After taking the rest of the day off to recuperate, Keira immediately jumped back into work and revision. She dreaded to think how far behind she had fallen. As such she and her two other friends were sat in a circle, making full use of the table in the café. It was the only café in the village, due to the small population, and it was pretty cheap all things considered. They knew they were free to use the table as much as they wanted to. While there was a steady stream of customers in and out of the café, it still had plenty of space for everyone. Which was good because Keira was trying to get caught up on the weeks’ worth of work that she missed, and it was taking a lot of time and patience. Especially from her friends.

As she was only gone a week, she didn’t miss that much. Another chapter and practise essay in literature, details in storage methods in computing and most glaringly, another case study in geography. This was what her friend, Iris, was currently trying to teach her.

“I’m saying that the presence of Desert Gifts in the Cascano’s river states has led to multiple oil spillages and a ton of environmental damage which has lead the region to become uninhabitable.”

“I know that. I’m just explaining why putting ‘karma’s a bitch’ in as an answer is a terrible idea in an exam.”

“It’s a great idea! They deserve to be bought out after what they’ve done, and the examiner needs to know that.”

“Morgan, help me out here.” Morgan looked up from the book that he had been reading for the past half hour. It looked to be sci-fi, considering that the cover had a giant ant monster shooting lasers from its four arms.

“Uh. Great idea. Do it.”

“Morgan!” Keira admonished while Iris cackled.

“What? I do history, not geography. Can’t expect me to know what a proper answer is.” Keira scowled.

“Speaking of which, I don’t see you cracking out those ancient history books.”

“Ah, my sweet naïve friend. That’s because we’re not doing ancient history at the moment. We’re doing sixty years ago history. Specifically that conflict between Junein and Cenia.”

“I still don’t see any revision going on.”

“I’m not going to take criticism from someone who’s last name sounds like a hat.” Keira scoffed as Morgan went back to reading his book.

“My last name does not sound like a hat!” Iris, who had watched the conversation with mild interest, began to cackle again. This didn’t prevent her from getting a two words out, unfortunately.

“A bonnet.” Keira gave Iris the most deadpan look she could muster which only seemed to encourage her. Morgan also began chuckling slightly.

“Great… You know what. I think I’m done for the day. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure. Do you want to talk about how you went missing?”

“Nope, nope. Go back to the making fun of my name thing.” Morgan raised his head from the book he had been reading for almost the entire session.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. We’ve just got a lot of theories. Like aliens.”

“…It wasn’t aliens Morgan.”

“Are you sure? Do you what aliens look like? How they operate?” Keira didn’t deign that with a response. Instead, she eyed the cover of the book he was reading a second time in an accusatory manner. The fact that she could deny that it was aliens was pretty telling in itself though, as the limit on speaking seemed to be bound to things directly related to what had happened. She already knew that it wasn’t based on intent, as Keira had tried to vaguely explain the experience to Iris and Morgan and had got away with it for the most part using metaphors and poetic comparisons. Only they had looked at her like she was insane. Maybe she was. Certainly felt like it at some points.

“I have some more reasonable theories.” Keira leaned back and crossed her arms, gaze zeroing in on Iris. She rightly took this as an invitation to continue. “Naima did it and Paige helped.”

“What?”

“Think about it. They were both outwardly hostile to you the day you went missing, Naima lives out the way in an unpopulated area so she could ambush you without anyone seeing her leave the village and Paige could stay in the village and giver her updates on you position.” It was a pretty good theory that had one glaring flaw.

“Do you think that they would have it in them to do such a thing? Sure we don’t get along, but that’s a far cry from being motivated to kidnap me.”

“Yep. Her idea sucks. That’s why my mine is much better.”

“Aliens is not a valid theory Morgan.”

“What? No. I was going to propose Archer. He’s back in town.” Iris frowned and interrupted their conversation.

“And I’m saying that its stupid because he came back two days ago.” Morgan scoffed and rose to the bait.

“So did Amelie and I remember you going on a fucking tirade about that.”

“Amelie’s dif-“

“Stop!” Keira took in a deep breath, groaned and rubbed her eyes. “Please. I need details. Since when have Amelie and Archer been back?”

“Amelie came back about three days ago with Archer in tow a day after. They’ve both been staying with extended family for the majority of the holiday and apparently only came back for the next couple of weeks to catch up with their parents.” Archer was back? That would be the first time Keira had heard of that. She would have expected one of her online friends to give her a heads up about that. Though maybe the reason why he didn’t was because he wasn’t keeping religious track of Archer, which while it was understandable, it was also inconvenient. Archer was the type of guy Keira wanted to avoid. As well as Amelie, on a second thought. Though that was mainly because she was just an unpleasant person rather than actually dangerous.

“How do you know they’re both back?”

“Oh, we saw them together like yesterday.” That caught her attention. They mustn’t be worried about being spotted if even Morgan noticed it. He was pretty reclusive generally speaking.

