“You’re sure this is where you saw her?”

“... Yeah?”

“That didn’t sound particularly confident.”

“I’m pretty sure it was around here.”

“Pretty sure?”

Jess lets out an exasperated, “It was somewhere along this road, alright!?”

Our investigation hasn’t been particularly fruitful. We’re following the path that Jess normally takes home, trying to find any trace of Taylor, but have found nothing. In addition, Jess’s memory is a little fuzzy, and her story keeps having minor details change. The longer we spend with her, the less I trust her testimony.

Honestly, I don’t really know what we expected. Going to where she disappeared is probably a good place to start, but what did we expect to find? If she really just disappeared, I doubt we’re going to find anything helpful. In addition, this road is completely desolate and is surrounded by empty fields on either side, so it’s not like we have anyone to interrogate.

We continue walking down the sidewalk. Today’s unseasonably warm, with a remarkable amount of sunlight shining through, lighting up the dreary autumn around us.  I take a moment and gaze up towards the sky. It’s the first time I’ve seen the sun this clearly in a while; The sky’s been cloudy for weeks.

A small ray of light passes through my vision, drawing my gaze to a rain gutter by my feet. It’s filled with dead leaves and a bit of trash, but my eyes stop on a small glimmer.

A familiar glimmer.

I reach down, brushing aside leaves and garbage, pulling out an old memory.

It’s little more than a piece of string and some plastic beads, but it used to be a bracelet. The thread holding the beads together has snapped, causing a few beads to fall off as I pick it up.

Just the sight of it pulls me back to a very particular moment in the past. To Anna and I’s first date.

Anna was never one much for speaking her mind. She was quiet and kept to herself mostly. When she wanted something, it was up to you to figure it out. We hadn’t been dating for very long, but I’d already picked up on that fact, so when I saw her eyeing a jewelry stand in the mall I knew what that meant.

“You wanna go check it out?”

She gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, and we walked over.

Luckily, it wasn’t very expensive jewelry, as I’d feared. It was a “Make Your Own Bracelet!” stand. You started at the left, picked out a cord to hold the bracelet together, threaded the beads and other baubles that you wanted onto it, then picked something to hold the whole thing together. It cost a few dollars per bracelet, so it was pretty affordable (but still a rip-off for some plastic beads.)

“Do you want to make one?”

She gave another nod, so I told her to go ahead. I started to walk over to a bench to sit for a moment, but before I could take a step she caught my sleeve.

“... Do you want one?” She said in a deep, alluring voice. She didn’t even need to try to sound sexy, it was just her natural voice. It’s a damn shame she did her best to never use it.

“I don’t really do jewelry.”

“We could match?”

I still didn’t really want one, but she seemed to like the idea. “Alright.”

She guided me back to the stand by my sleeve, and we assembled some matching bracelets. A black cord with alternating pink and sky blue beads. She stepped towards the register to pay, but I stepped in front of her.

“I’ll pay for both. It’s fine.”

Rather than back off, she butted in next to me. “I’ll pay for yours. You pay for mine.”

If she wanted to pay I wasn’t going to argue with her.

 And so, after paying, we stepped away from the stand with two new bracelets. Hers on her left hand, mine on my right. Our other hands were firmly clasped in each other’s as we continued what I would later recognize to be one of the most fun days of my life. 

Minnie’s voice pulls me back to the present. “Sam… are you alright?”

“Huh?”

“What are you holding?” Jess’s hand reaches to snatch the bracelet. Instinctively, I pull away and cradle it protectively against my chest.

Anna was here. Not only that, she was here recently— maybe as recently as Taylor’s disappearance. Maybe… maybe she had something to do with Taylor’s disappearance.

“Sam? You’re pale.” Minnie looks more than a little concerned about me.

“Yeah, you doing alright? You see Pennywise down there or something?” Jess adds.

I let out a sigh. I don’t really know what to tell them. “I found something.”

I show them the remains of the bracelet.

Jess looks confused. “That’s… very pretty Sam. Good job.”

“This is my ex’s bracelet. She disappeared the same way that Taylor did.”

Minnie doesn’t react and instead looks contemplatively at the bracelet. I think she might be drawing some connections.

Comparatively, Jess just yells, “The plot thickens!”

She hasn’t been taking this seriously since the moment she got involved and it’s starting to get on my nerves. She’s been talking non-stop since we started walking and it’s honestly a little overwhelming. It reminds me a bit of a certain someone when she learned I could turn invisible.

“Do you think your ex kidnapped Taylor? Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oooh! Is she magic too?”

“Not that I know.”

“Is she-”

“I don’t know anything, Jess. Stop asking.”

She sheepishly looks at her feet, “Sorry…”

I let out a sigh, “It’s fine.”

We continue searching for a little while longer, but it becomes clear that we’re not going to find anything else. The bracelet has been a massive windfall, but it’s hardly conclusive evidence. We went from absolutely nothing to “Anna’s probably involved.” This might be useful information if we knew where Anna was, but we don’t.

I want to go home, but Minnie and Jess are adamant that we discuss our findings. Jess is very clear that her house is off-limits as a meeting place, so we settle on Minnie's house, despite some hesitance on her part.

The whole walk there, my mind is occupied with images of Anna, and the time we spent together. By the end, there’s only one thing I can ask.

What the hell happened to her?