CHAPTER TWO

When I woke up the next morning. I could hear my mom clattering around in the kitchen making breakfast. Heather and my dad wouldn't be here for four hours at least so, I took my mom up on her promise that I could explore when it got light outside.
I put on some denim shorts, a cornflower colored shirt and my favorite jean jacket. I ran downstairs to put my sneakers on and promptly smacked my head against the wall. I rubbed my head and grimaced. I was still used to our straight staircase at home. This one had a turn in the middle of it.
I walked the rest of the way down, rubbing my head.
When I got downstairs I quietly put on my sneakers and walked into the kitchen. I could see my mom poking around in the pantry, trying to find the maple syrup for the pancakes so I walked out the back door without her noticing.
When I climbed down from our patio and got over the barbed wire fence that separated our home from the forest and was actually standing in the middle of one of the patches of trees I started to wonder how far the forest went on. I started walking away from our house in a northeasterly direction. After around twenty minutes of walking I reached I rather tall rise in the ground. I started to climb and found myself at the edge of a large canyon. There was a tall waterfall at one side and a pool that was exactly the right size to have room to play in but not go under too far. There was lush greenery everywhere and tall trees, perfect for climbing. I don't know how long I sat there and gazed down at the gorgeous canyon but then my watch started to beep.
"Oh no!" I gasped, staring down at my watch, "I have to get back before Heather and Dad get here!" I scrambled down from the rise I had been sitting and started to run towards my house. After a couple yards I stopped and looked back at the rise. From where I was standing you never would have known there was a canyon behind it. "You could never tell." I mused to myself as I continued running for my house.
By time I got to my house, panting and disheveled, I could hear my dad's car pull up in our driveway. "Oh boy," I panted out, "I'm in for it." My dad likes us to presentable at all times. He doesn't mind if we're not pitch perfect in every respect, though he does like us to be tidy.
At the moment I was anything but tidy. I had leaves in my hair, a scrape on my knee that was bleeding from when I fell down, scratches on my arms and legs from running into stray branches and trees and I also had a cut on my forehead from running up against a boulder. It was bleeding all over the place and I wasn't sure if the wet stuff on my face was blood or sweat. Probably both.
At that moment who should step out on the back porch but my dad, closely followed by my mom and sister. My mother didn't say anything, just fainted dead away and collapsed on one of the porch chairs. She has a problem with fainting at the slightest thing. My sister just stared like I was an alien with five arms and twelve legs. My dad did a double take and stared with her.
"Good grief, you guys are staring like I'm Exhibit A at the museum in Washington!" I blurted out. I knew I probably was a sight but the way they were staring was a little freaky. "Mellisa," my dad finally managed to stammer out, "Who or what, as the case may be, did this to you?" "Around four trees and a mean old boulder." I told him. He did look glad I hadn't been physically assaulted but he was still giving me that freaky stare.
"Can you to please stop staring at me?" I asked, worming my way between them to get into the house. "It's quite unnatural to have someone stare at you that way." They kept staring until I rounded the turn to get up the stairs and then, I supposed, they went to revive my mother who was still passed out on the deck chair.
When I got upstairs to me and my sisters bathroom I saw in the mirror how frightening I did look. There was blood all over my face and arms because now the scrapes I got on my arms and legs were bleeding too. I looked like some sort of mangled forest creature with all the leaves stuck to my clothes and hair.
I stared at myself for a moment and suddenly grossed out by it all, I grabbed a wash cloth and began scrubbing at my face. When I had got most of the leaves out of my hair, washed away the blood and changed clothes, Heather came in and breathed I sigh of relief when she saw I was externally blood free.
"You look better without the blood all over." She giggled, "For a minute there I wondered if it was really you." "It's me all right." I said checking my eyebrows for caked blood, "So I heard you've been exploring." Heather said climbing up on the sink. "Now who would have told you that." I sarcastically remarked. "Mom of course, silly." Heather giggled again.
If there is a downside of my sister it's that she doesn't fully appear to understand the concept of sarcasm.
"Silly yourself." I retorted, instantaneously grabbing her by the ribs and tickling her. She was laughing so hard she nearly fell off the counter. "By the way," I asked, finally letting her go, "Speaking of Mom how is she anyway?" "She's fine now." "Oh good." I went back to rubbing blood out of my eyebrows. "Only," "What is it?" "Well she didn't cook lunch." I don't know how she did it, it wasn't that what she was particularly funny what she said, it was how she said that was hilarious.
Heather exploded with laughter as she jumped of the counter and ran out of the bathroom. As she had expected I started chasing her with one of my bloody washcloths.
I finally caught her in her closet and proceeded to start tickling her again. It worked until my hair got caught on a clothes hanger and Heather had to untangle me. "Wow you have wild hair." She remarked. "Look who's talking." I said. If possible Heather has wilder hair than I have which is really saying something.
