I frenetically try to shove pieces of paper in front of passerbys.
“Have you seen her?” I say, to each and every person I hand a paper to. Most of them take the paper, just in case they ever do see her. But most turn their heads to try and avoid me, or take the paper and throw them on the muddy streets when they think I’m not looking. I loathe these people in this small town. Can’t they see I’m trying to look for my sister? I feel like this is all my fault. If I was just paying attention to her… My thoughts get interrupted when I feel a sudden force bump against me and see papers flying everywhere. I sigh as I try to grab the papers off of the muddy ground. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” someone says.
“It’s fine...” My voice trails off when I look at the girl in front of me. She frantically tries to help me, as her light brown hair falls gently down, past her shoulders. She picks up the rest of the papers and sticks them out in front of me.
“Here you go,” she says as she looks up at me with those eyes as green as newly fresh grass. I try to find words that don’t show how distracted I am.
“T-thanks,” I say. She quickly gets up and I do too. Her eyebrows furrow as she starts to get a better look at my face.
“Have I seen you before?” she asks.
“I-I don’t know.” I think about all the faces I pass in the school hallway.. All strangers, each with a different story, a different life, different mindsets. I look back at her face again and realize something.
“Are you in my english class?” I ask. The lines in her forehead diminishes and a smile starts to appear on her face, like the satisfaction of finally knowing something that nagged at you for the longest time.
“Oh, yeah,” she laughs, “I’m Nancy.” She holds out her hand and I look at it before shaking it.
“I’m Caleb.”
“Cool.” She looks at the papers in my hand and I remember what I’m supposed to be doing. I frantically look at the messed up sheets of paper in my arm and try to grab one. She sees I’m struggling and grabs one for me.
“Thanks,” I sigh. She smiles at me, but her smiles slowly fades when she looks at the paper.
“Have you seen her?” I ask, “She’s my sister. You might’ve seen her around school before. She’s been missing for three days now, and I have no idea where she is. Have you seen-?”
“Y-yeah, I’ve seen her,” Nancy quietly says, still staring at the paper with a horrified face. The mixture of butterflies and knots in my stomach start to unravel and fly away, and excitement starts to replace it.
“Really?! Where?” I ask.
“No, no, no” she immediately responds, still quiet, “I mean I’ve just seen her around school. That’s all.”
“Oh,” I nod. The butterflies fly back in my stomach and the knots tie themselves back up; excitement flees my body. She looks back up at me and sees the anxiety and disappointment on my face. Her mouth opens up as she tries to find the words on how to respond.
“Hey,” she places a hand on my shoulder, “It’s gonna be okay. You’ll find your sister soon, don’t worry.” I look at her, fear rushing through my bloodstream.
“I.. I can help you sometime. If you want..?” she asks.
“Really? That’d be great, thank you.” I hug her. She was shocked at first, but she eventually hugs me back.
I pull away as a string of hope generates inside of me.
“So.. when should we meet up?” I ask. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. It’s like she didn’t think I would take her offer seriously.
“Uhh... Tomorrow.. After school...” she drags out.
“Great,” I smile at her, “I’ll see you then.” She smiles and I smile back. I haven’t smiled since my sister went missing. I feel like it’s all my fault. But with Nancy’s help, I’ll be able to fix my mistake. I can find Madison, and be her older brother again. Except this time, I’ll never leave her home alone again. I’ll always be by her side to protect her. The next day, I show up to Nancy’s house. I knock on her door and it flings open. Nancy’s eyes widen as they land on me.
“C-Caleb,” she stumbles, “W-what are you doing here?”
“I need your help with Madison... Remember?”.
“Y-yeah, but.. How you do know-?”
“I didn’t have your number, so your friend told me where you live. Sorry, I don’t mean to be a creep-”
“No, no,” she interrupts and smiles at me, “It’s okay.” I smile back and we stand there for a while, until her smile fades.
“Uh... What’s wrong?” I ask. She shakes her head.
“Nothing. Um, come in.” She opens the door wider for me to come in. I smile a thanks as I walk in her house. The room I’m in is about medium sized, golden dispersed all over the walls, pale-colored furniture, with brown decorations dotted around the room.
“You have a nice house,” I say, looking around.
“Thanks,” she says. She looks at the floor and plays with her feet. I can sense she’s uneasy, so I try to quickly get our plan of action in the making.
“So... What should we do first?” I ask.
“Well...” she says, “I would suggest we can make a bigger sign, but I would need my dad’s permission, and he’s not home”.
“Can you call him?” I ask.
“He doesn’t have a phone. Plus, he just works out in the woods behind my house, not far from here,” she points in a direction behind me.
“That’s okay, we can just wait until when he comes back to ask him”.
She seems a little hesitant, but she sighs and goes over to the couch to sit down.
It gets to about nine o’clock, and it’s starting to get dark. I turn over to Nancy, who continues watching the tv.
“Do you know where your dad is?” I ask.
“Um.. yeah. But I think he’s gonna need some more time. Sorry,” she says sheepishly.
“It’s fine. Do you know what’s taking him so long?”
“Uh, maybe what he’s working on. I think it’s just hard to do alone-”
“I can help,” I say. For some reason, that seems to trigger something in Nancy. Her body fidgets on the couch as her eyes widen and her face turns red.
“N-no no no,” she says with a shaky breath.
“Oh, come on. It’ll just take a sec.” I stand up and head out the door and I can still here Nancy behind me protesting. She grabs my hand and I spin around to face her. Her face is now full of genuine fear.
“Caleb,” she says slowly, like I’m a child, “You don’t want to do this.”
“Nancy, it’s going to be okay. I’ll just help your dad. The more help he has, the faster we can work on finding my sister.” She stares at me with helplessness and fear as I slowly get out of her grip. I look into her eyes with the same emotions her face is wearing.
“Nancy, please,” I plead, holding her hand as it is now off my wrist, “I need to find her. We need help”. She stares back at me, her mouth wide open, but she doesn’t say a word. I take her silence as an agreement and walk into the woods behind her house. I don’t know exactly where he is, but I know it shouldn’t be that hard to find someone. I walk a little further into the woods when I hear something. It sounds like... digging.
“Hello? Is someone here?” I ask. The noise abruptly stops. I start to walk a little further in, towards where I heard the noise.
“Hello? Is this Nancy’s dad?” I ask. As soon as I take another step forward, I fall into a hole. It’s too dark to see anything.
“HELLO?!” I scream. When my voice stops echoing, I hear footsteps running away. I think the coast is clear, so I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. My heart and stomach drop at what I see. Turns out, yes I am in a hole.. But, I’m not alone. The body I see is about medium sized, golden leaves dispersed all over her, skin as white as paper, with brown freckles dotted around her body. I back away to the edge of the hole when I hear a man’s voice scream, “NANCY!!”. So, I guess I found Madison.