw her arms around Christa's neck. 'Thank you, Mummy, thank you, thank you, thank you.' 'Yes, what for, sweetie?', Christa asked. 'For letting me sleep at Grandma's tonight.' Christa froze, because she was sure the child had already been asleep when she spoke to Grandma on the phone.

'Today we're going to play a very special game, but I'm not really allowed to tell you. Otherwise they won't come, Grandma told me.' Christa smiled at the child and hugged her, struggling to control herself.

That day, Christa left work early and stood at the school gate to pick up Anna. Then she took the astonished child home with her. Anna resisted, didn't want to go and started crying. Christa locked the door, sat down next to Anna, who had thrown herself across her bed, and tried to calm her down while she begged, screamed, cried and hit her mother.

Christa couldn't remember exactly what happened later. She only remembered that the noise around her and her child grew louder and louder. It was so loud that it sounded like a storm. The telephone wouldn't stop ringing either. Christa eventually pulled the plug out of the socket. Hours passed, and eventually the child was exhausted. She stopped crying, her little face covered in sweat, and fell asleep.

Christa kept watch, never leaving the room. She couldn't say when the noise had stopped. But when peace finally returned, the first light of morning crept in through the gaps in the closed shutters. Then Christa knew it was over.

The emergency doctor, who had been called by a relative and confirmed the old lady's death, told the paramedics who had brought a stretcher up: 'I've rarely seen anyone succumb to a severe heart attack while kneeling. But you never stop learning. It's a strange atmosphere for an old woman, with all these angel figures everywhere. And they all have black wings.'

© 'Invisible playmates: Anna and the angels': Fantasy short story and drawing of the angel by Ilona E. Schwartz (translated by Izabel Comati), 02/2026.