It all started with the necklace. A necklace Callie found while with her best friend, Luna. The necklace has a name carved into it: Tara. But there has only been one Tara that was in their town, and she died, although her dad thinks she was murdered. With the help of their friend, Bran, they'll try to discover the truth behind the necklace, Tara, and her supposed-murder.
"Help us!" I screamed, along with my friend Luna. We were both tied up to a tree in a woods, and were about to be killed, until the man who tied us up left.
"Help," I said again, in a whisper.
"It's no use, Callie," Luna told me. "They won't find us."
I tried to wiggle out of the knotted rope that was tying me to the tree that was right next to the tree Luna was tied to, but it was no use. No help at all.
"Did you not hear me?" asked Luna. "We're going to die. There's nothing we can do about it."
I felt my eyes burning, but not because of tears, but because of anger. Having to be tied to a tree by a rope around your stomach and the tree really makes you hurt and mad, especially when some psycho who's out to kill you and your best friend did it.
"We can't give up!" I bellowed.
My hair, which was blond, was being pulled by some little branches sticking up from the tree. "Yow!" I yelled.
"You think your hair hurts? My hair is being pulled more than yours and branches are poking my head. Also, my hair looks gray instead of black because dust is flying in it because of this wind!" Luna shouted. It did. Her hair, which was black, was a dark-grayish color because of the dust. "Whoa," I said.
"'Whoa'?" Luna asked. "It's not cool! It's not 'whoa'!"
I leaned my head back against the tree, more than it was already. The sky was dark and boring. How had this happened: us being tied up? What did we do to that man that made him want to kill us? It made me confused. My hands were able to go inside the pockets of my knee-length skirt, and I looked for something to get me untied. Instead, I found a necklace. A gold-chained necklace, with the most beautiful rainbow stone, ever, hanging at the bottom, in a hear shape.
I remember finding it about a month ago on a hike with Luna:
It was spring, and we decided to explore. We were bored. We walked along the pebbled road when we saw the woods, this same one that we were in right now, with the gate-entrance locked with chains and locks and do-not-enter tape all around it. "Why is it all locked up?" I remember asking Luna. "I don't know. We should check it out though," she said. I also remember disagreeing, but then went along with her. We climbed over the gate and got onto the other side of the woods. The reason we didn't go around the gate, was because a shorter version of the gate, without the chains and locks or entrance, was ALL around the woods. And there's only 1 entrance.
We didn't know why the woods gate entrance was locked up. We were just two 13 year olds trespassing into the woods.
We were just about a mile into the woods when I saw something shining on the ground. "Look!" I said to Luna. I ran over there and picked up the necklace. It was so beautiful. It was so colorful and gold and I couldn't help keeping it for myself. I remember thinking: whoever lost this must be VERY sad. "Are you to keep it?" Luna asked me. I nodded in excitement. It was like treasure to me. I was going to keep it as a good luck charm. Luna was so jealous. She wanted it so badly. But, I found it. It was mine now. Not hers.
"I'm sorry, Luna," I said.
"It's alright," she told me.
But, there was one flaw about it that could probably never be fixed: there was a name carved onto the back. The rainbow heart was sort of flat and it was in a little-bit-bigger gold heart that was around the back of it onto the sides, but not the front, and on the back, the name "Tara" was carved.
"Who's Tara?" asked Luna.
I shook my head.
Sometimes, in my dreams, I would meet up this "Tara" girl, and we'd be friends. Then we'd become best friends. Then turn into the best type of friends, to where I'd tell her about the necklace and how I had it for awhile and she'd let me keep it. Oh, how I dream.
I still look up at the sky, thinking of Tara, along with questions: Who was she? Is she my age? Is it possible she'd be my friend? Will she ever come to California?
So many questions I had.
"Callie!" Luna calling my name caught me up into the real world. I turned my head to her. "Yeah?" I asked, wishing she'd let me remember things from back then, like when I found the necklace.
"We need to think of a plan to get untied!" she told me, yelling. She had to, because the wind was picking up speed and when it does, it's hard to hear when you talk in a normal-volume voice.
"Hey!" a familiar voice yelled, and it wasn't Luna's voice. It was someone else's.
"Who's there?" I yelled back.
I could make out a figure of the person: skinny and tall. His hair was down to behind his ears, I could tell. It was Brandon! But I call him Bran; short for Brandon. "Bran, over here!" I yelled to him. He came running over to me. "Callie, Luna, you guys all alright?" he asked while untying me. "Yeah, we're fine," I said, answering for both me and Luna. When he finished untying me, he started untying Luna.
"Thanks," I said to him. I went over and helped him with Luna.
While we were walking back, I found the spot where I had found the necklace. I knew that was the place because I, along with Luna, nailed a sticky-note sized paper onto the tree where I found the necklace.