“…I hadn’t realised that they were friends.”

“Neither had anyone else. That’s why everyone’s talking about it.” Keira nodded along with Morgan’s explanation. Well, it was more likely that there was literally nothing else to talk about. Or do. She decided to get some confirmation on their thoughts.

“So… your theories are either Archer, Amelie or Naima.”

“-with the help of Paige.” Iris tacked on, which led to Morgan interrupting.

“Imogen could be in there too. They’re a trio now. Like the world’s least threatening army.”

“Insightful Morgan. So should I pass any of this onto the police?”

“Nah. Everyone’s already given them all of the information they could ever need. And they even have that extra lead of finding your phone along the canal path.” Keira’s head snapped up at this.

“My phone was found along the canal path? I took the forest walk, the one with all of those carved sculptures.” They all looked at each other.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“In fact, we should probably go to the police.” Iris began.

“Hey- I was gonna say that.”

“Tough, Morgan. I got there first.” Keira felt like the two of them would devolve into more arguments so she interrupted.

“Okay you two, let me just send an update on my location to my dad.”

Ten minutes later the group was standing outside the police station. Keira’s dad had given her the go ahead on going there as long as she stuck with at least one police officer and her friends. Which was fine with her. The police department of the village was a renovated house. It had exactly one kitchen, short-term holding cell and evidence room with a couple of offices. Keira suspected that the reason Seth transferred over from the city was because of the kitchen luxury. Apparently he didn’t have that originally.

Walking in she was immediately greeted by the grumbling form of Seth who was hanging over a cup of steaming coffee and intermittently glaring at his office. He somehow looked worse from the day before, but his eyes still lit up slightly when he saw her.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

“Honestly, neither was I. The only reason why I’m here is because I heard about where you found the phone and it’s… not anywhere close to where I was ambushed.” This seemed to get Seth’s attention and he stood up and knocked on his office door. A second later it opened and he relayed the information onto whoever was on the other side. This turned out to be Officer Weil and another man who looked older than Seth and a little tired, though far less exhausted. His gaze landed on Keira though before he could walk forward, Maxwell stepped in the way.

“I thought you gave us all of the information we needed.”

“I did. I didn’t-“

“You never mentioned the path you took, did you not think that was important information?”

“It slipped my mind…”

“Slipped-“

“Maxwell!” To Keira’s surprise it was his partner that stepped in and not Seth, though he looked pretty close due to his red face. “Stop it.”

“Sir, she’s hiding things from us.”

“She’s a victim, Weil. You have been trained in how to handle them, so I expect you to behave with more tact than this.”

“Of course.” Maxwell flicked his eyes to Keira and backed up. Marshall sighed and turned to her.

“Thank you for the offer Keira, but you don’t have to do this today. You’re allowed a few days rest.”

“No. I couldn’t rest last night because of a nightmare and I am not confident that it will change over the next few days. I have school and other things I like doing that does not involve hiding in my house because some guy ambushed me. So, we’re catching this bastard at least.”

“I appreciate the passion… Care to lead the way?” Keira nodded and began to walk out of the house. Seth sighed and went to pick up the leash of the dog, following soon after with Weil and his partner taking up the back. Speaking of Maxwell’s partner…

“I never caught your name, by the way.”

“Marshall. Senior special cases officer and direct authority to Officer Weil over there. If he decides to act up again, don’t hesitate to tell me.” Keira nodded and led them up the path that led into the woods, one that was sandwiched between Archer’s and his neighbours’ house. They then cut up past a few carved wooden statues, which were mainly animals but there was a notable exception in a smaller one that looked like it was weaved together. While it looked like a circle of women dancing around each other, Keira knew it was supposed to represent the fair folk which had been so prevalent in the history of the area.

The path wasn’t much of a slope upwards, but Keira still found herself struggling to keep a reasonable pace and instead opted to slow down. Her friends used this opportunity to catch up and while it seemed that Iris was perfectly content with walking in silence, Morgan was not.

“I guess this whole thing wasn’t good for staying in shape?”

“No.”

“You really should have spent more time in the hospital, Keira.” She found herself laughing a little at that.

“I was there for no longer than a day and yet I was miserable. I understand why Grandma complains about it so much now.” Morgan didn’t say anything else, and Iris turned her attention back to the path ahead. Until eventually they came to a stop where Keira last remembered being.

“This is significantly north than where the phone was found. And in a different direction from where the trail led.” Marshall stepped forward and looked at some of the plants, humming as he looked on the undersides.

“Blood. We’re lucky it hasn’t rained in a while. They misled you intentionally. It would have worked had Keira not survived.” Marshall threw a look behind him, directly to Keira. “You’ve done plenty to help. Go home and get some rest.” She hesitated at that. It was true that she had other things to do, such as more fundraising for her trip, more revision… Still she hadn’t really wanted to leave. Especially when Marshall was looking like he was onto something.

