April 28th 2021

Chapter 118
Our Spooks For Phoebe

Where's Phoebe?

Maya's heart pounded in her chest, and it seemed to throw her mind in turmoil. Everything felt too big in there, too many things needed to happen and she didn't know what to do first.

"Hey, Leona?" Maya moved toward the kitchen. If Bishop was out here, she had to be in there. She was, and she came out. Her costume sought in no way to hide her little round belly, and seeing it for the first time Maya was briefly distracted, reminded of her friends' happy news, but she had to get back on track, she had to…

"Yeah?" Leona asked.

"Can you go upstairs and send Lucas down? And maybe stay with Marianne for a bit? She usually wakes up after we put her down like this, that's why he's still up there…"

"Okay, I… What's going on?" Leona looked around, likely sensing the odd air in the room.

"Please?" Maya urged her on, and her former co-waitress moved up the stairs at once. The sparkling 'sun' shawl was removed from her shoulders and draped over the couch as Maya waited. She could see Stella and Bishop watching her, the girl especially. "Try her again?" she asked Stella, who did as told.

"What…" Lucas started to ask as he came bounding down the steps, her sparkling moon man.

"Phoebe," Maya simply told him, and his face changed. He understood.

"Not picking up again," Stella shook her head, and the rising concerns left her hands shaking as she looked to her art teacher once more. She had grown so much over the last three years, but underneath all that she was never so far away from what had always been there. With Maya though, she had been growing more confident, and in this moment, her voice had never sounded so solid. "You're hiding something, I know you are. Something about Phoebe, and now she's not here, and I can see how worried you are, and it's making me worried, too. What's happening? Why did she go?"

"Maya?" Lucas asked his wife, left to fill in the picture with what small bits of information he was receiving. She sighed.

"Find Dylan, you two get out there, start driving. Maybe you can catch up to her. I'll call you in a few minutes, just start looking," she pleaded with him, and he didn't argue. He was out the door in a second. Maya turned to Bishop. "Can you check the maze? Maybe she went in there, I don't know…"

"Alright," Bishop went.

"Tell the others to stay outside!" Maya called after him, and he nodded. Now, it was just the two of them, her and Stella. Her nerves felt like they must have been on fire. Stella kept watching her, never broke eye contact. She wouldn't let it go, and at this point Maya didn't see the point in trying to brush her off. "Come here," she motioned for her to come and stand in front of the pictures on the wall.

Some of these hadn't actually been here all that long. She'd found them when they'd furnished the trophy case with items from the basketball days. Down in the living room, there was one framed photo of her and Lucas and their friends, at the Shelby team party. The two of them, and Zay, Nadine, Asher, Riley, and Dylan. Dylan… Looking at him in that one photo, all of seventeen, she didn't know that she'd ever realized how potentially revealing this image might be. If the hair and overall appearance weren't already showing his noted resemblance to Taylor Munroe, there was that expression on his face, the one that reminded Maya of all the ways he was so like his sister, like Phoebe.

Stella saw the picture now, and she frowned. She didn't understand at first what she was being shown, except… well, there was this boy… He looked familiar, but maybe for more than one reason, he… Her eyes showed the journey, and Maya could just follow her. She couldn't help but pick up on the fact that he looked so much like the Munroe kids, but there was something else, and that was the hard part. But then, it clicked. Stella blinked, turned to her teacher with eyes full of questions. Maya bowed her head.

"That's Mr. Orlando, isn't it?" Stella asked.

"Dylan," Maya nodded. "I met him, first day of school after I moved to Texas. He's been one of my best friends for fifteen years. His mother is also Phoebe and Taylor's mother. He didn't know, no one knew, but then I found out, and I told him. We couldn't tell them, do you understand?" she turned to Stella, hating to play the authority with her but having no choice. Stella silently nodded.

"And she saw the picture," she spoke after a few seconds.

"She did. And now she's out there, confused, probably…" Scared, hurt, angry… "I need you to think, Stella. Where might she go?"

When Lucas came tearing out the front door, head on a swivel, all he could think about was finding his friend. He didn't know exactly what they were up against, but one way or another this night would change their lives. The secret would be out, the chips would fall where they fell, and they'd have to deal with it.

"Orlando, look alive!" he shouted over the noise, recalling their days on the team together. If that didn't raise him…

"Hey, Friar! Out here!" When he turned, Dylan was jogging over to meet him. "Time to head inside? You're not missing anything, are you? I can go…"

"We are missing something… someone… Phoebe was here and now they can't find her. She ran out, Maya thinks she found out… I don't know how much… But we should go and find her."

Seeing the way Dylan's expression shifted all at once, hearing about what was happening with Phoebe, it was so easy to see how he felt about her. As far as she'd known up to now, he was only her gym teacher, but her… She was his sister, plain and simple. He barely knew her, but her safety and her happiness were paramount to him. Right now, both of those things were held in jeopardy.