When she finally got me untangled we were both starving as it was like, one o'clock in the afternoon and I hadn't had breakfast. "Wow I'm starving." Heather said. "Me too." I agreed, "Let's go get some lunch." As we walked downstairs together, we both collided on the same wall again. "I guess we're going to have to get used to this house or have to get used to banging our heads on the wall." I smiled.
When we finally got downstairs my mom was taking a nap on the couch and my dad was nowhere in sight so me and Heather warmed up some leftovers of the spaghetti we had last night and some fancy stuff that my dad brought from the hotel he was staying in. The fancy stuff was some sort of bread pudding that we both agreed was disgusting (Partly because we found a spider in it) and promptly threw it out. Other than the spider incident, our makeshift meal went pretty well.
After that my mom was still sawing logs on the couch, so we decided to go upstairs and do something. We ended up trying to see who could win the most games of checkers and Heather won. She always does somehow. I don't know how the kid does it but she always beats me one way or another. When she won fifty to ten I had officially had enough.
"Let's go exploring." I said hoping, she wouldn't rib me for losing the checker games along the way. It turned out Heather was much too excited to rib me about checkers. Going exploring was what she had wanted to do ever since she got to Autumn Leaf. When we lived back in the suburb she had barely even gone into the backyard.
We hurried to the kitchen to grab some cheese and raisins if we got hungry. We got our jackets and our sneakers and quietly slid out the back door. When we got to the other side of the barbed wire fence Heather asked me "Mellisa, where are we going?" I answered back to her, "I'm going to show you all the stuff I did last night." I showed her the vines, the large tree stumps, the rocky hollow and last but not least the canyon.
When we reached the little rise that overlooked the canyon I turned around and said, "Climb to the top of this rise and you'll see something you'll never forget." She nodded slowly, looking more than a little scared, and started to climb behind me. I reached the top of the rise and looked down at the canyon, all sparkly in summer glory. "Isn't it cool?" I asked, still looking down at the canyon. I turned around "Do you…"I stopped and gasped. There was no one behind me. Heather was gone. "Heather?" I asked to the thin air. It was if she had never been there. I nervously fingered Isabelle's locket around my neck. What was going on? "Heather!" I shouted, "If you are hiding somewhere I am going to make sure Mom grounds you for life!" There was no answer. "Heather!" I called out again, "Heather?"
I slid down from the rise and stood up. Suddenly I saw something sparkly on the ground. It was Heather's charm bracelet. "Her charm bracelet." I said to myself. Heather's charm bracelet was her most special possession, kind of like the locket was mine. She wore it everywhere, even to sleep. I stared at the bracelet for a moment, then I started running. I started running for home, for help, for anyone to hear me and help me find Heather.
"Help!" I called out to the wind, "Heather, if you can hear me come out right now! It's not funny anymore!" I ran even faster and it wasn't long before I reached our house. I burst in the back door and stood there gasping for a moment. My dad looked up, startled. He had been engrossed in a newspaper and a cup of coffee but he now put them aside and rushed over to me.
My mom had apparently awoken when we were gone and was sitting up from where she was reading some French novel.
"Honey, what's wrong?" my dad asked, "Is everything alright?" "No," I gasped out, "Hea-ath-er...g-go-one..." My dad stared at me until I had managed to gasp out what had happened.
He dashed for the phone and started dialing the police office. On the hearing of the news that Heather was missing, my mom promptly fainted again. I collapsed next to her. I could hear my dad talking to some lieutenant or somebody and then impatiently waiting when they put him on hold.
I was still running all this through my brain.
Heather missing.
My kid sister missing.
I felt like I wanted to cry and scream and shout all at the same time. I couldn't take it anymore, I had to let out some steam. I had a considerable amount left after running a half mile distance in about ten minutes. I dashed up the stairs to my room, again banging my head on the wall and I just collapsed on my bed.
I opened my clenched fist revealing the charm bracelet I had found on the ground. I stared at it again before hugging it to my heart like I would never let go. Then I started thinking about all my memories of me and Heather. I reached over and grabbed our family scrapbook of us to help me remember.
At the beginning was a snapshot of me holding Heather for the first time when she was a tiny baby. I had this awed look on my face that instantly portrayed how much I already cared for this baby.
Then there was a snapshot of me when I was eight and Heather was three. We were at one of our old houses on Heather's birthday and I was helping her blow out the candles.
There was also one of me and Heather when I was ten and she was five. We were at a different one of our houses this time and it was the fourth of July. There were fireworks in the night sky and all the neighborhood kids were blowing these huge bubbles out of these tiny containers of formula. All the adults were sitting around in collapsible chairs and wearing sunglasses and my mom was helping Heather blow bubbles out of this pan of formula that was about as big as she was. I was with the older kids having a hula hoop contest and there was some sort of buffet table set up.
The next picture was on Halloween of the same year, Heather was dressed up to look like a mermaid and I was standing behind her dressed up like a pirate. Isabelle was also there dressed up as a gypsy. Her straight black hair went very well with her costume.
Then there were more recent pictures of me and Heather. There was one taken at the park near our most recent old house. I don't know why but for some reason we were both dressed up like frogs for some charity event. That was one picture that looked really weird. The next was even weirder.
