The Moonlight Boy | Ferry's Tale # 1

Operation VDS

"One more week and the school is over," said Matilda jumping in one leg. "I'm going to miss these mornings," she added, smiling at Ferry and Ben who were walking beside her. "And then, holiday. This holiday is going to be special, I can feel it."

"Yeah..." Ferry mumbled, "but this isn't how I expected the school year to end. I mean we won't have a festivity... And it wouldn't be the same anyway, without Miss Summer..."

Matilda also turned serious, "What are we going to do now? How we're supposed to find Danny? We wouldn't even know where to start..."

"Isn't it dangerous?" Ben asked. "The way he disappeared is so strange... And then there's Billy's story with the unseen girl..."

"Are you scared?" Matilda inquired him. "Because if you are, you shouldn't be in this with us."

"N─no," Ben mumbled. "It's just that we're not ready. We don't know what lies in those woods..."

Ferry agreed in his mind. If Danny was indeed taken by the fairies to their realm, as he thought he was, they would be completely unprepared. Even he, who had so many encounters with the fairies, didn't know the way they thought or behaved. Yet, he did know a fairy.

"Have you seen the veiled lady recently?" he asked his friends.

They looked at him, surprised by his question.

"No, but she doesn't come to town during summer, anyway," said Ben. "My mother said that for some reason, she's coming to town only late in the fall, to pick up the branches fallen from the trees..."

"Why do you ask? Do you think she has something to do with Danny?" Matilda wondered.

"No... I ─ I don't think that at all," Ferry rushed to say.

"Because if you come to think of it, she might be involved somehow. She might have been looking to take her feathers back. She's pretty weird, you know. Nobody knows much about her, nobody is visiting her... Maybe we should tell the police about her."

"NO!" Ferry almost shouted. "I mean... we have no proof she's behind Danny's vanishing..." he said, trying to hide his nervousness. Only the thought the whole town might find out the truth about Lavender Sky made him shiver.

"If you ask me, we don't have any evidence. Except for Miss Summer's map, of course," Ben added. "But that doesn't prove anything. From what she was saying, she was possessed or something."

"Then what should we do?" Matilda shrugged.

"Well, I've been thinking," said Ben, taking his know-it-all attitude, "and we should look for clues of the other cases of mysterious disappearances in town. I think we can all admit there's a pattern here. At least, that's what I've seen the detectives are doing in the movies."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" asked Ferry, suddenly feeling curious.

Ben seemed to have a plan, "First, we should go to the library and search for the local newspaper archive. Such a subject must have been news of the day for weeks, once in seven years."

Ferry and Matilda looked at their friend with admiration; Ben was trying hard to hide his what-would-you-do-without-me smile.

⃰

The local library was located inside a one-room building which was once used as a storehouse. In Goodharts, people were too busy with their day-to-day life to think about reading. Except for the children, nobody ever stepped foot in the library. Truth be told, you could hardly find any good book in there. They were old, donated books by the wealthy people in town. Then, there were old newspapers which didn't present interest to anyone, and eventually turned into a delicious meal of a rodent.