"Okay… Okay, how do we do this?" he asked, looking out to the road, to one side and the other.

"If she's headed for the buses, she'll have gone north, but there's no way to know for sure," Lucas told him. By the house, he could see Bishop talking to their party guests, keeping them from heading inside.

"I'll go that way, you take south?" Dylan suggested.

"Sure, go. Maya said she'd call to fill us in."

Inside the house, after getting nowhere with three more attempts at calling Phoebe's phone, Stella was only growing more agitated, and Maya told her to sit down. She wasn't exactly the image of calm either, but right now she figured there was no other way to get through this.

"What's going on?"

Maya turned to find several of her friends had gotten past Bishop and now stared back at her, curious and concerned. The costumes made for an odd combination. Sophie was at the front of that group, and even though she was only here as a guest, suddenly Maya could only see her as what she also was: a cop. She'd know what to do, wouldn't she? The thought must have been easy to read on her face. She stepped up and looked to Maya with her own loaded look. Talk to me. Maya's eyes briefly ticked over to where Riley stood before looking to Sophie again, even as she knew she'd be addressing the entire group.

"I have a student. Phoebe Munroe, eighteen years old, one of my seniors. She was here tonight, dressed like Dorothy Gale? She's Dylan's sister."

"Wait, what?" Asher spoke what they all had to be thinking.

"His mother is her mother. I discovered it, with Lucas. We told him, and Riley. We never told her, but tonight, she figured it out. She ran out of here, and now we can't find her, and we can't reach her. She's not picking up her phone… Whatever's going on in her head right now, she shouldn't have to be alone. If she ends up somewhere and she gets hurt, I…" Maya shook her head.

"Okay, okay," Sophie gave her shoulders a squeeze.

"I sent Lucas and Dylan to drive and try to find her. Stella has some ideas of where she could go," Maya turned, and she came up, handed a sticky note to Sophie, who looked it over.

"I'm her best friend," Stella informed her. She was still fidgeting, her voice trembling out of fear.

"You have a picture?" Sophie asked her with a reassuring smile. Stella passed her phone over just as she'd done the paper, like she'd determined herself to be prepared to help in any and all ways she could. "Do you mind if I send it to my number?" She didn't, so Sophie sent the picture to herself and then passed it into the group chat, along with a snapshot of the sticky note. Several notification bells chimed one after another. "We can split off in two cars and hit all these. How long since she left?" They didn't actually know. Maya looked to Bishop, who would have likely seen her last.

"I didn't see the time, but I would say it was almost an hour ago," he nodded.

"Then she could have gotten to any of these. She could also have gone home," Sophie looked back to Maya. She sighed.

She didn't want to have to call her parents. Her mother. I don't want to have to call her mother.

"I texted her brother," Stella spoke up again. "Taylor, I tutor him. He's at home, he couldn't go out tonight, grounded. Phoebe's not there."

"What'd you tell him?" Maya asked.

"That Phoebe's phone was dead, and she wanted to let them know that we were staying here longer than planned. He didn't correct me."

"Look," Sophie sighed. "We'll go looking for Phoebe now. I'm giving it two hours, and if we haven't found her then, you need to call her parents," she told Maya.

"Okay," Maya agreed.

"You should stick around here. I don't know if she'll just come back here, but if she does, you should be the ones she finds."

Soon, two more cars took off, with the groups who would check through the sticky note's locations. Maya called Lucas and Dylan as promised, catching them up. They hadn't found her, but they were still going. After they hung up, Maya made up her mind. She couldn't just stand here. The party was not happening, there were four cars out there, and for all they knew she hadn't gone that far.

"Stella, you stay here in case she comes, okay? I'll be back."

Flashlight in one hand, phone in the other, Maya took off, the sparkling sun wandering into the night. She walked around the house, checked that the Hex was good and locked up. She walked to the water's edge, did her very best not to let her thoughts spiral like Phoebe might have gone in there. No. She continued along on the path away from the main road, and she listened, and she let her light bloom ahead of her. On impulse, she tried to call Phoebe's phone, hoping she might pick up… could pick up.

And she heard it… Not close by, but close enough that in the stillness of the evening, it broke through. She knew the tune, that was her ringtone.

Maya didn't know how she managed to run in her golden shoes and not fall flat on her face, but she followed the sound, as long as it lasted. She was coming up on the back gate into the Sandersons' farm, and she let herself in without a second's consideration. She had a feeling like she knew where she'd find her now, and she hurried toward the stable, slowing to a walk as she approached. Inside, Phoebe sat at Andromeda's side, absently brushing at her. Moonlight revealed the tears on her face.

Maya: I found her. She's okay. Everyone go back to the house.

Outside of the group chat, Maya wrote to Stella to reassure her. Then, she wrote to Dylan and told him where she was.

Dylan: On my way.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners