A/N: This is my first AHS fic following season three, Coven. It begins a few weeks after Cordelia's ascension to Supreme. I'm excited to officially join this fandom! Because canon killed off so many major characters at the end of the season, there are a couple OCs here or there, but they do not serve a major role in any way. Don't let the unfamiliar names frighten you off!

Reviews are always appreciated. :)

...

The late evening sun streaked the sky pink and orange as Zoe paced down the stairs outside the school and followed the broken sidewalk to the greenhouse. The lawn had grown over since their gardener disappeared. Dry autumn leaves whistled across the cracked stone path, and she plucked her thin sweater tighter around herself before she entered the greenhouse.

Only a step into the glass building, soft tones of Fleetwood Mac drifted on the breeze, and Zoe had to pause and swallow hard before she proceeded deeper into the home of the plants. "Cordelia?" she called out. The air stiffened under her tongue. "Queenie and I helped Kyle serve dinner. Everyone's cleaning up for the weekend…" As she rounded the corner, she caught sight of the Supreme. Cordelia poised neatly on a wooden stool, staring intently at the dead belladonna plant. The vinyl spun onward, but even under the influence of the Supreme's magic, the deceased plant didn't revive itself.

Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night, and wouldn't you love to love her? Takes to the sky like a bird in flight, and who will be her lover?

Zoe cleared her throat. "Cordelia?" The older witch flinched and whirled around, brown eyes wide with surprise. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you…"

"It's fine." With a flick of her hand, the music scratched to a sudden halt. The silence hung, empty, as Cordelia woefully looked back to the plant. "I haven't been able to revive her. She doesn't answer to my magic." A despondent puff flared Cordelia's nostrils. "Nothing works. Not the potion, not the mud-not even the music. A damn picky plant." Her fingers traced one brown leaf. It crumbled to pieces in her palm. She snatched back with a hiss of frustration, lips twisted downward in dissatisfaction. Her eyes fell closed. "She died with Misty. The others, I could bring them back, but this one-she doesn't want my touch anymore."

In a moment of regrettable callousness, Zoe asked, "Couldn't you just get another one?" Cordelia fixed her under a hot brown gaze, and Zoe quickly scrambled to rectify her position. "Ick-sorry. I sound like Madison." She cleared her throat. "Dinner is finished," she said finally. "Everyone is clearing out for the weekend."

"But that's not what you came to talk to me about."

The corners of her mouth pinched unpleasantly. She should have known that Cordelia would see through any facade of smalltalk. "No." She crossed her arms. Her eyes refused to meet those of her Supreme's; instead, she stared plaintively at Cordelia's feet. "Queenie and I finished packing up Misty's and Nan's things. Nan's grandmother is supposed to be in the area next week to get what's left, but-we don't know what to do with Misty's, if we should track down her family…"

Cordelia's hand clasped the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles turned white. "Misty's family allowed her to be burned at the stake. They don't deserve any shred of her," she spat.

Fidgeting with one foot, Zoe lifted her gaze. "Right. So do you want us to donate them?"

"No." The younger witch froze at Cordelia's quipped word, and she waited for an explanation, but it seemed that the Supreme would not provide. The older returned her attention to the plant. "Put the box on my bed. I'll find a place for it in the basement." She brushed her fingers along the sturdy stem of the plant, but just a brush, a feather-light touch, as if she feared that it would snap off and ruin all chances of ever salvaging the bell-shaped flowers. With a flick of her wrist, the record replaced itself and began to play again its scratchy tune. No words passed, but Zoe understood the message: She was dismissed.

The young witch turned to leave the greenhouse, passing by all the healthy green leaves. Somehow, she doubted that Cordelia would consider them for a moment. She had that pining shadow beneath her eyes again. Zoe's footsteps echoed until she paused in the clean air. The cool air chilled her more than before. With crossed arms, she surveyed the side of the house, which had turned green with mold. "Got to get another gardener," she mumbled as she proceeded along the broken sidewalk.

