Vanished

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

~Eleanor Roosevelt 

_____________

Brookhaven didn’t look like a town; it looked like the shadow of a town. Like a memory that was fading into the surrounding wilderness.

The lake was the first sign of the town to appear, its edges creeping close to the side of the main road. The shore lay some distance below, half-obscured by tall, thick trees that rose up from the hillside. The waters looked dark and silvery in the early morning light.

The sun was just starting to rise over low, grey clouds, chasing away the semi-darkness that had settled over his windows when he’d first started driving. It hadn’t done much to chase away the cold, however. That was still sharp even inside the car, heavy in the air.

It had been a long time since he’d been here. Not since he was a kid.

At least from a distance, nothing much had changed in all those years. The town looked like what he remembered of it, though admittedly his memories of this place were murky sometimes. He’d never had a particular image of it in his mind’s eye. Didn’t give it much thought. Once he’d left, he’d never had any desire to look back.

He’d never thought he would come back to this town. And hadn’t planned to. But then this case came across his desk. You grew up there, kid, the memory of his captain’s voice echoed, sharp as a bell. You’d know the lay of the land best. Local PD called asking for assistance a couple days back. A girl just went missing and they need all the hands they can get. They don’t have the resources our department does. It’s practically a one-man show out there, and they’ve been struggling to keep up with the caseload. Lots of people tend to go missing in that area.

Jacob glanced at the open folder sitting on his passenger’s seat. On top of the thin collection of papers inside was a photograph of a young, dark-haired girl with troubled eyes. It was an older photo, taken a few years ago.

Mara Hastings, the case file noted below, along with a list of the standard identifying details that were recorded for each missing person’s report.

Age: 17

Sex: Female

Height: 5’3

Weight: 100 lbs

Hair: Black

Eyes: Blue

Details: Last seen around 12:30 PM on December 7th at Rosewater High School. Possible runaway.

He looked away, feeling the same cold shiver in his gut he’d gotten when he first looked at the picture. He’d never quite gotten used to seeing photographs of the missing. Some of his colleagues tended to approach their cases in a detached, businesslike way, as if the missing person was just a face on paper and not someone with a life and thoughts and dreams all their own. He couldn’t blame them. He wished he could do that, sometimes. In the end these people were strangers to him. But every case felt personal.

There’s a fine line between passion and obsession, his captain would often tell him, staring at him like he reminded him of someone he once knew. I’ve seen guys who get too attached to a case and can’t let it go. It starts to impact their work, their families, everything in their lives. It eats them alive every night. It’s a terrible road to go down. Sometimes people aren’t ever found, even though we do everything we can. Every cop has to know when to walk away.

That was the toughest part of being a cop. He’d been drawn to this field because he’d wanted to help other people, but sometimes there was nothing he could do to heal the void left in a family with a missing relative. Those cases were always the hardest on him.

As he drove into the outskirts of town, the streets were quiet and still, as if the town had yet to come to life with the morning. A haze of sunlight hung over the buildings, giving them a soft, shimmering glow, almost like something out of a dream.

This town had sometimes felt like that when he was a kid, he thought. As he watched the buildings go by, it felt like he was staring at the placid surface of a deep, dark lake, unable to see what lay beneath. That cold sense of unease felt so familiar.

He’d seen things he couldn’t explain here.

You’re a very special boy, Jacob, a cold, whisper-smooth voice echoed in the back of his mind, and a chill passed through him. He remembered that voice. He heard that voice in his nightmares, sometimes, during those hard nights when he would have dreams of a bright white room.

Over the years, he’d gotten good at pushing those memories down to a deep, quiet place where they didn’t hurt anymore, where they lay almost forgotten.

But the ghosts of this place never rested for long.

The police station was in the center of town, a small, square building with fading grey walls. He pulled into the lot and stepped out of the car, approaching the entrance. The air outside was damp and heavy, thick with a cold that seemed to run right through him despite the jacket he wore.

It still lingered after he’d stepped inside the station, entering the reception area. The room looked sleepy and still like the town outside, a beige, dimly-lit space with little else beside a bench and the front desk.