“Why can’t I come with you?”

“I don’t want a civilian being on a potential scene and contaminating evidence, especially not when there still might be a potentially traumatising sight there. So, go home get some rest.”

“Come on Keira.” Seth stepped forward and tugged on her arm, she didn’t move though.

“Couldn’t it… trigger some memories? Being around familiar scenery.” Marshall seemed to find that amusing and he let out a brief huff of breath.

“That’s not how it usually works. If you really want to, I’ll let you onto the scene after a preliminary look, until then please leave with Seth and your friends.” Keira turned from him to Seth and the gave an acquiescing nod. She walked back with the group in silence.

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Marshall had initially spotted the blood on the underside of leaves. They were lucky it had been fairly dry, and that the underbrush had been thick enough to preserve the evidence. He treaded lightly at first, slowly trailing it as it led further north. Someone had made an effort in not leaving a trail and he would have called them competent at it too if not after a few metres he spotted a slightly obvious patch of ferns that had been flattened. Then another patch further up, and another. Marshall had a feeling that they continued for a while. He would have thought they were the tracks of someone from a hunting party if someone hadn’t made the effort to cover them. Honestly, not the biggest challenge he’s faced. In fact, this was pathetically easy compared to some of the other people he’s tracked.

He followed the tracks and at a certain point the person making them had obviously given up on hiding them altogether. Marshall re-evaluated his profile. Maybe not the most patient perpetrator, and therefore not the most competent one. He could use that to his advantage. Stay in the area, get in the way, apply pressure. Wait for them to crack. Lighting the fire would be easy, controlling it is the difficult part. Types that kill easily only really care about themselves, if they could avoid punishment somehow, then they would. Even if it hurt those around them.

Silence descended for a time. The only background noise being the rustling of Marshall slowly moving along the tracks. Which was definitely concerning, it wasn’t late enough in the year for everything to be hibernating, there should be more noise. It was a familiar feeling actually, the suffocatingly stale air, the silence.

It didn’t take long for him to finally come to the centre of it though. He yelled for Weil to catch up before taking a few phots of the scene. Before him was a clearing where someone had pulled up the ferns in a circular area before stomping the ground flat making it easy to draw symbols. Though they had faded with time, and there were one or two scuff marks fully obscuring some parts, a large, dried patch of blood adorned the centre of the clearing.

Maxwell came up behind him, already pulling on some white inspection gloves. They were quiet for a time, Weil turning over the stones individually and Marshall investigating the area surrounding the clearing. Whilst Maxwell was trying to determine what exactly was happening here, Marshall was trying to see where the crime scene area would encompass. He managed to find some discarded trinkets, from an old northern religion that had since gone extinct. He couldn’t quite place the name but maybe Weil could.

After deeming the are thoroughly searched he began to lay out a message to his superiors giving an update. Despite the fact that him and his partner were sent out to the area, he was very hesitant to call this a special case. They were rare and hard to distinguish from zealous cult activities, and for the vast majority of the time he was responding to false reports. It was looking more and more promising though. If only Keira could have told them more. He decided to break the silence as he re-entered the clearing.

“We’re missing the weapon.” Maxwell snorted and finished taking a photo of the underside of a large stone.

“Would never have guessed. Do you think that it’s with the perpetrator?”

“If they are smart they would have disposed of it properly instead of casting it into the woods with the rest of the things.”

“Do you think they are smart?” Marshall didn’t answer. Instead he stalked to the blood stain on the floor and pulled out a bag. He scraped some of the dirt into it.

“We should get this analysed as soon as possible. And also get a blood sample from Keira herself.”

“Wouldn’t be good quality.”

“Doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be enough to compare to the blood sample on the knife once we find it.”

“You think it was a knife?”

“Yes. Look at the blood splatter. It was a stabbing motion as the lack of splatters excuse slashing and any force of blunt trauma. I would go knife as swords are unwieldy and very attention grabbing. Opinions on the inscriptions?”

“Pretty generic and easy to find online. It won’t help us a lot in narrowing down the suspects.”

“So nothing to bother your little friend with?”

“Nah. Besides, she’s already busy with trying to find out what that mark on the girl’s wrist was.” Marshall nodded and gave the scene another look.

“In any case. We should probably stay to investigate a little longer.”

“Oh, good. I’m sure Seth will appreciate us stealing his office for another…”

“It could take a few months at least.” Maxwell frowned at that and responded.

“I can’t stay in one area for too long. You know this- This is why I joined this stupid unit in the first place.”

“I realise that you’re self-conscious about being a little… sedimentary, but I genuinely might need your expertise on this one. And you still owe me for Cernia.”

“I… know. Don’t think I’m not grateful for that, but it would have been for nothing if we’re not careful.”

“I understand that. So let’s get to the bottom of this quickly, okay?”