62. Noah
NOAH
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
The sounds of sirens had filled the cold air throughout the night. My mom had to hold me back as I fought to run down the road to Willow’s house. I begged and cried and screamed for her to let me go.
My dad came back a while later with a sad look on his face, and that’s when I knew something horrible had happened. Something worse than any of the times she came to school with cuts and bruises.
That was three hours ago. The sun is barely starting to peak over the horizon, and the rest of the world is silent.
The police are all gone. The reporters who kept flying up and down the road have all disappeared.
Because we live in the middle of nowhere, my dad said that the crime scene team wouldn’t be there until the morning.
Crime scene…What happened? Where’s Willow?
My mom and dad went to bed about an hour ago after my mom sat with me in my room to make sure I didn’t run away.
I pretended to fall asleep until she finally left my room, then I pulled on my shorts, a sweatshirt, and my shoes.
I ran all the way here through the woods.
Branches snapped and scraped leaving cuts along my face and legs.
I think I ran through poison ivy, but I don’t care.
I just needed to get to Willow.
My father wouldn’t tell me what happened. He just said that the police would be coming in the morning to talk to us. I cried and begged him to tell me if Willow was okay, but all he kept saying was that he didn’t know.
I’ve been standing in front of the back door to their house staring at the yellow police tape covering the door. I could easily open the door and bend under the tape to get inside, but I decided to go up to her room as I’ve always done.
I climb the wood pile and lift myself up onto the roof that covers the back porch. The sun is a bit higher now, casting long shadows from the birch trees along the back of the field. It’s eerily quiet. I hate it.
I slowly open her window before climbing inside. The room is a mess. Her pillow and blanket are gone, and so is Mr. Snuggles, the little white rabbit I got her for her birthday. Her backpack isn’t here either.
Her door is wide open, and I can’t hear a single sound coming from anywhere in the house.
No one is here.
“Willow?” I call out, hoping to hear her somewhere.
Maybe she hid when whatever was going on happened.
I tiptoe through the house, checking all of her normal hiding spots upstairs before going down the steps to the front room.
When I look around, my heart starts beating wildly in my chest. There’s blood everywhere.
I follow the drops into the kitchen. There’s a large reddish-brown stain on the ground.
It’s thick and definitely blood. It can’t be her blood. It just can’t be.
A small white rabbit, now stained a crimson red, lies next to the giant puddle. His face has a bloody shoe print on it. His eye is cracked and his ear is torn.
She left Mr. Snuggles? She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t just leave him behind.
I fall onto the ground as I start to cry again. I should have run down here when I first heard the police sirens. I should have been here for her.
I should have protected her.
I reach for Mr. Snuggles. I need to get him cleaned up for her. She’ll want him back whenever I find her.
Maybe she’s at the police station.
I try to stand, but I feel dizzy and fall back to the floor. My hand reaches out to catch myself. When I lift my hand from the floor, I can see my bloody handprint from holding Mr. Snuggles next to the puddle. I dropped him when I fell, and he landed back in the blood.
I need to wash him.
I need to fix his ear and his eye.
He needs to be perfect for her.
I pick him up and hold him to my chest as I climb the steps to her room then go back out the window. I’m careful not to get blood anywhere in the house. No one can know I was here.
I hop down from the roof still holding Mr. Snuggles against me. I can’t stop the tears from falling as I look back at her house then down at Mr. Snuggles. He looks so broken. There’s so much blood.
“Don’t worry, Willow. I’ll take care of him until I find you. I promise.”