A shriek burst from the house, and the witch froze as the front door wrenched open with black smoke billowing out. A scrawny pre-teen, a pyrokinetic witch named Meg, fled with the wind in her skirts. Queenie pursued. "Catch her!" she shouted. Zoe pounced at the frightened girl. Her hands secured on the front of her uniform. They began to wrestle until Meg broke free and scrambled in her wake. "Come back here, you little bitch!" Queenie's voice helped Zoe right herself and charge after the rogue ward.

She snagged Meg again outside the greenhouse. With a squeak of horror, red flared into her eyes, and Zoe's skin grew hot. "Son of a bitch!" She retracted her hand, and Meg spun to run blindly into the greenhouse.

Queenie grabbed her in turn. "C'mon, burn me. I dare you," she sneered to the girl. Backpedaling madly, Meg stumbled over herself and knocked over a pot. At her touch, the leaves ignited and flared into a roaring fire. Queenie hauled her back up. "Put it out!" she snarled.

"P-Please don't hurt me!" Meg trembled like a kicked dog.

"Put it out!"

"What in god's name is going on?" Cordelia rounded the corner with her prized, dead belladonna in her arms. Meg gasped at the appearance of her Supreme and rounded into a ball. The flames licked higher at the young witch's panic. "Meg?"

The sound of her own name pierced any shred of control she still held, and the dead plant vanished into ash just like Misty's body. Cordelia dropped the pot, and it shattered, scattering the soil everywhere. Fat tears trickled down Meg's cheeks. "Please, I didn't mean-an accident-don't hurt me!" Zoe tried to brush her hand along the young witch's neck, but she couldn't stand to touch the burning skin; only Queenie had that tolerance.

Despairing eyes gazed at the destroyed remnants of the plant for a moment before Cordelia advanced on the girls. "Queenie, let her go." With apparent reluctance, she obeyed and took a step back. Cordelia crouched in front of the distraught girl. "Meg, do you remember what we talked about? You have to learn how to control this." A quick nod passed between them. "You need to calm yourself down, and the fire will go away. No one here is going to hurt you. You're safe."

A quivering voice pled, "She said she would feed me to Madam LaLaurie!"

Cordelia peered up at Queenie through the smoke. "Did you?"

"The little bitch ran from me."

The Supreme squinted at her in disapproval, but rather than scolding her, she instead stated, "We need to get out of here. Come along, Meg." She touched Meg's elbow and, upon finding that her skin had returned to a touchable temperature, she tugged her upward. To the teenagers, she said, "Get the others out of the house. Once she's calmed enough, we can eliminate the flames."

Zoe and Queenie headed back up to the house; most of the girls waited on the front lawn with bored looks upon their faces. Two or three of the older witches trampled the flames with bottles of water long enough for the line to proceed out of the front door to safety. As they approached, one looked back. "We've got everyone. Meg hasn't killed anyone yet."

Queenie examined the blackened foyer. "Nobody but the portraits of the previous Supremes," she growled "Good riddance. We were out of wall space, anyway." Crossing her arms, she and Zoe went back out to the yard to count the students, but Kyle had already started. "Look. Your boy toy is doing something useful. Now we've just got to wait for Cordelia to get back with-"

A wail roused from one of the youngest girls named Jen, only eight. She clutched the tiny body of her hamster in her hand. "Miss Zoe! Miss Queenie!" she addressed tearfully. "Charlie isn't breathing! I think he's dead!"

"If it's not one thing, it's another," huffed Queenie. Waving off Zoe, she soothed, "Nah, don't worry, I got this. Come here, girl. Let me work on sweet Charlie." With a tentative outstretched hand, the child passed the limp, cold body of her hamster into Queenie's warm palm. The black witch lifted the tawny fur to her mouth and breathed softly across its face. A long, still moment passed, but it didn't return to life. "Oh, c'mon, stupid rat. Why'd Misty have to run off and get herself sucked into hell? God knows this would be the most valued thing she ever resurrected." Queenie took a moment to calm herself before she puffed across the hamster's snout again. The paw twitched, but he gave no other sign of life. Zoe shuffled closer to examine him. "Weird, ain't it?"

