What Happened to Erin?

Mia settles on the single wingback chair in the living room’s corner.

The shrill howl of the teakettle reaches its peak, soon followed by silence.

Mrs. Venus snaps to her feet. “That’s my cue.” She darts to the archway and disappears out of sight.

The four remain, and the strained silence stretches out between them all. Everyone studiously avoiding eye contact, their gaze either cast to the abstract art that lines the walls, or anywhere else.

No one says a word.

Eventually, Mrs. Venus reappears with a large tray in her hands. An English tea set sits on it. She goes to the coffee table and carefully lays it beside the plate of cookies.

A white porcelain teapot stands in the center, surrounded by five white mugs ornate with floral designs.

She straightens and gestures to the refreshments. “Please, help yourselves,” she offers.

No one moves.

Mrs. Venus’s gaze lowers. “I guess we should skip the pleasantries, then.”

She disappears and shortly re-emerges with a framed picture in her hand.

She turns it around and displays a photo of all of them together. A decade ago.

“This is why I have called you here.” Her hand glides from left to right to give everyone an unrestricted view.

“My Keila is a bubbly girl, well-liked, and so she has many friends. But none like you. She cares for all her friends, but you four are on a pedestal, even if she, herself, couldn’t admit it.”

Mrs. Venus observes the group with a sad smile.

“She loved you all so much.” Her voice cracks and she looks up to hold in the tears. “After the incident with Erin, she thought I didn’t know, but she used to cry herself to sleep, every night, for weeks.”

Her gaze levels and she places her other hand on her stomach. “I don’t know what happened or what she saw—what you all saw, but she refused to tell me, even her therapist.

“After losing Erin, she lost the only people who shared her trauma, the only friends that could help her heal.”

Mrs. Venus moves to occupy the edge of the third wingback chair.

“I’m so sorry for whatever you all had to endure, so young. In the last few years, Keila was doing well, not depressed. For a while, she seemed happy.

“The last time I spoke with her, late Friday evening, she told me that she wanted to get back in shape, lose the holiday weight, and get ready for track or cross-country, either one.

“She’s so sporty it’s hard to keep up sometimes…”

She stares off into the distance, lapsing into pained silence.

The picture in her hand drops to her lap.

“I—I thought she had gone for a night run—even Robert thought so, too.” Her expression is crestfallen.

“I thought I knew. When I woke up, she was still gone and when I went inside her room to check her laundry, there was her running gear, washed, crisp, and untouched, all her running shoes still tucked away in the wardrobe.”

Her expression mutates into a dark look.

“I know something bad must have happened to her. She wouldn’t just run away—she was taken, or something horrible happened to her,” she says feverishly.

“Why do you think that we know something about it?”

Everyone looks up to stare at Aries.

He tosses up a careless hand. “Sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. V. But we haven’t spoken to Keila in years. We’re the last people that you should be askin’.”

“No!” she snaps.

The outburst earns her a few wide-eyed looks.

She clears her throat, then pivots her torso to look at Aries, who sits across from her.

“No, son, that is where you are mistaken. You are the only ones that I can ask. The same thing that happened to Erin, who was also friends with all of you, has now happened to my Keila.

“I’m not trying to accuse anyone.” She lifts her hands in surrender. “I just want to know if what happened to Erin is related to my baby’s disappearance?”

Opal swipes away an ebony strand from her face.

“Mrs. Venus, if we knew something, we would tell you or the police. And I have to go.” Her forearm snaps up to check the time on her silver watch. “I have to practice for my upcoming recital.”

She rises and approaches Mrs. Venus. “I hope you find her.”

Opal walks out, her swan neck held high.

Aries sprouts to his feet and ambles a few steps before he halts.

He swivels and strides over to the coffee table to pluck two peanut butter cookies and salutes Mrs. Venus with one of them. He bites a chip off the one and moves to exit the living room.

Akin stands and clasps his hands in front of him. “My deepest apologies, Mrs. Venus, but I have to go, too. The season has barely begun, and the coach already wants us back in training.”

Thankful that she was not the first to excuse herself. Mia ascends with her hands in her pockets, one hand clutching the car keys, ready to leave. Mrs. Venus escorts them out. She stands in the doorway and watches them leave.

Akin is the only one who glances back at her and waves a polite farewell, and she waves back at him.

Mrs. Venus steps back and closes the door. She turns and slips her hand into her back pocket, sliding out her phone.

She calls a number and after a few short rings, speaks.

“Detective Russo, it’s me.”

“How was the reunion?”

She scoffs bitterly. “Cold and tense. They didn’t crack, not even an inch. I genuinely believed that they might open up to me, but…There is something that they’re hiding.”

“I know and I will find out what, I promise you.”

She turns her gaze to the ground, suddenly dubious. “You really think that Erin’s disappearance is linked to Keila’s?” she asks.

“I’m certain of it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I don’t find it a coincidence that the same people involved with Erin were friends with Keila as well. My guess is that they might not be solely responsible, but they might know who is.”

Mrs. Venus nods and lifts her gaze. “Do what you must, Detective: probe, search, and arrest. I don’t care. Just find my daughter.”

“I will. And I will bring those responsible to justice.”

***

Mia returns home, slogs inside, and shoves the door closed. She removes her bag from her back and chucks it aside, then looks around.

A house that was once a home. Now the edges of the rooms are filled with clinging shadows and the sounds of ominous creaks that she has unconsciously learned to tune out.

Mia’s gaze drifts to the oval-shaped mirror with an intricate border eddying grandly in its craft. The mirror reflects what once was. The only thing that remains is the remnants of her scarred soul.

The ignominy of her unceasing loneliness is a slow poison to her innermost being. Mia tries to slough away the deepest crepuscule of her aggrieved heart.

But there are only so many times that one can pick up the pieces until it’s best left shattered. To avoid the pain of having her heart ripped from her chest, only to have it be torn before her again.

That’s how she felt when her dad left.

That’s how she felt when Erin died.

And that is how she feels now that Keila is missing, and she might have an idea as to how. But facing that question requires an answer that she is far from ready to accept.

Sluggishly, Mia makes her way upstairs and to her room. She heads straight to the desk positioned right under the skylight window.

She pulls open its only drawer and sifts past the old study notes and revisions of past papers to the frameless photo beneath.

Mia slips it out, the corners bent—she smooths it out with her thumbs, and she cannot keep herself from smiling at the picture that is a copy of the one that Keila has.

All of them are huddled together, young and bright-eyed, so unburdened from the horrors of what they witnessed and what they were party to.

Her eyes peruse their euphoric expressions; Akin smiled brightly, his one arm wrapped around Opal’s neck and his other arm around Aries’s shoulder.

Opal was laughing with her fingers curled around Akin’s wrist, her other hand holding onto Mia.

Mia’s brow arches at the irony that the two missing girls are posed together in the photo. Both of Keila’s arms are entangled around Erin’s neck, their hands interlocked, resting on Erin’s chest.

Mia gazes down at the picture, reflective, unable to remember a time when she was that happy or even smiling as much as she was in that photo. Her gaze is drawn to Keila, exhibiting her picture-perfect smile.

Unable to look anymore, Mia slaps the photo on her desk and turns away from it.