Chapter I:
She walked down a long, dark passageway until she came to a door at the end of the hall.
She reached for the handle and opened the door. Behind it was a small, empty room with no windows.
There was a girl standing in the middle of the room. A young girl, pale and thin, with dark hair. Her eyes were strangely familiar.
"Who are you?" Elena asked, approaching her.
But the girl did not answer. She smiled and raised a finger to her lips.
Elena woke with a start, her heart pounding. It was early in the morning, a faint, greyish glow of sunlight coming into her bedroom through the window, and she got out of bed and walked over to the window. Her body felt sluggish but her mind was wide awake and she knew there was no chance of her getting any more sleep this morning.
She didn't know why she was having these dreams. She'd been having a recurring dream for the past few weeks now, of walking down some long, endless hallway before coming to that door and seeing the girl in that dark room. It was the same dream she'd had once before, a long time ago, when she was much younger. Hadn't she? It was hard to recall. She'd never been good at remembering things.
The first half of her life had always been foggy, and for some reason her head would start pounding whenever she would try to remember. The earliest thing she could recall was from when she was fifteen...sixteen, maybe?...lying in some hotel bedroom next to her mother, rain pounding on the window outside. They'd always been travelling back then, drifting from place to place.
The thought of her mother brought up a cold, tight feeling in her chest. It had only been a week since Mary had died. She hadn't been able to stop replaying that moment in her mind.
"Mom?" She said, pausing at the entrance to her apartment complex as the woman turned to face her. "What are you doing here?"
For a long moment the woman was silent. She stood as still as a statue, looking at her with a strange, empty expression she'd never seen before.
"I'm so sorry, Elena." She said, her voice shaky.
Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a knife, raising it to her throat and bringing it across-
She didn't understand why. It's not uncommon for people to hide this sort of thing from their families. Their loved ones often don't know until it's too late, a detective had told her, but she didn't believe it. She hadn't wanted to. The look in her mother's eyes...she'd never seen anything like it before. It was like a different person had taken hold of her.
She hadn't been able to sleep at all the first few nights. Maybe her mother's suicide was why she was having the dreams, out of grief or guilt or any of the other emotions she wanted so badly to bury. Or maybe not. There was no use in trying to figure it out anymore.
Elena turned away from the window. She was going to have go through her mother's apartment this afternoon, to find what she wanted to keep before they disposed of everything else. It was like they were erasing her. The world was already moving on, she thought, bitterly. She wondered if she ever would.
She walked into the bathroom and washed her face, staring at herself in the mirror. The woman that stared back at her...she looked so pale, her eyes dark and sunken.
Elena looked away. She needed a pill. It would take the edge off, like it always did. It would get her through the day.
Her mother's apartment was quiet and cold and there was something eerie about the stillness here. It felt wrong, somehow. The last time she'd been here, her mother was here and the place had felt full of life. Now it just felt like a tomb.
She'd been going through her mother's things for the past hour, moving from room to room and taking any item that reminded her of the woman, when she saw a box sitting on the bed.
She sat down on the bed and opened the box. It was full of old newspaper clippings, and she picked one up and started reading.
No Leads on Whereabouts of Missing Girl
One year after Spencer Hastings, then 14, went missing, a suspect has yet to be identified in the girl's disappearance. No evidence has been found to indicate if the girl is still alive or where she might be...
She frowned. Something about the missing girl's eyes made her shiver. Why did her mother have this? She looked at a picture of the town in one of the clippings. Rosewood, Pennsylvania. She'd never heard of it before. Had her mother lived there, once?
Elena set the article down. She'd always had the feeling that Mary was hiding things from her, that there was a lot she didn't know about both her mother and her own past. She'd asked about her childhood but her mother had never wanted to talk about it.
For as long as she could remember, she'd wanted answers. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was going to have to go to Rosewood to find them.
The drive was long.
It took her the better part of a day to reach Rosewood; she'd left before dawn and arrived in the middle of the afternoon. The first thing she did was check into a motel on the outskirts of the town. Her room was dingy and old-looking but tolerable. She didn't plan on staying here longer than a few days anyway.
Then she drove into the town proper, parking in the center of town and taking a moment to walk around.
She didn't like it here. There was something eerie about this town, some cold, strange feeling that made her skin crawl. Somehow it also felt familiar. Had she been here before? Your mind is playing tricks on you, she thought, pushing the feeling aside. This is some town in the middle of nowhere, of course it's going to feel weird.
Elena stopped at a restaurant at the end of the sidewalk. Emily Fields, one of Spencer's childhood friends, worked here as a bartender. She was the only one of Spencer's friends that still lived in Rosewood. If she wanted more information about what happened all those years ago, Emily would be the one to ask.
Elena walked into the restaurant and made her way over to the bar. The place was nearly empty, save for a few customers and the woman standing behind the bar.
"Miss Fields?" She asked, and the woman turned.
"Yes, do I know you?" Emily replied, frowning.
"My name is Elena Drake, and I was wondering if you would be willing to talk to me about the night of Spencer's disappearance-
"Are you a reporter?" Emily interjected, something flickering in her eyes for a moment. Pain? Regret? She couldn't tell.
"No, I'm not." Elena reassured. "I think my mother may have known your friend."
