The papers called it a miracle. So many missing children, all found alive and unharmed. A little dehydrated, the reports said, and very hungry. But well taken-care of regardless. There appeared to have been no harm done, and each and every one of them had been cleared by the hospital and sent home to their families. It was a miracle, they said, to have found each and every one of the thirty children, some missing for months, others for days, alive and well. All thanks to an anonymous local tip.

They still didn’t know who had taken them in the first place, or why. But it was a miracle, an absolute miracle, to have them all home again. So the city could start to recover, to finally put this case to rest.

All of the children returned.

Except for one.

Jack glanced at his phone. Still no texts. No calls from his parents. If his sister had been found, if she’d been among the thirty whose names and pictures had flashed across the screen with every newscast for the last few weeks, he would know. His parents would have told him. The cops would have told him. Someone would have picked up the phone and relayed the news.

Every single one of the missing children had been found.

But still no news of Abigail.

His sister hadn’t been the first to disappear. Her name, her picture had been up with all the rest. Just two days ago, his sister’s name had been among the thirty missing. And yet her name wasn’t mentioned anywhere. Her picture was no longer anywhere associated with the story. Some other little kid’s name was there in her place, another kid’s picture in the broadcast.

So where had she gone?

Jack needed to know. He needed to know if anyone had seen her.

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The hospital wouldn’t let him in. There was no Abigail Peterson there. The kind woman at the front desk was very sorry, but he would have to leave. Jack got in his car and went on home.

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He pulled up to his childhood home at three in the afternoon. If it was a normal day, Abigail should be on her way home on the bus, about to be dropped off right in front of the driveway. Except one day six months ago she hadn’t been there. The bus hadn’t stopped; she hadn’t even been on it.

The teachers and her friends had sworn they had seen her board that bus. She must have snuck off early, hoping to go to the library or spend time with one of her friends. Only…she hadn’t. No one could remember which friend she had left with, only that she must have left with one of them. It was just like all the other children who had gone missing. One moment they were at school, on the bus, at home. The next they were just gone, and no one seemed to have noticed when or how they disappeared.

Some people in town had called it a group truancy incident. Clearly these kids did not want to be in school. They had to have all conspired to run away together. Nevermind that for the most part they were all from different schools, different neighborhoods, different towns. Two were from a completely different city, though they had been visiting for a school event.

It was odd pulling into the driveway, knowing that every kid but Abigail had been found and returned. No one opened the door, running to see who was pulling in and praying, hoping against hope that their daughter had been returned. His mother and father were clearly home, but they weren’t even at the window. The curtains didn’t move. It was still and peaceful.

The back of Jack’s neck prickled at the sight. He couldn’t put his finger on it. It wasn’t the strange kind of quiet that had saturated the last few weeks, the somber quiet that was so at odds with the increasingly warm weather outside. This was something different.

The door was locked. That was odd in and of itself — Abigail didn’t have a key, and Mom only locked the door at night anymore, and only because his Dad stayed up later and locked it for her. How would Abigail get in the house, she said, if she didn’t even have a key?

Jack squashed the faint hope that started growing inside him. Maybe the news had been mistaken. It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe all the kids had come home; maybe Abigail was one of them, and his mother would open the door and they would be a family again. Maybe they were just so caught up in the sheer relief of having her back home that they had forgotten to text, or to call, so email, or send any sort of communication whatsoever. Maybe.

His father answered the door. He was smiling for the first time in months. Jack walked in, exchanged a hug and a back slap, and made his way into the kitchen, where his Mom was making dinner.

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“Hey Mom,” he said, and she turned and smiled at him, hugged him briefly and went back to dicing peppers. When she didn’t say anything, he asked, almost hesitant, “Where’s Abigail?”

“Hm?” his mother looked up, seeming distracted. “Abigail who?”

Jack’s face went cold. Something was wrong. Very wrong. He backed away a little. “Abigail. You know, your daughter?”

His mother just looked at him for a moment, her face somber. “Jackie,” she said, using his childhood nickname. “We’ve talked about this before. Why are you asking me this now?” She turned to her husband, more worried now. “It’s not today, is it? It’s not even May yet, right?”

His dad leaned in close and kissed her forehead. “No, it’s not.” He hugged her tightly and then sighed. “Jack, you know better than to scare your mother like that. You know she doesn’t like talking about it. Why don’t you go upstairs and take a break, let your mother and I finish making dinner?”