As the flames died to a smolder, Cordelia rounded the corner with her hand on the small of Meg's back. "Everything is fine now, girls." A smile hadn't returned to her face. Her eyes held the hollow shadow that Zoe had seen before in the greenhouse. But the other wards apparently didn't notice or didn't care about the state of their Supreme as they filtered in, Meg working her way into the corner of the group with her head down. Only Jen remained. "What's this?" Cordelia approached her council members.

Zoe looked up at Cordelia. "Jen's hamster isn't breathing. We can't get him to come back." She attempted to disguise the prickle of concern in her voice, but she didn't shroud it entirely as the Supreme quirked an eyebrow at her. "He must have breathed in too much smoke. It was very thick in the foyer. The paintings are ruined." She glanced back to Kyle and Queenie, but neither of them provided anything else to Cordelia. Their once-friendly headmistress had become cold and detached since her ascension to Supreme, and while Zoe held tight to the image of Cordelia that she had once known, Queenie and Kyle were glad to allow her infinite space. Perhaps they preferred it that way. With a despairing clench of her fists, she fell silent.

The hamster changed hands once again as Cordelia lifted it to her mouth and watched the tiny body for any sign of movement. She placed one finger on its chest and exhaled smoothly over its muzzle. Charlie sprang upward with an audible gasp. Just as quickly, he flopped onto his back. His limbs wracked into seizures so strong that Cordelia nearly dropped him, and white foam poured out of his mouth. A puddle of piss filled her palm as he sagged back into death. Jen released a strangled sob. "I'm sorry, Jen. I suppose it was only intended to revive humans."

"Misty revived animals left and right," grumbled Queenie. "As many nasty people she brought back, she owes us a puny hamster." She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Zoe, who stared, fixated upon the hamster. Jen continued to weep. "Well, c'mon, kid. Let's go bury Mr. Charlie. He was an old hamster, wasn't he? We'll find a plot for him in the backyard. I'll show you the spot where we burned all the zombie parts last year."

Though she held an unconvinced look, Jen followed. She dashed her tears away with her fist. "I'm going to kill Meg! She killed Charlie!" They disappeared around the corner of the house, leaving Cordelia and Zoe behind.

Zoe tucked her hands into her pockets and shrank her shoulders. As Kyle proceeded into the house, she moved to follow, but Cordelia called, "Zoe?" so she hesitated and turned back. "Queenie's right. This coven would have been much more secure with Misty around." She waited. She knew that Cordelia had a point that she would eventually reach. "You knew her before any of us. Do you know where she might have kept some of her things before she came here? If we have anything we can learn from her still…"

A frown quirked upon Zoe's mouth. "She lived in the swamp. She told me her cabin was destroyed when the witch hunter came after her. But-Misty was born with her powers. I don't think she would have written down how she did them." After a momentary pause, she continued, "I'm not certain that she knew how to write."

Cordelia snorted, shaking her head. "You're right. It was a silly notion." She wiped her wet hand on the front of her soot-soiled shirt. "I'm going back to the greenhouse to clean up. My poor belladonna." She inhaled deeply with her eyes closed. "I'd trade every plant in that house to have Misty back. She would have regrown them in two days, anyway."

Pursing her lips, Zoe stared at the gray slate of the sidewalk. "When I took Kyle away from her, she didn't want us to leave." She absently picked at a hangnail. "I thought she was going to tie us up. She was so afraid that I would never come back for her. She was so afraid of being abandoned." Tears burbled inadvertently to her eyes, and she bit the inside of her cheek until they dissipated once again. "She got lost in the only place where none of us could reach her. I just…" Her voice quivered, and she hushed it to a whisper to prevent herself from weeping. "I hope she isn't angry at us because we left her."