Luna must've noticed me staring at the tree, because she asked me, "Still thinking about Tara?"
"No, I'm thinking about the day I found the necklace," I said.
Luna, Brandon, and I are the only ones who know about the name carved into the necklace. I told my parents that the necklace was given to me by a special friend, and, luckily, they didn't ask who the 'special friend' was.
"You know what? I'm going to ask everybody on the street if they know a Tara. If they do, I'll ask them where she lives," said Luna.
"What if they don't want to tell you where she lives?" asked Brandon.
"Then I'll make them tell me," she said.
"How…?"
"With my fists," she said.
"Luna!" I said.
"Ha-ha, kidding," Luna told me.
Tomorrow, we— Luna, Brandon, and I— are going to go around and ask about Tara. I don't know how, but Luna somehow got me into agreeing with this. We asked everyone on the whole street, and none knew her. None knew someone with that name. So, we tried a couple of other roads. And guess what we ended up with: nothing. But that was until we got to this one guy's house.
"Excuse me Mister, I'm sorry to bother you, but we would like to ask you something," said Luna.
"Yes?" he asked, very friendly. He had brown hair with brown eyes, and he was sort of handsome.
"Do you know anyone by the name of 'Tara'?" asked Luna.
"Yeah, I do. Well, did anyway," he answered.
"'Did', as in used to know her? What do you mean?" I asked.
"My friend, his daughter, Tara, died 2 months ago. She was the only Tara here in this town," he said.
"She died?" I asked, mouth open with shock, along with my eyes.
"Yeah, she did. She was 10 years old. She died at night. He thinks she was murdered, though," explained the man, whose name was Mr. Wey.
"Who's 'he'?" Brandon asked.
"Her father," Mr. Wey said. "He went completely crazy."
"Crazy?"
"He's thinking someone killed his daughter. You don't think that's crazy?" he asked. "Well, kind of. Was she sick right before she died?" Brandon answered.
"No," answered Mr. Wey, "she was healthy."
"Then it's possible she was killed," said Luna.
"I don't think so," I said. "How could someone kill her while she's sleeping?"
"She wasn't. She snuck out. When her parents couldn't find her the next morning, they sent out the police to find her, and they found her body in the woods over there"— he pointed to the woods that me and Luna were at yesterday—"bloody and dry and dead."
A shiver went through my spine as I pictured what she had looked like when they found her body.
"Then, why don't you think she was murdered?" I asked. "There was some cold, hard proof there."
"Because everybody in this town liked her, so why would someone who liked her kill her?" he asked me.
"I don't know. But, she was murdered, and that's the truth," I said.
Mr. Wey's face turned from nice to stern. "Listen you all! The man's crazy! He lost his daughter! He just wants someone to blame for her death!" He was breathing heavily and furiously. "Who… who was her father?" Luna asked. "I shouldn't say. And you shouldn't bother him about it. He'd get on you. He'd get mad if you mention his daughter," he said.
"Alright, we'll go. See you." I walked away from the front porch and onto the grass, with Luna and Brandon following behind.
"What if…" Luna began, "the Tara who had that necklace was the one who died. He DID say that the daughter was the only Tara in this town. And that necklace was found in THIS TOWN."
I didn't listen. I don't want all my dreams of me and Tara becoming friends to crash and break.
They walked into the woods. While Brandon was sitting up against a tree, Luna and I walked on further into the woods.
Luna and I were looking at an odd-looking tree when a rustling sound was heard. "What was that?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," Luna said.
Then it came again. How was there rustling here? There are not any crunchy leaves like there are in the fall that would break when stepped on. "Brandon?" I called out, thinking he was trying to scare us. "Hello?"
No answer.
"Hello."
I, and Luna, spun around fast, and saw a girl. She was a young girl, and the tip of her head would come up to my nose if she stood right in front of me, her face to mine. She was wearing a long, faded purple— sort of lavender— gown that came down to her shins. She had curly white-blond hair, and had a small white bow on the right and left side in her hair. She was barefoot, too. "Who're you?" I asked.
"Who're you?" she asked me.
"She asked first," said Luna.
"I'm Callie," I answered, "And you?"
She turned to Luna. "Who are YOU?"
"Luna. And this is Brandon," she said, and then pointed at Brandon.
"Hey," said Brandon, waving to her. She walked past us.
"Excuse me?" said Luna. "Where do you think you're going? You need to tell us who you are."
The girl kept on walking. For some reason, I see a glimmering glow around her. A very thin glimmer, though. She seemed so pale, like she was sick. I realized I was looking down at the ground, so I looked back, and gasped.
Luna and Brandon, who me were behind and were also looking at the ground looked up, and saw it too.
She was gone.
