Grief is like an earthquake. The first one hits you and the world falls apart. Even after you put the world together again, there are aftershocks and you never know when those will come. - Unknown
It's been a few days since I've been to school.
As she said, she collected our homework from school each day and brought it home.
She even took two days off to spend with us. Her first break in years.
Honestly, I thought she worked too hard, but after my dad passed, other than me, and Jon, all she had was the bakery to keep her sane.
She threw herself into work as a way to numb herself, but after she finally accepted the fact that the love of her life would not be there to greet her with a kiss when she came home from work, she took her despair and fueled it into productivity.
My dad loved everything my mom made. He said it was because it was made by the most beautiful, amazing, vibrant woman he'd ever known.
He never liked to see anybody upset. In fact, he was rarely seen without a smile on his face.
He loved life and his family, all the way to the end.
Even in death, I know he watches over us.
I know he's looking over us and guiding us.
Not a day goes by that I don't wish he was still here. That I could hear his voice, his laugh, see his smile.
Now all I have left are the memories, of the thirteen beautiful years we had together.
I love you dad, I thought, looking up.
I felt a breeze on my cheek, even though no windows were open.
It's him. I know it is.
"What are you thinking so hard about?" Jon asked, looking up from an article he was reading.
"Just my dad. He would've known what to do. I wish I was more like him."
"You are like him. You're the perfect combination of both if your parents. You're fierce and dedicated like your mother. Your loyal and resilient like your father. He's proud of you. You must know that."
"I know. I just wish he was here to see who I've become. To have our talks, where he said I wasn't getting married until I was fifty, unless it was to you. Because he knew he could trust you with his baby girl."
"He said that?"
I nodded. "He said that if anything ever happened to him, he could trust you to look after my mom and I."
"Truth is you two have been looking out for me more than I have for you."
I slapped his shoulder. "What are you talking about? You've been there for me my entire life. On days where everyone else drives me insane, you're there to bring me peace. My mom has always viewed you as a son. Just giving her someone else to love is more than enough. She loves you and knows you feel the same. That in and of itself is incredibly special. Don't for a second think you haven't done anything for our family. You understand me?" He nodded. "Good."
"Hey. We never looked at that CD, remember? I really think we should see what's on it. It may crack this case wide open."
"You're right," I said. "I'm going to go get it."
I jogged upstairs to my room, and tried to remember which book it was.
"Ah ha!" I pulled it out before sprinting downstairs, where my laptop sat open in front of Jon.
"Okay, I got it. Now let's see what's on here."
I popped open the drive and place the CD inside.
"Here goes nothing."
Hitting play, we watched as a hooded figure slowly sat down in a dimly lit room.
"I know you have been looking into the disappearances of the young women and girls in this town, even against the advice of others."
"Don't tell me he's going to tell us that too." Jon sighed.
"Shhh!"
He raised his hands mockingly before we turned our attention to the video.
"But in order to understand, you must go back to the beginning."
"What? Back to the beginning of what? Time?" I whispered, causing Jon to snicker
"This story began long ago, in England. There were five brothers. They all wanted large families as that is how they brought up. They had six sisters. Their parents, one of seven and one of nine, respectively. These brothers began searching for ways to procreate. However, they believe in keeping their family pure. They want to pro create within their own family."
"Like incest?" Jon asked.
"They were able to convince their relatives and married their cousins and began having children. Many of these children were born with birth defects, that is if they survived childbirth. Upon realizing this, the remaining family decided they had no choice but to look outside of the family to have children. This is where town founder, William Haggerty, comes in. He was the great grandson and nephew of these men. He was tasked with finding a place for the family to start anew."
"Willow Creek," we said in unison.
"Upon his settlement in Willow Creek, he sent word back to his family in England. They were ecstatic. While there were no settlers in this specific area, they knew if they founded the town, the people would come. Eventually they did. This began what would lead to the disappearances."
"Okay, but were they willing or were they kidnapped?" I asked, waiting for this mystery man to get to the point.
"The Haggerty's were well respected being the town founders. They managed to entice families to "join them" so to speak. Families with daughters were highly valued."
"Because they could produce children." Jon concluded.