Cordelia hunched over at the middle slightly. Her face paled in the chill. "I'm going back to the greenhouse now to salvage what I can. The foyer can wait." She turned on her heel and strode away, but she never straightened her spine, hands wrapped tightly around her middle as she hugged herself for comfort.

…x...o...x...o...x...o

Much later that night, Zoe tucked herself into the twin-sized bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. Kyle had not yet come to the room; he had shifts to work. A butler kept busy with so many girls to usher around, and he still struggled at times to make sense of all of their nuances. Perhaps he would never be wholly human. "Queenie?" she voiced. "Are you still awake?"

"Yeah. Can't sleep. Thinkin' about that girl's damn hamster. Turn the lamp on, will you?" Zoe obeyed. Neither of them cared for the dark anymore. In their folly, they feared Papa Legba would return and drag them to hell. "What if something like that happens to one of us? I mean, dead, and nobody can bring us back. We'd be real dead, not just temporary dead."

Lifting up her phone to check for messages, Zoe replied in a mumble, "Yeah, but Cordelia said it just screwed up because it was a hamster."

"Do you believe her?"

"I don't know."

Queen huffed. "Well, I don't. I think she's bending under the weight of being the Supreme already and losing her strength. What if we were wrong? What if she's not the real Supreme, and it was actually Madison, or Nan?" She sat upright when Zoe didn't reply. "C'mon. We hardly see her! She spends all her time in the greenhouse! The kids are saying she even misses some of the classes she's assigned to teach. You can't chalk that up to coincidence."

Rubbing her eyes, Zoe sat up as well, looking her friend in the eye. "I don't. But I don't think it's because she isn't the Supreme."

The black witch crossed her arms and inclined an eyebrow. "So what do you think? That she's just temporarily bonkers?"

"I-I think she misses Misty." Queenie rolled her eyes, but Zoe held up a hand. "Really. She's listening to Stevie Nicks in the greenhouse, and she's obsessed with this belladonna plant. It died when Misty died, and she couldn't revive it. She was raving about it needing a certain kind of magic, or not liking her touch, or something like that. Then Meg burnt it up, so there's no hope now." Zoe's fists tightened in the blankets. "Misty was the only one who really understood Cordelia-who actually took the time to spend time with her and engage with her. Surely you noticed that." She snorted as she shook her head in a rueful derision. "We all had our heads stuck too far up our own asses to spend time with each other. That's why Nan's gone."

"Uh-huh," echoed Queenie, "Nan's gone. If Misty was so goddamn great, why didn't she bring Nan back, huh?"

Rolling her eyes, Zoe retorted, "If you recall, Madison had killed and buried her." She gazed down at the ground. "I'm not certain. But you saw how Cordelia acted when Misty never woke up. She was distraught."

"We were all upset. We thought it could've been us."

"I didn't see you grabbing handfuls of ash."

"Well, I ain't a white girl." Zoe opened her mouth to retaliate, but Queenie cut in, "Look-even if Cordelia is just grieving. What are we supposed to do about it? We can't resurrect Misty. Like you just said, she turned into a big cloud of soot. Poof, gone. Even Misty couldn't have brought that back from the dead. I say we wait this out and see what hell comes to pay. If it gets bad enough, we are the new council. Deal?"

For a moment, she nibbled on her lower lip, but she finally agreed, "Deal." She gave a half-smile at Queenie. "Things are getting better. Fiona's gone now, and maybe Cordelia just has to adjust to the role. Big shoes to fill."

Queen rolled over to face the wall. "Fiona had tiny feet," she grumbled. "Go to sleep. Leave the light on. I might have to pee some time."

Zoe dimmed the lamp and folded herself into her own bed, where she soon fell into a troubled sleep.

