Something in me broke at the sight of Kaylee's friendly face. I felt my knees hit the concrete, but I wasn't sure how it happened. My vision blurred and I was collapsing inwards. Impossible to breathe. I hit the scratchy sidewalk with my palms, seeing over and over Levi under the table, dirty and scared. And me - worthless and helpless to get him out of there. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

"No, you don't!" I heard Kaylee shout. Her car door creaked open. "Don't you dare do that without me!"

She had her arms around me and she was crying, too.

"Kaylee, I miss him so much! I miss them both. Oh, god, I can't imagine what they went through and it's not fair!"

"I know, I know," she whispered. She sniffed and wiped her hand across her face. "I know you miss them, especially Levi. And you're right it's not fair."

I hugged her tighter and cried harder. "Something terrible is going on." I shook my head on her shoulder. "I can't explain it."

"You can try, I'm listening."

A car slowed and honked, the driver annoyed to find Kaylee's car parked illegally on the side of the road. She waved angrily at the man.

"What?" she yelled. "Don't tell me you can't go around it. There's room for three pick-ups and a motorcycle. Yeah, you too, buddy!" She flipped him off. "Sorry, sweetie, go ahead and cry. What a jerk."

It was all I could do to keep breathing between sobs. I wanted to explain, but didn't know where to start. How could you tell someone about visions of dead animals and a missing boy; hallucinations of walking scare-crows or Civil War soldiers? Even as I tried to find the words, the memories were slipping from my mind. Drop by drop, bit by bit. Haze rushed in the empty spaces.

Keep it together, Brooklyn, remember what happened!

How could I tell her that I thought I saw Levi under a table, begging to go home? Begging someone to not take him to room...to room number...

I was losing the memory. Keep it together! I clung to Kaylee, letting her babbling voice drift over me. I fought to walk through everything I had seen and done.

Room thirty-nine. Straw-people. Red string. Levi. Chewed up rats and mice. Vines and ruins. Straw-man. Broken concrete. Heavy air. I was made of straw. I know you're not real.

Levi, it's me, Brooklyn.

This morning. It had happened this morning, too, but was different. There weren't two images on everything, but a place that I passed through to. Lake water. Soldiers. Missing button. Mud. Water. Chicoree. I was me. Drowning. A vine in my hair.

Alicia saw it when we were in the nurse's office. She recognized the name Feros, but thought it was a donkey. Old Man Feros was in a rhyme about the five kids who went missing a hundred years ago. What does Alicia know? What does she really remember? What did she see when Levi and Sean had been taken?

Levi had been so scared, so dirty and small. A fresh wave of tears poured out when I thought of him under the table, begging and shaking. Whatever had happened to him, I wanted revenge. I would not break down and run away. I would try to find out everything I could and make the person who took him pay. Somehow.

I raked my fingers across the sidewalk, until two nails bent backwards and I broke through the skin. Needle jabs of pain shot through my hands.

"What are you doing?" Kaylee asked. "Brook, stop. Hurting yourself won't help them."

"Nothing I do can help them," I said. "Nothing I do can change what happened. I have to know who took them, Kaylee. Or I really will go crazy." Crazier than I already was, anyway.

"Let me buy you a coffee. Or better yet, a hot chocolate. Hot chocolate makes everything better, even if it's just a teeny-tiny bit."

Go back into that place? I didn't think I could. Had I been in there at all? Did the people in there see me?

meet me at cuppa joes

But I needed to know those things. I couldn't run, not from any possible clue, and Alicia would be there at eight o'clock.

I nodded and managed to stand. I let Kaylee drive us the short distance, grateful that I didn't have to walk more than necessary. By the time we reached the parking lot, I had my emotions under control. No more hysterical giggling, crying or trying to tear off my nails. She hooked her arm in mine to cross the lot.

Two grizzled men came out of the diner, and we had to move aside to let them pass. One of them glanced my way and I felt my arm and neck hairs raise up. He looked at me a little too long before turning for the motorcycles. Todd McIntosh. I knew him from the town stories and gossip. We had a strange kinship, one I didn't appreciate, but couldn't deny.

In the 70's, a high school friend of his got drunk and drove himself and another girl into Norfolk lake. The car was found, but the bodies had disappeared. Why that was fuel for gossip was because the windows were up and the doors were shut when they dragged the car up from the bottom. He knew what it meant to have a friend disappear without a trace.

Both men ignored us while they put on their helmets, and I kept my face averted while Kaylee led me to the diner entry.

The motorcycles roared to life, fading out as the door shut behind us. It was dim inside. I had to blink to adjust my sight after the glare of sun on cars and concrete. Panic started to seize me when I couldn't see the people in the booths clearly. Were the straw-people here? The double images?