"At first families were on board with the idea of marrying their daughters off. To marry into a founding family was a tremendous honour. However, soon families began to doubt the ways of the Haggerty's. The women married young, often sixteen years old and were encouraged to start having families immediately. This is not what upset the families. The Haggerty's as leaders had their choices of women. Even if they had wives, they would approach other men's wives which nearly led to their demise. After a lengthy battle, any man who resisted was banished and their marriages annulled."
"Oh my God," I said, covering my mouth.
This goes much deeper than I could have ever expected.
But they still haven't actually gotten to the disappearances.
"With this problem, they struggled to agree on whether or not to continue letting outsiders into the family. They focused on educating the people who were already members of the family. This went on for a few years, before the leaders began sending families they trusted to integrate into the town. While they remained part of the family, they were encouraged to try and persuade new members to join. Thus began the disappearances. Young men were sent out with their families to seduce girls into joining the family to help continue reproduction and to introduce new gene pools to ensure members would not be too closely related. They would build relationships with these girls and get them to let their guard down at which point they would often persuade them to run away. But this did not go unnoticed."
"Uh yeah. No parent is going to not realize their child suddenly isn't home anymore."
"No caring parent," Jon corrected to which I nodded.
"These young women were quickly married, or introduced to other members and marriages were arranged. Then they were encouraged to begin producing as they were young and presumably fertile. Within a few years, the number of members grew into the hundreds, more than anyone could have anticipated. Along with inviting new members, the family remained distrustful of the townspeople. They feared if they learned what they had done, they'd be forced to flee."
"Fear of persecution," I concluded. This was another effect of erotomanic stalkers. They often felt as they were or would be persecuted.
Is it possible my stalker was someone from this cult?
It's a big leap, but stranger things have happened.
"Once these women joined the family, they were encouraged to cease all contact with their families to prevent their discovery. The Haggerty's, as the founding family, owned plenty of land, much of which they own to this day. For a period of time, they stopped collecting new members and focused on building their own town within the town. They built a school, a garden, parks for the children. They developed places people whom they trusted could help run the family and ensure its survival."
I could see Jon writing furiously as he tried to capture the just of what this person was telling us.
"Everyone was sorted into categories based on their abilities or presumed value to the cult. Many women wore green, which signified their fertility in their efforts to populate the family. Every colour had a meaning and everyone was content."
"This is some Divergent type sh*t!" Jon said, which caused me to laugh.
"Check for a disruption in the timeline."
"Once the heat had died down, they began carefully selecting new members. They formed a group of men, who would run surveillance on the town and look for potential members to join the family. This is how even more woman began disappearing. Men and boys charmed the girls and convinced them to leave their families for fresh starts."
"They targeted these women," I scoffed.
"Over the years, the compound if you will, was raided by the police numerous times. Now, you're probably wondering how they never found any of these women."
"Uh, yeah. Yeah I am."
"Well, truth is, in addition to sending members our to recruit new members, they also managed to infiltrate other aspects of the town, including the police force. They used fake identities and were able to find jobs within the department that would allow them to give the others a heads up on when these raids would happen, providing them with ample time to hide these women and girls to prevent them from being reunited with their families."
"What about the deaths?"
"As you likely already know, some of these women who disappeared turned up dead. The story goes that these women were no longer following the beliefs of the higher members. They were planning to flee with the children they had. However, this was not taken lightly, especially if they were married to a Haggerty man."
"So they killed them?" I asked aloud, already believing I knew the answer.
"These women were given chances to repent and be allowed to remain a part of the family. While some did, others did not. At that point, they were considered liabilities. They could not have them leave and spread the secrets of what was going on. Instead they were killed and their children raised by their fathers or other close family members."
"Oh my God. That is awful. How could they do that? Who knows how many mothers they've robbed of seeing their kids grow up."
I felt him rub my shoulder.
"Enclosed in the envelope was a letter, which I hope you have since destroyed, but I hope this gets you the answers you need."
The hooded figure stood up and walked towards the camera before the picture cut out.
It was quickly replaced by a grainy video.
"Oh my God! Is that...?"
"Elena."