Twelve
1634 Words
“Do you guys still have the news on?” He asked as he nudged the door shut with his hip and moved to set the case of cola on the dining room table in front of the door.
“uh,” I looked at the TV and realized for the first time that mom must have muted it so we could talk. “Yeah. What’s going on?” I asked him.
“Another girl went missing. The police report was just filed, and the radio said the chief was going to give a press conference at eight.” He explained.
“Oh s**t,” I said, pulling my phone from my back pocket to check the time. “It’s eight, now.”
We turned our attention back to the news as my mom raised the volume and the police chief stepped up to a podium surrounded by reporters. I could almost feel the tension radiating from that room as the crowd silently waited for him to start talking and fidgeted with their notepads and press passes.
“This afternoon, at approximately five-thirty, a woman came into the station to report her daughter missing. The day before yesterday, nineteen-year-old Ashley Helms was last seen heading to her dorm after an evening class at the University.” He began as the image of a young woman with strawberry blonde hair and freckles appeared on the screen.
“She looks so young,” my mom murmured.
“According to her roommate, Ashley was wearing jeans and a light green sweater. She was carrying a pink, plaid messenger bag with a cartoon dog on the front and would have had the textbooks and course material for her microbiology class,” he continued. “The walk to her dorm room was a straight shot across the university courtyard and by all accounts there was no reason for to have strayed from that path.”
“She was taken right from the center of campus?” I asked. My head was reeling from this new twist. “None of the other girls were taken from campus.”
“He’s getting brave,” Troy muttered.
“Or careless,” my mother countered.
“What if he needed another girl because… Oh, gods! I need to talk to Jess, tonight.” I said, panic rising in my chest. “Troy, what if- “
“Hey, hey, hey,” he interrupted. “Don’t even think like that. We have no idea what this guy is doing or why he may have decided to take another girl. In fact, we don’t even know if it was the same guy that has Jess and Helena. None of the other girls were taken while they were on campus. This could be something entirely different. He could just be taking advantage of the focus being elsewhere.”
“Troy is right, Briseis.” My mom assured me, grabbing my hand. “We don’t know anything yet. We will attempt to reach Jess tonight and see if we can find anything out. Let’s not panic before we have any reason to.”
“We have to do something, mom,” I argued. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing anymore. Girls keep disappearing, fox magic is creating havoc all across town, Jess-“ my sentence was cut off by a sob.
“We will, sweetheart,” Troy said. “I want to find them, too. Helena is out there, somewhere.”
I closed my eyes, feeling foolish and inconsiderate. I kept going on and on about how important it was to find Jessica like Troy’s sister didn’t matter. I needed to be more careful with my words. “I didn’t mean,” I started.
“I know,” Troy said. “I understand. We will get them back, Bris. Both of them.”
I nodded, wiping away tears and sniffling.
“I am going to do some looking around myself,” my mom began. “I would like to see if I can find other yokai nearby to chat with. I also need to pick up a few supplies for learning and using fox magic.”
“Should I come with you?” I asked her, eager to do something useful.
“No, dear. Why don’t you and troy see if you can find anything that links the missing girls to each other while I’m out. When I return, I will help you reach out to Jess. Maybe she can tell us something.”
A hour later, Troy and I were sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with missing fliers of fifteen girls between the ages of 17 and 22. We pulled every girl we could find that had gone missing in the past year and was within the typical age range for students at the university. Of course, we had no idea if all of these girls were taken by the same man.
“We should probably check to see if any of these girls have been found, first.” Troy said, reasonably.
“That makes sense,” I sighed.
As it turned out, two of them had been found. That left thirteen possible victims of our mystery kidnapper. Not all of them were students, but most of them lived near campus. All of them were last seen walking off alone late at night. We couldn’t find anything else that they had in common with each other, or with Jess and Helena.
“Jess and Helena,” Troy murmured to himself. “Why didn’t we think about that before?”
“What about them?” I asked, not understanding his train of thought.
“We’re wasting time researching possible victims that we don’t know anything about. It could take us forever searching their social media and news reports, because we don’t even know what we’re looking for,” he explained.
“Okay,” I encouraged.
“We do know Jess and Helena. I’d bet we know everything about them. And we know, at least one of them was taken by this guy. We should be focusing on them. If we can figure out what they have in common, then we might at least know what to look for in the others.”
“Of course,” I said, rolling my eyes at myself for missing such an obvious place to start. “let’s do it… where do we start?”
“Well, what about the night Jess went missing. Where was she? What was she doing? Who was she with?” He questioned.
“Okay,” I took a moment to think about it. “Sunday night. I’m not really sure who she was with. Jess liked to go out by herself. She’d have a couple of drinks and find some guy to hook up with. Usually, she came home really late. Sometimes, not until the next morning.” I sighed, “I know that sounds bad, but she just doesn’t like relationships, ya know. She was with this really controlling guy for awhile and she doesn’t want anybody telling her what to do. She thinks they’re all like that.”
“Hey. I’m not judging her. She is a grown woman. She can do whatever she likes. I just want to find her and bring her home to you.” Troy said.
“I know,” I sighed. I felt like I was always defending Jess for stuff like that. She was an amazing person, but she was wild. “What about Helena?”
“Helena disappeared two weeks ago. It was Friday night. She should have been on her way home from band practice,” he ran his fingers through his hair and stopped talking.
“She was in a band?” I prompted him.
“Yeah. She played bass,” he sighed. “They practiced in the drummer’s garage. He only lived a few blocks from our parents' house, and we always have dinner there on Saturdays. She left her car there and walked to practice. It was close to midnight when she left Jet’s.”
“Okay. So, they were both walking home, alone, at night,” I started. I chewed my lip while I thought about how that information might help. “Where is your parents’ house?”
“It’s in Sparrow Estates, up near the hills.” He answered.
“See? That’s where I’m lost. I want to find out where the other girls were taken from. Jess wouldn’t have been anywhere near there. At least, I don’t think so. She went to the bar district off Main Street.” I explained.
“Right,” Troy said.
We were still discussing what Jess and Helena may have had in common when my mother returned. She dumped a pile of leaves on the dining room table and sat down on the couch. “I wasn’t able to find out very much. There are a few other yokai in the area, but not many, and they don’t seem to know what’s going on any more than we do. Although, one nekomata did mention smelling more foxes around in the past several weeks.”
“What’s with the leaves?” I asked.
“Magic has a price. There are things you can do without them but having them to draw energy from, even a little bit, means you use up less of your own. Plus, illusions hold up better if you have something to hold the illusion.” She explained.
“Right.” That didn’t really make any sense, but I had more important things on my mind at the moment. “Can I try to reach jess now?”
“Yes.” My mom nodded. “Grab a couple of those leaves and lie down on the couch.”
- Writer