The buzz of chatter interspersed with clinking silverware on plates caught my attention. The old fashioned jukebox came to life and an Elvis song joined the normal noise. The people were real. There was only one picture - reality. My heart began to slow its gallop and I followed Kaylee to the far side of the diner.

"Take a seat anywhere, girls, I'll be right with ya!" called Betty. She was the resident waitress at Cuppa Joe's. It didn't seem to matter what time of the day I came, she was there with smeared eyeliner and a toothy smile. She was hovering at our table the second we sat down in the booths. "Oh, Brooklyn, I was just thinking about you a minute ago. I had a feeling you'd show up. What'll it be?" She also knew everyone's name who came in more than one time.

No one must have seen me earlier; Betty would have said if she had. We were sitting in the row that had been empty in my visions, and except for us, it still was. I leaned out, but I couldn't see any napkins or paper on the floor where I imagined I had seen Levi. But what about Todd? Why had he looked at me funny? Because he knows what today is? The five year anniversary was in the newspaper. Or does he see things that aren't always there, too?

Kaylee started ordering hot chocolates for us, plus onion rings and a slice of apple pie for herself. I passed on the food. My stomach rolled just thinking about it.

"Ready to talk about it?" Kaylee asked.

"Can you just give me a second?" I stood to walk towards the back. My image was reflected in the wall mirror by the bathroom doors, and it was a relief to see I was my normal self. I reached the last table and crouched to look under it. There was nothing to see.

"Brooklyn, whatever you're looking for, I doubt it's under the table," Kaylee said when I went back. "Talk to me."

Sitting down and taking a deep breath, I decided to not beat around any bushes. "I see things that don't exist or shouldn't exist, but only on this day, the day that Sean and Levi were kidnapped."

"What kind of things? Is this like the donkey story?" she asked. She had blinked couple of times, but to her credit was taking my announcement very calmly.

"Yeah, I guess by now everyone has heard that story. It's usually like that. I'll see one or two weird things every anniversary, but today it's worse. It's like the world around me changes for a few minutes and I see horrible things."

"Have you ever told your mom?"

"No. Do you believe in psychics? Palm readers, mediums, things like that?" I asked her.

"Not really, no. Do you want my honest opinion?" She shifted in the booth and took my hand. "You need to tell your mom and maybe you need to get on some medication. I have an aunt kind of like you. She had some tough times in the past and for a while she would tell us about these voices in her house, telling her to do things, or that she thought people were coming in when she was gone who would move stuff around or steal her porcelain dolls. She's a lot better now...that she takes her medicine."

"Voices, huh? Did she ever see anything?"

"Not that I know of, but they would tell her the weirdest stuff. Like she would become president or she needed to put poison under her bed for the rats, even though there weren't any."

"You're probably right. I'll talk to my mom about it," I said. Maybe it was that simple, after all. The hot chocolate arrived with a mountain of cream on top and it tickled my upper lip when I took a drink.

"They're reopening the case, you know." She blew on her hot chocolate, but didn't drink.

"I saw that. I didn't read the whole article, though."

"They found evidence, but I don't know what. If they could solve it and you had closure, I bet it would help," Kaylee said. "They have an expert in from Little Rock, the article said he was going over everything. We'll see, I guess."

"Well unless the evidence they lost was a signed confession, I don't know what he'll be able to figure out. Zero clues as to who took the brothers, the only witness has partial amnesia. No other foot prints, car tire marks, scuffs in the ground, blood trails, nothing found in the lake. Are you sure you don't believe in paranormal stuff? Because I'm starting to."

"Brook, can I ask you about Alicia?"

"You can ask."

"Do they know what bit her?"

She was asking about the tiny bite marks; Alicia had been covered in small bite marks and scratches. This made me think of the dead mice all over the ground when I came in the ruined diner. Haze tried to creep into my mind and I pushed it back. They had been bitten or cut, too, but for some reason I doubted they had been biting each other. I shook my head. "They said it was some kind of rodent in the forest. She was unconscious for several hours."

"Why do you let her do this to you?"

"Do what?"

"Guilt you into being her friend and always doing what she wants you to do," Kaylee said. She hadn't touched her pie or onion rings. I'd never seen her so serious.

"She doesn't guilt me. I'm her friend and we have a, a certain bond."

"I know she makes you go in the woods every year. Don't let her do this to you. It's crazy, it's—"

The door jingled and someone walked in, cutting off Kaylee's words. Her eyes flicked back to me. "Remember what I said. You shouldn't let her do this to you."

I turned to look. Alicia was here early. Kaylee was right, I shouldn't let her guilt me into going to the forest. But I would do it for a trade.

***** Hi! I hope you are enjoying the story still, drop me a line if you have anything you want to tell me or ask about! What do you think - will Brooklyn be able to get any more information out of Alicia? Thanks so much for reading <3 ****