Invisible String ☾ Nancy Wheeler

Nine

Emily's POV:

"You don't think we maybe should, I don't know," I scramble to catch up to Nancy's quick pace. "wait until he's done?"

"The more time we wait, the more time we lose to find Barb." Nancy instructed, pulling open the building door of the funeral parlor and following her inside.

"Yeah, I get that. I...feel weird asking Jonathan about the photo when he's picking out a casket for his brother." I winced. "How do you know he'll talk to us after he took photos of the party?"

"It won't hurt to try."

"Right, but you think he'd believe us about a guy with a mask but no face?" I ask and she stops by one of the first rooms. "And how it chased us?" I turn to the right and see Jonathan speaking to a director with a small-sized casket displayed in front of them.

"If you're worried about saying the wrong thing, I'll do the talking." She whispered once Jonathan noticed us by the doorway.

"Can you just give me a second?" He tells the director and the man nods.

He walks towards us, shoving his hands into his pockets in a nervous demeanor until his expression shifts into confusion. "Hey."

"Hey." Nancy replies.

I offer a small wave. "We stopped by your place but your mom, um..." I timidly fidget with my fingers. "she said you'd be here. It's probably a bad time but we--"

"Can we talk for a second?" Nancy gently cut in, saving me from the rambles.

He nods and we walk back out into the hallway, the three of us taking a seat on the bench.

"This...photo you took," I hand Jonathan the photo and he carefully takes it from my hands. I point to the blurry shadow behind Barbara. "is this an effect from the camera? Or was someone else there?"

"It looks like it could be some kind of perspective distortion," He brings the photo closer to his face, brows furrowing in concentration. "but I wasn't using the wide angle. I don't know. It's weird." He hands the photo back to me but I give it back to Nancy.

"And you're sure you didn't see anyone else out there?" She asks.

He shakes his head. "No. She was there one second and then, um...gone. I figured she bolted." He looks over to me next. "I saw that you passed out but assumed you were drunk or something."

"You're not the only one." I mutter, crossing my arms over my chest in annoyance. Stupid cops.

Regardless, I don't think she would run away unless...whatever it was behind her gave her a reason to.

"The cops think that she ran away, but they don't know Barb." Nancy spoke before she briefly met my eyes.

I look over to Jonathan, noticing his confusion. "We went back to Steve's and we thought we...saw something." I look down, fidgeting with my sleeves in remembrance.

"Some...weird man or...I don't know what it was." Nancy glances at Jonathan, seeing that his expression never wavered and she quickly grabs her bag. She shoves the photo back in her bag. "I'm sorry. I--Emily you were right. We shouldn't have come here today. I'm...I'm so sorry."

She stands up from her spot and since I didn't want to walk home alone, I get up as well.

But just before we could leave, Jonathan grabbed my wrist. "Wait, what'd he look like?"

"Sorry?" I ask in confusion as Nancy paused in her steps as well..

"This man you saw in the woods." He clarified and awkwardly let go of my wrist. "What'd he look like?"