The Winged [HIATUS]

Chapter Sixteen

“The bluebird carries the sky on his back.”  -Henry David Thoreau

[ C H A P T E R   S I X T E E N ]

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As of Monday, Tempest Haverford, age fourteen, and Aislinn Blake, age fifteen, have been missing for one week. So far, the authorities have been unable to determine whether foul play was involved.

“We haven’t been able to find any conclusive evidence so far,” reports Sheriff Dalton Miller. One witness claims to have seen the pair roaming unsupervised near Front Street several hours before they were reported missing, but no traces of the girls have been found to support this. “If they really did run away,” Miller adds, “they knew what they were doing.”

“I have no idea where they could have gone,” says Spencer Haverford, Tempest’s father. “I just came home one day and my daughter wasn’t there.”

There has been some progress, however: The specks of blood found on the broken window have returned from the lab. The DNA does not match either of the girls’, suggesting that an unidentified person broke into the library that afternoon. Not much has been released about this individual and it is unknown whether the break-in is linked to the disappearances.

“I believe that they are still alive,” states Danielle Blake, Aislinn’s mother. “They’ve got to be out there somewhere.”

I close the article and continue to browse news reports on the local website from back home. I haven’t really had time to read up on Kentucky goings-on until now. It seems that our vanishing act is the only thing townsfolk are talking about these days. There are search parties, interviews, investigations…

It’s eerie being among the only people who know of my whereabouts. I feel like a ghost, silently observing from afar to see how family and friends are getting on without me.

“Ash! What are you doing with my laptop?”

I swivel around in my seat to see Logan entering the dining room. “You never said I couldn’t use it,” I protest, sounding as blameless as possible.

She huffs and leans against the back of my chair, reading the screen over my shoulder. “How did you figure out the password?” she asks, flicking the back of my head with her unnaturally sharp fingernails.

“I didn’t,” I reply. “You forgot to log out.”

Logan emits an exaggerated groan. “Well, at least you didn’t hack my Facebook.”

“You have a Facebook?” I inquire, shocked that the almighty Logan Wilde would be interested in something as trivial as social networking.

“No,” she sighs, “I was being sarcastic. Facebook is crawling with immature teenagers who have nothing better to do than post pictures of themselves and misspell every other word of their status.”

“I knew you would say something like that.”

“No shit.”

I continue scrolling through articles from earlier dates when something suddenly strikes me as odd. “Hey, Logan,” I say, “did I ever tell you about the time Tempest and I were captured in the library?”

She furrows her brow as she thinks. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“Well, I ended up stabbing a Blackwing in the eye with a pair of scissors. There was a lot of blood. And yet” – I tap the computer screen with my finger – “it wasn’t in the news. I would think there’s some evidence of our fight lying around, but apparently the cops haven’t picked up on it. Why?”