Sometimes, you didn’t get answers. Some bodies stayed hidden and mysteries went unsolved and some secrets were buried with their keepers.
“You can sit with me.” Tommy gave a half-smile.
“How nice of you.” She bumped into him.
It felt strange, given everything that had just happened, to enter the cafeteria, which was still intact and holding the students until an early dismissal, according to the announcement. Right away she saw her friends - if they were that- looking guilty, but then she also saw Anna Peters.
That girl could not have been more right about being careful about her new friends, and she had even managed to figure out everything and tell Mr. Garrett, who she was planning on hugging even if it melted him.
“I have to thank Anna, okay?” she said to Tommy.
“Okay.” He nodded her on. She smiled in thanks making her way through the hive of people buzzing worriedly, trying to find everyone, trying to call home. No one was eating.
She strode past Mazy and Sarah to Anna. Her friends regarded Maggie with distrust, but Anna smiled. “Glad to see you’re still alive.”
“You have no idea how funny that is not,” Maggie told her. Anna clearly understood what she meant.
“She did try to kill you?”
“Busted my lip. She was convinced I hit Amanda, which is impossible since I have epilepsy and haven’t gotten a license. But thanks to you, she tried and failed.”
Anna shrugged. “No problem. All I did was tell the truth.”
“Yeah, well, you make it sound easy.”
“I can’t believe she tried to murder you,” a pale kid said in awe. Maggie tried not to recoil from the star-struck eyes he was giving her.
“I mean, not exactly…”
She was going to push Anna to take her spot on the squad, but something cut her off.
“Maggie, I’m so sorry.” Becca suddenly appeared and gasped out before anyone could stop her. “I know I’m the last person you want to talk to, the last person you trust—”
“Not now,” Tommy cut her off, suddenly reappearing. Maggie’s eyes burned with tears of embarrassment.
“But I have to give you this.”
Maggie was barely even curious anymore. There had been enough revelations for the day. This was too much. People were crying, walking around in circles with nowhere to go, whispering. Sure, some were eating now, throwing paper at their friends and laughing. But mostly they were pressed into the cafeteria at lunch time like sardines in a can, waiting to hear what was intact in the outside world.
Maggie was shaking her head, trying to walk away before she could hear anything Becca had to say, but she was talking in a rush to get it out. “I did my research, or I tried to. I tried to find out everything about you and your family. The problem was, there was nothing.”
“My mom’s a private eye,” Maggie snapped. “And my dad is—”
“Gone. I remember—it’s just...”
“What do you want Becca?” Tommy said. “Leave her alone.”
Becca shook her head, unable to stop herself. She dropped a single piece of paper—a flyer printed off the internet—onto the lunch table. “It’s just there are so many similarities. Some of the names, the birthday, how far your family photos go back…”
“We lost a lot of stuff moving.” Maggie felt her lips moving, but felt hollow for some reason, like she was just listening to them along with everyone else.
“And it looks like you. Maybe it’s not. I hope it’s not, but I had to give you what I found.”
“What bull,” Mazy dismissed with a look of disgust. Tommy led the way back to their table, ignoring it completely.
But Maggie couldn’t. It was a missing person flyer from the FBI. But it wasn’t for her father. There was a man in the family photo, which wasn’t the clearest, next to a woman who was holding a child.
The main picture though was of a toddler with red hair who scrunched her nose like a rabbit.
There had to be lots of toddlers who had red hair. Billions of people could probably scrunch their noses. Still she felt worried. She wouldn’t look worried if there weren't any similarities.
Still, Becca had seen similarities and connections where there weren’t ones before. Maybe that was all it was, her imagination spinning out of control again like a cyclone. She needed a break from her brain.
Fast and Maggie put away the flyer and drank her chocolate milk, listening to everyone’s relief the day was over early.
But what Becca couldn’t know, and what made Maggie feel like a siren had gone off again, was that she had seen that picture of the family before—or most of it.
She had seen the part of the mother and child, the rest of it apparently cut off, in her mom’s room.
She had seen it every time she had asked to see the earliest picture they still had of them. The baby was a baby; it could have been anyone, really. But the woman, the woman had shorter hair of a different color and was eight years younger.
It was her mom.
END.
The Sequel
Keep your eyes out for the next installment, The Devil You Know.
About The Author
Elsie Vandervere
Elsie Vandervere studied English in the US and UK, acquiring her Masters degree. Since then, she has been writing professionally and helping students with their English skills in addition to writing women's and YA fiction.
When not writing, she's either adopting too many animals or trying to raise Scleroderma awareness. Check out the Scleroderma Research Foundation.
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