Walk beside the Creek

Come on, Keira. Where are you? I thought to myself feeling the scream that followed inside my head. I was up on Widows Creek walking through the overgrown grass and peaking over the railing watching the water flow. There's no way we can't find you. What am I going to do without you? I fell to the ground and clutched my head between my hands and laying them on my knees. Billy sat next to me pawing my hand as if he were comforting me.

"It's alright. We'll find her." I raised my head and started petting him giving back the same comfort I received. He was starting to grow on me. "Come on, Billy. Let's head back." I stood up and started heading down the path toward home, but Billy decided to run the other way. "This way, Billy!" I exclaimed, but he didn't listen. I ran behind to keep up with him until he stopped at a point, stared at the water and started barking.

I turned the direction he was facing and wondered what the dog was barking at. "What do you see, Billy?" I asked in a whisper more to myself than Billy. He barked in between pauses like he was trying to tell me something. There's no way for me to understand, Billy.

"You don't just see, Ella. You have to look." Keira's voice spoke in my head. Right now, I was seeing. I focused on the environment. The water running in the creek. It was black today, when sometimes it's green. The trees barely had leaves in this autumn weather. The cold breeze was making the branches sway and the few leaves it held were being blown off. I could hear a cricket in the distance, but couldn't see it. A bird chirped and flew onto the moist slope on the opposite side. It was pecking on the fallen leaves. Probably to find a lone worm it could use for dinner.

Hop. Hop. Peck. Hop. Hop. Peck. It continued. Hop. Peck. Peck. Peck. Peck. Some of the leaves slid down into the water for the force of its beak.

Billy went crazy with his barking and was not soft either. I looked at him and his gaze had moved away from the water and a little higher instead. I looked back to find the bird, but it would have flown away with fear of the dog's bark.

Billy had not stopped barking. Focusing on the opposite side, to where I saw the bird last, I strained my vision to as far as I could and there it was. "You don't just see, Ella. You have to look." A hand. I saw the fingers and the wrist. It was not moving. I thought I was seeing things so I squinted trying to have a better look. That's definitely a hand. And it explains Billy's bark.

I dialled Jordan, my go-to. "Jordan! You've got to get to Widow's Creek now. I see something." I explained to him the little that happened.

"Wait there, Ella. And don't panic. I'll be right with you." He ended the call and I looked out again to confirm what I saw was real. Billy was still barking. And the hand was still there.

"I'm not leaving, Jordan." My lips started trembling. "I'm not leaving." the last of my words broke.

It took a couple of hours for a team to get to the creek and examine what I had seen. I watched as the men on the other side pushed the fallen leaves aside and draped a cover over the dead body. Billy was still agitated and running in circles, continuously barking and whimpering from time to time. I nervously bit on my nails while Jordan was giving orders to his team. I felt a tear fall out of my eye. I knew what was happening and what was about to happen.

Jordan turned to me giving a dejected look. He then walked up to me and shook his head. The unspoken words circulating around us hit me and I jumped into his arms. "It can't be! It can't be." I cried out repeatedly.

He rubbed the back of my head soothingly. "I'm sorry Ella, I couldn't keep my promise."

I pulled away from him, rubbed my eyes and wiped my nose. "But you did Jordan. You promised to find her. Not save her." I blinked away my tears. "Are you going to find out who did this?" I spoke out with a hint of anger in my voice.

"We will!" Jordan exclaimed. "I'm not letting it go. What was done to her ̶ " giving a long pause he exhaled heavily.

I could hardly imagine the brutality of what had been done to Keira. It took a few minutes for Jordan to tell me what they had discovered so far until I closed my ears for I simply couldn't listen to his forced words anymore. I cried a little harder. She was just a little girl.

"An autopsy still has to be performed and further examinations as well, Ella. I'll drop you home before heading back to work. Will you be okay?" He asked concerned as I nodded while wiping away the endless tears out of my blurry eyes.

I spent the next few hours in a state of deep awe. I was hardly aware of what I was doing. I found myself putting my worn clothes back in the closet. And when I meant to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, I was opening the bin instead.

What am I doing? I asked myself. I went out to the deck where I found Billy asleep. Sensing me he lifted his head looked at me and started whimpering. "I know, Billy. I feel the same." I patted his head and watched him drop his head back on the ground and close his eyes.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Keira was buried a few days after she was found. The entire town was present. Everyone having something nice to say about her. To have known that Keira had touched all their lives even in smallest of ways made me smile.

Keira was nine and murdered in cold blood. Assaulted by family and ruined of a childhood. She loved dearly and was kind. She was a joyful little being just looking to be a child. But it was all taken from her.

Keira was nine and what happened to her should never have happened to her or anyone. What happened to her was an act of a mindless creep. What happened to her was not her fault.

Keira was nine and now buried ten feet under. Her parents unable to face the world and her uncle behind bars.

Keira was only nine, and the world had lost her and what she would have been.