"Look, that was a long time ago. I'd rather not talk about it." Emily replied. "Just...leave me alone, alright?"
Elena nodded. "I'm staying at Room 301 in the Lost Woods Inn, if you decide to change your mind."
Emily didn't answer, turning and walking away from her without another word. She watched her go for a moment before another woman came up beside her. She looked like she was in her fifties, tall and pale with blonde hair.
"Don't mind her." The woman said, glancing at Emily's back. Her eyes were cold, sharp, and she suddenly felt uneasy. "People in this town don't feel comfortable around outsiders...it's been like that since long before my time."
She was silent, and the woman continued like she hadn't been expecting her to respond. "I heard you asking about that girl who went missing...her parents still live here, if you'd like to know more about her. They live on 23 Bridgewater Terrace, the last house on the block."
"I will, thank you, um..." Elena paused, and the woman smiled.
"Charlotte." She said, and Elena nodded before heading for the door. There was an odd chill at the base of her spine.
She ignored it and kept walking.
After leaving the restaurant, she got in her car and looked up the address the woman had given her. Her phone guided her to the Hastings house and she pulled to a stop in front of the curb near the driveway.
Taking her mother's box with her, she left the car and approached the house, walking up the patio steps and knocking on the door. After a moment it opened and a woman appeared. "Hi, are you Veronica Hastings?" Elena asked, and the woman frowned at her.
"Yes, I am." Veronica said. She looked tired, almost numb. No one truly gets over the loss of a loved one, Elena thought, now painfully aware of that unique sense of grief. She couldn't imagine what this woman had gone through. Or what Spencer had gone through, that poor girl, the terror she must have felt on the night she was taken. For a fleeting, surreal moment she thought she could feel the girl's fear as deeply as if it were her own. "Who are you?"
"Elena Drake." She replied. "I'd like to talk to you about your daughter, if you're willing to do so. May I come in?"
"Can't you people leave us alone?" Another voice said, harsh with anger, before a man appeared next to the woman. "Eighteen years and you still won't give us peace-
"I'm not a reporter." She clarified hastily, and the anger faded from his face. "The reason I'm here, is...I believe my mother was living in this town when Spencer went missing. I'd like to show you something I found in her apartment."
Veronica studied her, looking puzzled but curious, before nodding. "Come in." She said, and they both moved back to allow her entry.
"Thank you." She said, following them into the house. As they entered the living room, she noticed a picture sitting on one of the shelves, a picture of a girl. She stopped and walked over to the shelf, picking up the picture.
The girl was young, smiling and dark-haired. She couldn't look away from her face. It was the same face she'd seen in the newspaper clippings.
This was Spencer, she thought, and suddenly she remembered the inside of an unfamiliar bedroom. The sound of howling wind. A girl's sharp voice. I made you, Spencer. I made all of you -
"Miss Drake?" Veronica asked, yanking her out of her own mind, and she turned and put the picture back down. Her heart was pounding.
"Sorry, I...I don't know what came over me." Elena said, struggling to get her thoughts back in focus. She walked over to the table and set the box down, opening it. "After my mother died, I found this in her apartment. All of these articles are about Spencer's disappearance. I don't know why she had this, but I think she has some connection to Spencer."
"Who was your mother?" Peter asked.
"Mary Drake." Elena replied, and saw a flicker of recognition in his face. "Did she use to live here?"
"Yes, she did." Veronica nodded. "But I'm not sure what you think this means."
"It means..." Elena stopped, a chill running through her. Had her mother been the one who abducted Spencer? Had that been why she'd felt such a strong, inexplicable connection to the girl, why the girl in the photo had felt so familiar? Too many questions she'd had about her past, about her mother, suddenly made sense. "I think I might be Spencer." She continued, feeling hollow inside, like something had been ripped out of her.
Had this been why her mother had killed herself? I'm so sorry, Elena, she'd said, with that haunting look in her eyes, like she was awake yet also in a dream. Had she done it out of guilt, for taking her? She thought back to when she'd found the box. It looked like it had placed deliberately on the bed, as if her mother had wanted her to find it after she was gone.
Veronica and Peter stared at her for a moment, disbelief and anger all over their faces. "Is this some kind of sick joke?" Peter demanded, voice rising. "I don't know what you want from us, but it's time for you to leave."
"I don't want anything from you." Elena replied. "I'm not saying I know for sure, but why else would my mother have this? Maybe I'm not Spencer, but maybe my mother took her, and maybe I can help -
"Do you know how many times I've been approached by people like you? How many times I've been given hope, only to have it smashed?" Veronica asked, and there was a terrible pain in her eyes now, like a raw, old wound. "Over the years, people have come to us with information about Spencer, telling us they've seen her, or they think they know her, or they know where she is or who took her. All liars or lunatics, but I believed them every time, because I wanted it to be true. I'm not doing that anymore, I can't."
"I'm not trying to deceive you, I just...I'm trying to find out who I am." Elena replied. "I -
"If you don't leave, we'll be calling the police." Peter cut her off, voice sharp. Reluctantly, she nodded and picked up the box before heading towards the door.
She left the house and got into her car, sitting in silence for a moment. She could feel tears in her eyes and quickly wiped them away.