There was a woman at the desk who looked up as he approached. She was young, maybe twenty, with red hair and bright blue eyes. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Detective Jacob Cavanaugh with Maine State PD. Sheriff Mayfield knows I’m coming. May I speak with her?”

“She’s not in right now. She got a call an hour ago.” The woman replied. “She should be back soon, though. If you like, you can wait in her office. I’ll let her know you’re here once she gets back.”

“Sure.” He nodded and she moved around the desk, unlocking a small, swinging door to let him pass, and he followed her past the desk and into a short hallway. She stopped at a door halfway down the corridor, unlocking it and stepping aside before he walked into the office. “Thanks.” He continued, pausing after a few steps and turning to nod to her.

She smiled, closing the door without another word, and he turned back to face the room. There was a warmer feel about this office, a touch of life and personality, that he had not felt in the reception area. A desk sat at the end of the room, half-covered in papers, along with some framed pictures and a few trinkets. A silver name plate sat at the edge of the desk, displaying her name and title in black letters:

Erika Mayfield

Sheriff, Brookhaven PD

There was a large whiteboard on the wall beside the desk, and he walked closer to look. A number of photographs had been attached to the board, labeled as either Missing or Deceased. Mara’s photograph was not present; these must have been from previous cases the sheriff had worked, he thought, cases that were still unsolved. There did not seem to be a discernible pattern in the collection of pictures. They were of both boys and girls, young and old.

There was a brief section of detailed notes written beneath each photograph, identifying the person and the circumstance of their disappearance or death.

Deputy John Marsden, one read, beneath a photo of a smiling, clean-cut man in a uniform. Coroner reports homicide unlikely. Manner of death still suspicious. Wounds on the victim do not seem to match any known animal in the area.

In the center of the board was a smaller body of notes, written in short, choppy sentences.

Product’s street name is White Dahlia. Named for raw material used to manufacture.

Plant is peculiar to the region. Only grows in select areas of the woods near Brookhaven.

Manufactured=local. Manufacturer also dealer?

Relatively new to market. Popular with tourists. Growing local demand.

Overdose deaths rare. Typically causes psychotic symptoms.

He frowned. White Dahlia…for some reason he felt like he recognized the name. He remembered it from somewhere, but where? He tried to connect it with a memory, but his mind felt oddly foggy.

Then the door opened, jerking him out of his thoughts, and he turned away from the board. A young, brown-haired woman entered the office, approaching him and shaking his hand. Her grip was firm, confident.

“Glad you could make it, Detective Cavanaugh.” She said, smiling warmly. Her eyes were bright, but there was a world-weary look about her face, something that betrayed an inner restlessness. “Appreciate you coming down to help us out.”

“Of course.” Jacob nodded, following her to her desk and sitting in a chair opposite hers. He tried to focus his thoughts on the case in front of him, on the missing girl, but something about what he’d seen on the board was still tugging at him. “What is White Dahlia, if you don’t mind me asking?” He continued, looking back at the board on her wall.

Erika glanced at the board. “A new hallucinogenic drug.” She replied. “It’s been on the rise here recently, especially among tourists. It’s much stronger than LSD.”

He nodded, hoping the information would stir up something in his mind, but it didn’t. “Do you think this drug or the trade itself is connected with Mara’s disappearance?”

“No.” The sheriff shook her head. “The girl wasn’t a user. From what I can tell, she wasn’t involved in that in any way.”

“Do you think she’s a runaway?” He asked, setting his folder on his lap and opening it, sifting through the papers. “I noticed she didn’t have any relatives mentioned in the reports. Does she have any living family?”

“No, she doesn’t. Normally I wouldn’t jump straight to the idea she ran away, but it’s very possible, in this case.” Fields said, her face grave, deep in thought. “Mara had a history of psychological disturbances, which worsened significantly after her mother died. She’s been in foster care for the past three years at the Sanctuary, a group home for troubled girls.”

“I’d like to head over there first, talk to the other girls.” Jacob said. The girl had a harder life than anyone her age should have, he thought. He knew what it was like to be afraid of your own mind. “They might be able to help.”