…x...o...x...o...x...o

A pounding at the door roused the two sleeping girls, but a quick glance at the alarm clock reported that they were still hours away from dawn, only three in the morning. The sharply rapping fist repeated itself. "Zoe? Queenie? There's something wrong with Miss Cordelia!" The witch on the other side of the door knocked harder. "Wake up, please!"

Barefoot and clad in a nightgown, Zoe tripped over herself to answer the door. Behind her, Queenie rolled to her feet. "Maria? What's the matter?" She raked a hand through her hair to attempt to tame it flat as she searched the other girl's face for some hint of the situation at hand. "Something wrong with Cordelia?"

"She's sleepwalking again," mumbled a sleepy-eyed girl just beyond. She rubbed at her eyes with one fist. "She's busting into rooms and mumbling about saving hamsters. You gotta wake her up. Scaring the little ones half to death. Us, too."

Queenie shuffled past. "She's goddamn lucky she doesn't fall down the stairs and break her damn neck," grunted the black witch with a deep scowl on her face. "Can we, as the council, rule it law that she put a damn lock on her bedroom door?" Zoe didn't share her deep, brown-eyed glower, but a purse of concern tutted onto her lips. "Well, I'm going to go wake her up, if you're just going to stand here all night!" she puffed.

Zoe shook herself and retorted, "I'm coming! I just have to-process. I'm half-asleep." She shoved past Queenie. "Take us to her," she ordered Maria.

Down the hall into the opposite wing, they found Cordelia bumping head-first into one of the bedroom doors. She rocked back and forth as she mumbled something unintelligible under her breath. "Are there girls in there?" Zoe asked Maria in a whisper.

"Bitch has gone to crazy town and ain't come back," Queenie reported tartly as Maria nodded and replied, "They were afraid to come out. I don't blame them. But she can open doors with her magic, can't she?"

With a shrug, Zoe approached Cordelia. Considering the facts would only prolong the time they spent out of bed. She hovered beside the Supreme for a moment. "Gotta...hamster," sounded clearly. "Bella-mud." A tiny smile, creepy when coupled with Cordelia's glassy brown eyes, appeared on her dry lips. "You-help-Misty." Zoe winced at the name. "More...mud." A string of garbled words shushed down into silent breath over moving lips. The rocking continued. At long last, a hand reached up and rested on the cool bronze doorknob.

"This was Misty's room," Zoe whispered to Queenie.

"Actually, it was my room," spat the black witch. "Who gives a damn? She's having a dream. Wake her up so we can go our asses back to bed. I've got shit to do tomorrow that I ain't doin' on interrupted sleep."

With a firm hand, Cordelia pushed open the door to the bedroom. The four girls had all clambered up onto one of the top bunks, shivering in their nighties. "C'mon, Misty. Things to do, mm…" The Supreme fumbled about with her hands on one of the lower beds, as if seeking a human-shaped lump among the covers. "C'mon, sweetie…"

Zoe swallowed hard as she watched the girls on the top bed retreat with squeaks of fright. "Cordelia." She brushed her fingers against the Supreme's bare arm, but it didn't seem to impede her from shuffling the blankets. "Cordelia, wake up. You're dreaming." She plucked at the older woman's arm gently and shook her. "Wake up." Zoe pinched her, but she slipped out of her grasp. The teen narrowed her eyes upon the sleepwalker and reached out with her mind to sink into the Supreme's consciousness. I want you to wake up now.

The gasp elicited from her as she shot forth into reality reflected that of one returning from hell itself. "Zoe!" An airy tone flitted from Cordelia's raspy, unused voice. "What am I…" She turned to find the many pairs of eyes upon her from the hallway. "I suppose I was sleepwalking again."

"You crazy lookin' for Misty to revive a damn hamster!" Queenie growled with her arms crossed. She arched an eyebrow as her gaze fell to Zoe, who mouthed back at her, "Told you so." Queenie cleared her throat. "Well? We can all go back to bed now. Off with the lot of you! Party's over! Get on! Get on!" She ushered the clustered crowd of young witches away so that they dissipated into their backs, headed back to their own rooms. "Y'all go back to sleep." She waved off the staring girls from the top bunk. "We're outta your hair. Let's get out."