Jack didn’t know what to do, so he did as he was told. Except he didn’t go up to his room. He went to Abigail’s room. What was going on? Why were they acting like…like she was dead or something?

Abigail’s room wasn’t Abigail’s anymore. The furniture wasn’t old and worn, hand-me-downs from when he was a little kid. They were new. Brand new, it looked like, and leaning closer he could still see a tag on one of the blankets. That chilled him more than anything else. His parents wouldn’t have just packed up his sister’s things and replaced them, especially not so quickly. He’d only been back to visit just last week. Abigail’s room was kept pristine, ready and waiting for when she returned. His mother set an extra plate for her dinner, just in case she came back during a meal. Every day she made her a lunch and set it in the fridge, just in case she wandered inside in the middle of the day and was hungry. The door was always kept unlocked. His mother and father would never, ever forget about her.

She’d been gone for two months. Why were they acting like she’d been gone for years?

Jack checked his phone. It was the same day it had been a few hours ago. The year hadn’t changed. The same news was on the screen. So why had it seemed like everything had changed?

His next stop was the attic. If his parents had moved Abigail’s things at all, that’s where they would be. Assuming they hadn’t thrown them out. He dismissed that thought. Of course they hadn’t thrown her things out. She was their daughter, their miracle baby. They loved her so much it hurt sometimes to watch them with her. Jack had been loved, had been cared for, but Abigail was adored. And he adored her, too.

As he’d guessed, the attic held all of her things. All of them. Including her most recent drawings and school reports. Judging by the lack of dust on the boxes, this had been done recently. And Abigail clearly hadn’t been gone nearly as long as his parents were acting, because there was the stuffed unicorn he’d gotten her for her last birthday, just before she’d disappeared.

She’d been so disappointed in it, too. “I wanted a dragon, because dragons are brave,” she’d said. And he’d bopped her on the nose with her new toy and said, “But unicorns are beautiful and brave, just like you.” And she’d giggled and hugged him and said thank you. He still had several more stuffed animals in his closet, all wrapped up and ready for the next occasion. He even had a dragon, which he’d bought the next day and set aside for her since she seemed to have wanted it so badly.

He stood staring at the boxes, at the pictures, at the stuffed animals, the dolls, the clothes, the toys. Everything had its place, lovingly and fastidiously packed away. He could see his parents doing it, too, simply because everything was so neat and tidy. This hadn’t been rushed — if he didn’t know better, he’d think they’d had a child who had grown up and moved out, or who had changed their room and decided to pack away their old childhood things.

It hadn’t been years. He let out his breath. It had been two months. A little more actually — nine weeks and two days. He hadn’t been mistaken. He wasn’t wrong. Abigail was still missing. His parents just didn’t seem to know about it.

What, exactly, did they think happened to her?

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Dinner was difficult to get through. His mother and father attempted conversation, but Jack just couldn’t make himself respond. They were too cheerful, and too genuine in their happiness. His mother hadn’t slept well in over two months, but now she was acting perfectly normal, as if this were just another spring day. As if his mother and father hadn’t spent every waking minute of the last two months searching for their lost daughter. As if their daughter hadn’t ever been lost at all.

His father pulled him aside after dessert, just before he was about to leave. “I know what happened really bothered you,” he said softly. “But you have to know that it wasn’t your fault. She had a heart condition. No one blames you for it.” He paused. “Just…don’t upset your mother. She’s been having a hard time of it lately. She’s had a few bad nights again. If you need to talk, talk to me. I just don’t think your mom’s in a good place for it right now.”

Jack ducked his head. This was really freaking him out. His hands were shaking. “I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it. It won’t happen again.”

His father frowned. “Now, that’s not what I meant —”

Jack interrupted his father with a hug. “Love you. Bye,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

He had to sit in his car for a few minutes before his hands would stop shaking. Something was very wrong. He listed the facts in his head.

Abigail wasn’t dead. She didn’t have a heart condition. She was a perfectly healthy, perfectly happy little girl. Who was missing, not dead. And she certainly hadn’t been dead for years, like both his parents seemed to think.

The boxes in the attic proved it, if nothing else did. Abigail was still missing. His parents appeared to have forgotten that she had even been around a little over two months ago. That she’d gone to school and got on the bus and had never come off.

Jack vowed then and there that he would find out what had happened to make his parents forget.