“Sounds good to me.” Erika said, rising from her seat. “I‘ll give you a ride.”

____________

The Sanctuary did not give the impression its name suggested.

It looked more like a prison than a foster home, a bleak, grey building with iron fences that circled around the entire perimeter. They drove past the entrance gates and into a small courtyard, coming to a stop in front of the doors and stepping out of the car.

Even the courtyard had a strangeness about it, he thought as they walked up to the entrance. The plants were as still as the statues and there was a heavy silence in the air. It felt cold and uninviting.

Once they’d entered the building, a young man came to greet them in the visitor’s space, pale and thin with dark eyes. “How can I help you?”

“We’re here to ask some questions about one of the girls who lived here, Mara Hastings.” Erika replied, showing her badge. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to talk to the staff and the other girls about the day she went missing.”

“Of course.” He nodded like he’d been expecting their arrival, turning to open a door that led to a mahogany-colored hallway. “The staff rooms are right through here. Down the hall and to the left, you’ll see the doors.” He continued. “The girls’ rooms are on the second floor. Take a right and go through the kitchen and the recreation area. The stairwell will be right there.”

“You want to talk to the girls and I’ll talk to the staff?” Erika asked, glancing at him, and he nodded.

“Sure, that’s alright with me.” He replied. His captain typically preferred to have two cops in the room when interviewing potential witnesses, just to do their due diligence, but she didn’t have the same luxuries of manpower his department had. Rationing resources had probably become second nature to her. “Let’s meet back here.”

They headed down the hall and split up at the intersection, she heading left and he heading right. He kept the man’s directions in his head, passing the kitchen and recreation area before heading up the stairwell.

He heard the soft murmurs of conversation as soon as he reached the second floor, coming to a long, dim corridor with several doors. The first one was silent, and he walked past it, heading towards the door furthest down the hall. Most of the voices seemed to be coming from behind that door, though they were too faint for him to make out what was being said.

As he stopped at the last door, his eyes were drawn to a framed painting at the end of the hall, hanging from the wall above a table with several flickering candles.

It was of a pale, nude woman sitting on a jagged, rocky outcropping, her face turned up towards the sky, holding a sapling in one hand and a white cloak in the other. A dark serpent coiled along her right arm and wound its way down her body, wrapping around her waist. There was a cloudy haze of light all around the woman, but the skies were dark at the edges of the painting.

He stared at it for a moment, frowning. It looked strangely out of place there. Given how it was positioned, it looked almost like something of religious significance. The serpent may have been a Christian element, but nothing else about the piece seemed to resemble any other Christian works. At least not to his knowledge. He was hardly an expert in Christianity, or any other religion for that matter.

There was no artist mentioned on the plaque beneath the painting. Only the title of the piece.

Awakening.

Giving up trying to figure out what the painting meant, he turned away and knocked on the door. The voices fell silent for a moment before the door opened and a girl appeared. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen, blonde with shadowy brown eyes.

“Hi, my name is Jacob Cavanaugh. I’m a detective.” He said. “I’m here to ask a few questions about your friend, Mara, if you don’t mind.”

“She wasn’t really my friend. I didn’t know her.” The blonde said, moving back to let him inside, and he entered the bedroom. There were five other girls there, three sitting together and the other two lying on their beds. They were all staring at him, and he sensed a quiet unease building in the room.

“Did all of you see her the day she disappeared?” He asked, approaching the group of three girls. “We went to school with her that morning, but we didn’t see her after we came back.” One of them said, glancing at the girl lying on the bed at the end of the room. “Danielle was the closest to her. She’d probably know the most about her.”

“Thanks.” Jacob nodded, walking over to the girl, who sat up as he came closer. He couldn’t see behind him, but he had a sense the other girls were relieved to no longer have his attention on them. “Hi Danielle, I’d like to ask you some questions about Mara, if you don’t mind. Were you two good friends?”

“Yeah, we were.” Danielle nodded. Her voice was raw and distant, like grief had settled somewhere deep inside of her. “We came here the same year.”