Zoe followed quietly; Cordelia took a moment to apologize to the girls for frightening them before she pursued the two younger witches into the now-silent hallway. All of the other wards had tucked themselves away safely in their rooms. "I'm sorry I woke you. You can both go back to bed now." The empty shadow had returned to Cordelia's face. Perhaps she only knew peace in sleep these days. The thought made a pang grow in the base of Zoe's stomach. "I'm going to stay up for awhile."

Reluctant to broke an argument at this hour of the morning, Zoe nodded with slow consideration, but Queenie ventured, "Girl, are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Cordelia started down the stairs while the younger witches started to return to their rooms. Just outside the door, Queenie's lips twisted into a frown. "I don't give a damn what she says. She ain't fine. She's goin' half-crazy. We gotta fix her before somebody gets dead while she's got her head in the clouds."

"There might be a way to fix her," Zoe answered as she leaned on the doorframe. Queenie arched an eyebrow to her in response. "But you can't call me crazy, alright?"

"No promises."

Rolling her eyes, Zoe proceeded into the room. "You remember when I found that hole in one of the closets? Had Spalding's tongue and the ouija board and all those old pictures in it?"

"Nah, girl, you summoned the axeman with that shit. Anything you found in there has gotta be bad news," Queenie reminded, lips twisted downward with distaste. "What'd you find in there now? A resurrection spell that'll create whole bodies from ash? Crazy, digging around in old places like that. House like this got some old bones. Ain't your business to fidget around in the past."

Zoe ignored her. "The old school library is kept there-parts of it. The forbidden books, mostly, that they didn't want the students to find and read. One of them is about Papa Legba and his afterlife-his hell."

Face freezing with lips slightly parted, Queenie gaped a moment before she shook her head adamantly. "No. No, Zoe. I been to hell twice. It sucks righteous ass. I am not going swimming around down there and risking my own soul to look for Cordelia's dead Cajun girlfriend. Uh-uh. If Cordelia wants her back bad enough, she can dive into the afterlife for her own damn self and leave me the hell out of her business!"

Setting her jaw, Zoe retorted, "That's the thing! Cordelia can't do it by herself. It requires two or more witches to travel together. The theory-"

"-Yeah, theory, may not be true, I don't wanna find out-"

"-says that Papa Legba's thresholds are designed to detect a specific magical signature. When two signatures cross at the same time, the signals are muted. We could arrive without him ever knowing, and then we could find Misty. Maybe Nan, too." Zoe looked to her friend, expecting another sharp retort, but the mention of Nan left Queenie's eyes glazed and expression soft. The white witch knew that she had gained the upperhand. She rushed into the bedroom and dug out the old tome from beneath her bed, flipping rapidly through the pages. "It says that the afterlife is wholly like-like limbo. There are locations for the spirits, but not individual rooms. Some people are in hell with other people to torment one another for the rest of their lives-it's all whatever they feared or hated most within their lives, you understand?"

Queenie plucked her lip back. "Er… You sorta lost me, to be honest." She waved Zoe off from continuing the explanation. "Look-the details of it aren't important right now. What do you want us to do? Cross the threshold and hope we find Misty and Nan before Papa Legba finds us? You can't just screw around with a deity. We get caught, we'll be in a world of hurt. Cordelia will never let us do something stupid like that."

"Cordelia isn't going to find out." A pleading look struck Zoe's wide eyes. "We'll do it without telling her. Go, find Nan and Misty, and come back out. We're strong now, and Papa Legba has so many wards, he'll probably never notice that we were there."

"You've got a lot of faith that an immortal god has the same flaws as a man," Queenie replied darkly. "And what do we do once we've found them? We don't have their bodies. Nan's six feet under and rotten. Misty's in an urn on Cordelia's dresser. Bring them back as ghosts?"

