Verity Angel, Aged Seven

Case Summary, recorded by Detective 1143:

“Verity Angel, a normal seven year old girl, suddenly began showing signs of supernatural ability. What started as mild amusement from her parents quickly escalated as it was shown that what was happening was real and the parents were forced to contain their child. This action didn’t bode well for any party involved. With the ability she gained, she could have done anything and gone anywhere but still she returned to the leisure centre claiming it to be home”.

Events read by: Doctor Paul Jones-Oswold

Verity’s story began on a warm morning when her Mother bought her in for an hour of soft play. By the time she returned for her afternoon swimming lesson, she had already begun to change.

Verity lived in a three bedroom house, tucked neatly away with other identical houses in a small cul-de-sac. Though young in years, Verity was especially bright and the apple of her parent’s eye. Though she only had one scheduled swim lesson a week with a swim instructor, her Mother insisted that she swim a further hour every other afternoon during the week. Sometimes she was supervised by her Mother but mostly it was the Nanny that accompanied her.

After all as she was under eight someone needed to be in the water with her and her Mother had no like for water. Her parent’s expected great things from their daughter and nothing less than perfect was accepted.

Due to the extended amount of time she spent at the leisure centre, she’d gotten to know the staff that worked their quite well. They all saw her as a little darling but of course that all changed.

Between her hours in soft play and the distance it took to walk from soft play to the main doors, something happened. Whether something inhabited her or merely changed her DNA it isn’t certain but she did feel a small shiver run up her spine. It was a shiver, people have them all the time and nothing was thought of it.

The first sign of something different was when Verity handed her Mother a tissue and one second later her Mother sneezed. Then it was closing a window just before a bird flew through it and following that it was placing a bowl on the floor, which moments later was filled with coffee her Father had just spilt.

 Her parents were bemused and scared, what had happened to their beloved daughter? There was no one in the family like her and they didn’t want her to go the way of Auntie Joan – who after many years of insisting that fairies were real, ended up in an institute.

As her parents continued to worry about her changes in their daughter, Verity continued on as usual. Though her parents expected great things from her, they didn’t spend a lot of time with her. She was an intelligent child but she missed the attention she knew other children her age were getting.

She was good at entertaining herself but it wasn’t the same. She had an elegant; three story white dollhouse, complete with a garden and garage that had been given to her the Christmas before. Like many children, she passed the time with hours of make believe. However, where it used to be her own hands that made the dolls move, they now moved on their own accord. The dolls eyes became dark and black the more they moved, ordered around by their master.

At first she didn’t even realise she was doing it, she just saw it as an interesting development but as the dolls continued to act out the scenarios in her head, she realised the control she had over the dolls and she liked it. That small feeling was, as they say, the beginning of her downfall.

The events of the leisure centre happened during one particularly boring morning and continued throughout the week. Upon being called to this stand, a witness had this to say of Miss Verity Angel:

“It was always such a happy occasion to see Miss Verity enter the leisure centre, she was a very bubbly young girl and could make almost anyone smile.

She started her day in the café, the café wasn’t yet open and she was waiting on her Nanny who was having trouble with the packing ticket machine. As Verity looked through the glass to the gym, a smirk appeared to change colour.

Then, quite impossibly, items in the gym started to move and float. I was scared and I know others were as well, when the weights started moving everyone evacuated the gym, they didn’t want any incidents and thing seemed to have the potential to get worse. Then when Verity’s Nanny arrived and led her away to the swimming pool, everything stopped moving and floating”.

It is said that no further incident happened while Miss Verity visited the leisure centre that day. She went home with the Nanny and spent the afternoon playing with her toys. Her parents had started to distance themselves from their daughter, not wanting to ‘catch’ what she had, so the only social interactions she had at home were with the Nanny.

The next day after Verity and her Nanny had had their usual swim, as a treat, Verity was allowed into soft play for an hour. Concern came after hearing the children shout and scream in happiness – a happiness that was way beyond what a soft play centre could provide. Upon inspection, the staff found Miss Verity sat crossed legged in the middle of the ball pond with balls floating all around her. The staff didn’t know what to make of this phenomenon or what to do about it. No one was hurt and the children were having fun, so a member of staff was stationed in soft play as a precaution and that’s all that was done on the matter.

It was quite the phenomenon she was creating and it was quite surprising that no one had yet reported the child. Indeed when the police were finally called in, they asked why they hadn’t been called earlier and the answer they’d been given had been about trying to protect the girl from isolation by the government.

There were days when Verity acted like the normal girl she once was. She answered her parent’s questions with politeness, remembered her P’s and Q’s and treated her Nanny with the upmost care and respect. These were the days that made her parent’s remember that she was their child and they loved her. They often watched as she played with her toys or sat in the treehouse in the garden and they’d often worried about her. She was their only daughter and they hadn’t been that active in Verity’s childhood. They had, when asked by a case officer on the ‘neglect’ of their child, said it was ‘the curse of the rich parent; to forever be torn between the job and the child’. Needless to say, the judge hadn’t been impressed with this explanation.

The case of Verity Angel was the most confusing, the accounts were often jumbled and lacked information. It was quite a puzzle for the police to work out but it took a long time for people to realise that if they’d asked Verity, they would have realised earlier the reason for her actions.

When questioned on the stand, Verity admitted this statement ‘”I felt alone, I’m only seven and I know more about being alone than anyone I know. My parents are rich and I know others would kill for that, but I just wanted a family where my parents looked after me as they should and didn’t always work. I would have liked them to be there for swimming lessons and recitals and to play with me in my treehouse. I only did it to get their attention”.

For the time being, Verity was taken away from her parents and put into the care of her Nanny at her Nanny’s home. The parents have been asked to take a good hard look at their selves and decide what is more important, their daughter or their jobs.