“In the days leading up to her disappearance, did you notice anything unusual about her behavior?” He asked, sitting down on the empty bed opposite hers. “Did she ever talk about wanting to run away?”

“She didn’t run away.” The girl said, firmly. “Something happened to her. Someone did something to her.”

“Do you know who might have done this?”

She was quiet for a long moment. “No.” She murmured, looking down at the floor, like she was holding something back. “But I know she was taken. Mara told me about the things that had happened to her, about what she’d seen. Everyone thought she was crazy. So did I, at first, but now I don’t think so.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Getting to know her.” Danielle rose and walked over to the window, staring out into the sunlight. “This probably doesn’t make any sense, but the more time I spend with her, the more I felt…the more I felt like what she was seeing wasn’t just in her head.” She continued, still facing the window. “I was with her when she had one of her episodes, once. Right before she started seeing things, the air in our room got really cold. Maybe it was just my imagination, but when it was happening, it was almost like something was happening that only she could see.”

“Can you tell me more about the episodes she had?” He asked, rising from the bed. Something was nagging at him. “What did she see during these episodes?”

“She said things would change, things would look different. Sometimes she saw things.” Danielle replied, turning away from the window and back to face him. A shadow had fallen over her face now, like she was lost in a bad memory. “She said they were monsters. I don’t know what they were, but they really scared her. I’ve never seen anyone get so scared.”

“Did she describe them? Or anything else she saw?” He asked, feeling a cold begin to creep through him, a cold that came from somewhere deep inside. It all sounded so familiar to him.

“She drew them.” Danielle said, walking over to Mara’s bed and reaching underneath the mattress to pull out an open box filed with papers. She handed the box to him and he set it on the bed, picking up the first one.

It was a picture of a bedroom on fire. Black smoke curled up towards the ceiling from the floor, filling the room with a dark haze, and the door was covered in bright red flames.

“Whenever she’d have an episode, they would have her to draw what she’d seen. They said it would be therapeutic.” Danielle continued, a sharp, angry edge entering her voice. “She didn’t want to most of the time. Seemed like it made her episodes come more often.”

He was silent, staring at the drawing. The parts of the walls that were not covered in fire had a strange color to them, something that almost resembled rusting metal. The darkness outside the window was pitch black, absent of any traces of moonlight, and there was what looked like a figure in the haze of smoke near the door. It was difficult to make out what it was, but it didn’t look human. It looked fleshy and misshapen.

“When did she draw this?” He asked after a long moment, looking up at her.

“Not long after she got here.” Danielle said, grimly. “That was from the night her mother died.”

“Did she say what this was?” He pointed at the figure in the smoke. Just looking at it made his stomach turn.

“A monster.” She replied. “I remember she told me she thought it caused the fire that night.”

He nodded, setting the drawing aside and picking up another one from the box.

This one was of a classroom, though like the bedroom, everything looked different and off somehow. All of the desks were empty and the walls were a pale grey color. The room was dim and full of shadows, with particles in the air that looked like ash or snow. There was no figure in this drawing.

He set the drawing down. The longer he’d looked at it, the sharper the cold within him had gotten, until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. Had she seen them, too?

Old memories rose up suddenly in the back of his mind. That terrible cold feeling under his skin. The lights turning pale and grey. The heavy, dead silence in the air. The way things would look bleak and dark and different. A contorted, faceless shadow.

Jacob, his mother’s voice as things suddenly became bright and normal again. Jacob, can you hear me-

“Do you mind if I take these with me?” He asked, jerking himself out of his thoughts. His head was starting to pound.

“No.” Danielle shook her head. “If it’ll help you find her, take it.”

“Thank you. Don’t worry, we’re going to find her.” He said with a sureness he didn’t feel, tucking the box under his arm and heading for the door.

Once he reached it, he glanced behind him. The rest of the girls had already gone back to their conversations, though this time they seemed forced.

Danielle was standing by the window again, watching him. For a moment, her face had a clouded, uneasy look.

Then it disappeared and she turned back towards the window.