Shaking her head, Zoe vehemently flipped through the book. "No-this tells how to do it. If we bless the earth before the ritual, it becomes fertile for growth, so that when we return with our spirit through the portal, a new body will form."

"Now you're talking some Adam and Eve type shit."

Zoe trailed her finger over the line beneath an ancient picture of a body digging itself up from the ground. From dust were ye made and dust ye shall be. "That's a Simon and Garfunkel quote," she provided. "My grandma used to listen to their songs all the time."

"Least it wasn't Stevie Nicks." With one chubby finger, Queenie rubbed along the crease of the tattered yellow pages. She shook her head. "This is a bad idea, Zoe."

"But you're in, aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

…x...o...x...o...x...o...

Downstairs, Cordelia settled her cold bare feet upon the hardwood floors. She had not yet repaired the singed walls of the foyer, which still reeked of smoke and soot. She trusted that no one would interrupt her at this hour. Moving past the wrecked paintings, her eyes glanced to Fiona's, which remained only partially intact. She entered the computer lab on the right wing of the house; they had opened it out of necessity for the girls who arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs. The room held a chilled atmosphere, and Cordelia shivered in her light gown, but she settled into one of the farthest chairs regardless and turned it on. The harsh light of the screen burned her eyes.

Once she reached the blazing Google emblem, she typed in the single name, which prompted more articles than she had time or patience to sort out: "Missing Woman, Misty Day, Presumed Dead"; "Burned Stake Discovered, but No Sign of Missing Girl"; "Misty Day's Mother: 'Please Bring My Baby Home'"; "Church of Misty Day Hosting Memorial Service"; "Odd Happenings Surrounded Missing Louisiana Woman". Cordelia's lip curled at the titles. How many people had taken part in these articles after they dragged the witch out of her home and set her on fire? Her gut burbled at the thought.

The Supreme clicked on the first title and steeled herself for the blowback.

"Police departments have decided to call off the search for 23 year old Misty Day of Pleasure Bend, Louisiana. Day went missing in late July of last year, reported by friends who had not seen her at the parish where she regularly attended. Upon investigation, Day's parents released that she had gone several days before, but they expected she had run away and would eventually return. 'I'm not concerned about her,' said Paul Day, father of the missing girl and her younger siblings. 'She's always been a strange one. She'll find her way back to us.'

"Teresa Day, mother of the family, seconded his thoughts. 'I miss my baby girl,' she said tearfully, 'and if you see her, tell her to come home. But that's a choice she's gotta make for herself.'

"Day's younger siblings, Jeremy, age 15, and Mary, age 10, had different stories to tell, provoking suspicion from police. Jeremy said, 'I heard her screaming. There were people in the house with hoods on. I didn't see Dad anywhere. I went to call the police, but Mom told me to take Mary to my room and stay out of the way. She said they would be back soon, but when they came back the next morning, Misty wasn't with them.' Under further questioning, Jeremy refused to answer, and police have determined that the Day family has no involvement in Misty Day's disappearance. Foul play is not suspected, though there are rising rumors that a burned stake found near Pleasure Bend might have been a murder weapon used against Day. However, no evidence of Day has been found near the scene.

"'We just want to get back to our lives,' said Paul. 'We can't sit around mourning her forever. The memorial service is over, so we go back to work. Misty will either come home or she won't. Wherever she is, she wouldn't have wanted us all to get up in arms about missing her. She's always wanted to find her tribe. I can just hope she found it.'"

Cordelia bit her fist and dashed away the angry tears with the other hand. "Son of a bitch," she cursed. "Disgusting bastard." The urge to put her fist right through the computer monitor struck her, but she restrained herself as she shakily scrawled the information about Misty's church and tiny community where she had grown up. There has to be a way. There has to be something I'm missing. The Supreme erased the computer history and closed the browser. If anyone knew how to bring Misty back, it would be Misty herself. She would start there-if only because she knew nowhere else to begin.