Heather was sitting on top of me on the balcony of our old house. There was a pitcher and glasses of lemonade on the table outside and the checker board was set up. Apparently I had been trying and failing to beat her at checkers. I think she was sitting on top of me because I lost again.
The next photo was on Valentine's Day. Heather and I both had new stuffed pink and white matching teddy bears. Our parents always gave us matching teddy bears on Valentine's Day. We now have quite a collection. There was chocolate all over the place and cards were everywhere.
The next one was a bit farther back in time than the rest. I was carrying Heather and was about to toss her into the lake near our summer house that we had with one of our houses. That was the day I taught her to swim. It wasn't quite the way I had learned to swim but close enough. When I had learned to swim, I was two. We were at the beach and I had crawled into the surf when my parents weren't looking so they had no choice but to teach me. The next photo was of a Christmas day at another one of our houses. I was unwrapping a pair of night vision goggles and Heather was holding this teddy bear that was about as big as she was. My mom had been taking the pictures that day so you could see my dad exclaiming over a brightly colored polka dot tie my mom had bought him. She made him wear it to work the next day after he pretended to like it so much when he unwrapped it. The next was probably the most recent in the scrap book. It was of me and Heather just before she left on her Girl Scout camping trip. She was in uniform already and about to hop into the car with my dad so he could drive her to the camp site headquarters. I was wearing this swimsuit pullover as I was about to meet Isabelle at the pool. That was the day I got a really bad sunburn on the back of my neck. It was also the day that Heather got poison ivy at camp. I closed the scrap book and tossed onto the heap of pillows on my bed. I just couldn't stop thinking about Heather being gone. I barely ever went anywhere without her and going without her for two weeks had already been pretty hard. Now I didn't even know if I would ever see her again. The thought made me feel sick. I rolled over and buried my face in one of the pillows. I didn't cry though. I was too shocked to cry. I don't know how long I lay there but the next thing I knew it was seven o'clock in the evening. I finally got up and looked out the window. It was twilight outside and I could hear some birds quietly chirping. Suddenly I just felt empty inside, as if someone had grabbed a piece of me and wrenched it out. I felt drained even though I hadn't been crying and decided to walk it off. I walked down the stairs without banging my head on the wall and grabbed my sneakers and my house key. I walked to the front yard, I didn't want to go out in the back yard because of what had happened today. I walked in to the left side of the garage. For such a small house we had a remarkably large garage. On the big side was my mom's car and the other side was the recreation equipment like balls and bikes. At the moment I grabbed my bike and started to wheel it out to the driveway. I didn't really know where I was going but I remembered my mom saying that there was a small town this way and I should check it out when I had time. At the moment I felt like I had all the time in the world so, I mounted my bike and started pedaling in that direction. I could feel the locket banging on my chest more than usual because I had hooked my sisters charm bracelet to it. It was like that was the last thing I had of her even though technically, her entire room was just across from mine. I had felt like I didn't want to go in there when I was coming downstairs. I kept pedaling doggedly. I knew my parents probably wouldn't worry too much because I had left a note in the kitchen. When I reached the town I realized that the word "Small" fit it like a glove. I would not have been surprised, if I had a dictionary with me, that the definition of the word small was "The town of Autumn Leaf". I kept riding through the town looking for a place to park my bike. I finally found one outside the library, one of the few places that was not already closed. I decided to go inside as I had always like libraries; they were so peaceful. As I walked inside I saw that there were only two people there, some teenager looking at the cars for sale in a magazine and a stiff librarian sitting ramrod straight in her chair behind the desk. She didn't appear to notice me and just sat there, staring balefully at the teenager. I could tell she wasn't someone who cared a fig for teens. I walked toward a shelf of books that seemed moderately interesting and, not looking where I was going, promptly tripped over a book lying on the floor. "Oomph." I grumbled as I got up. I picked up the book that I had tripped over. On the cover was the title, The Mythology of Autumn Leaf: Legends of the Willow o' the Wisps. I stared at the cover picture and gasped. On the cover was a picture of a girl with long black hair and a familiar face. It looked enough like Isabelle to be a carbon copy of her. Only this girl was wearing a dress from the pilgrim days and had bow in her hair. Underneath the picture were the words, By Olive Char I stared some more. Could it be a coincidence that the author had the nearly the name as me and the picture on the front looked exactly like my best friend? I decided to check it out since I had my mom's library card with me. She loves library's too so she had got one this morning. I walked toward the stern librarian and asked, "Excuse me Ma'am, could I please check this book out?" the librarian looked pleased that I had asked so politely and promptly checked the book out for me. "Here you are Miss. Please come again." She said with a very cordial smile. I thanked her politely and walked outside to where my bike was parked. I couldn't wait to start reading this book when I got home and find out if the similarities were coincidences or not. When I got home my mom was asleep again on the couch. My dad had left on his business trip a couple hours ago so now it was just me and mom. I ran up to my room and opened the book to page one.

Hope you like it!