The room is filled with the hum of voices, people milling around tables, sorting flyers, and arranging photos of children across poster boards. I shake my umbrella before stepping inside, feeling like an intruder in a room full of people who are actually doing something important. It smells like old coffee and sweat. People have carried in the rain with them. And the grime. It's a decent turn out. From what I saw on the volunteer sheet, I expected half the number of people.

I could leave before anybody notices me. It's not like I know anyone here. Or that I'm a familiar face. But finally, a face stops in the crowd. She's looking directly at me. A woman, maybe five or eight years older than me with crisp sandy curls ending at her ears. She shifts the papers from her hands to under her arm as she walks over.

Her name tag reads "Emma."

"Hi, by any chance are you Nora?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"I had a feeling," she sticks her hand out. I oblige and she gives it a firm gentlemanly shake. "I'm Emma, we talked on the phone."

"I remember," I clear my throat. "Tell me how I can help."

A few ladies brush past us as Emma looks around the hall to, what I imagine, assign me a task. 

"We'll be setting up posts in the park across city hall. I think Clara, over there in the red sweater, could use some help," she checks her watch. "Yeah, the journalist will be here soon. Could you-"

"Yeah of course."

"Great, here. Write your name and stick it on your jacket," she hands me a stack of stickers and a sharpie. "Just so other volunteers can identify you."

I take them from her before she tells me she'll see me around. I tilt my shoulder to get past people. Mostly women. Older. Some young faces too. Just not anyone I recognize.

"Hi Clara, I'm here to help," I say as I attempt to scribble my name on the post it.

She watches me pat the sticker over my left boob. "Hey, that's great. Do you think you can help them carry the signs outside? Those ones are ready to go."

I turn my head to see where she's pointing to. "Got it."

"Thanks... Nora."

"No problem."

The faces on the board stare back at me as I approach- a little boy with freckles and curly hair, an older girl with braces and a shy smile, another girl with piercing blue eyes. Each of them frozen in time. I wonder how long it's been since they've been missing.

One photo stands out, though, older maybe. It's her sweater. An older fashion. Kids don't dress that way these days. With both hands grasping the edges of the board, I hover for a moment longer. Clara must notice me staring because she gestures from behind it. 

"Our first case. Jamie Hartwell . She went missing in 1998," she says softly. "She was just six years old."

Her blonde bangs are slightly lopsided. My guess is that it was cut at home. Too young for the salon chair. I look away from her eyes. She looks so joyful. So full of hope.

"Fuck," my eyes dart to Clara's as soon as I realize my language. "Sorry I meant-"

"'Fuck' sounds about right."

I adjust my grip on the board.

"Jamie's case really brought this community together," she presses her lips together. "It's actually the reason this group formed in the first place. Although, it wasn't this big back then."

There's some noise and people begin to stream out of the room. Clara excuses herself and I join the crowd, holding the giant board to my chest. It's still raining but it's less noticeable. Just a few small drops on my forehead as we run across the road. I carry it towards the trees, where it's slightly drier. 

"Do you need help with that?" a familiar voice asks from beside me. As I lower it to the ground, I take him in, with the same steady, dark gaze that somehow manages to make everything else fade. He's in a well-worn gray sweater, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he nods at me, like old friends.

I let him take it from me and he begins to push the post into the ground. 

"Didn't expect to find you here," he says finally. "I've been with the group for... well, years now."

Elijah's always been a part of this town in a way that I never was. Or possibly could be. I remember hearing about his volunteering with shelters, always showing up at community events to help where he could. 

"That's good of you," I say, not really knowing what else to say. He gives a modest shrug, but his eyes are searching mine, like he's trying to figure out why I'm here. I'm trying to figure out the same thing.

"There's more inside," I tell him, walking back to the hall. He joins me in stride. 

"I can't believe I never knew about them," I say as I clamp my hands on to another board. He picks another. "All this time and not even a whisper."

We walk side by side and he glances at me quickly. "They were always here. The volunteers. The kids."

"Yeah," I say, passing the threshold. "I'm starting to realize that."

"The goal isn't just to find them," he says quietly, his voice thoughtful. "It's to remind people they were here. That they mattered."

I nod, swallowing around the lump in my throat. That's why I'm here, isn't it? To remember. Even if I never knew my brother, I want to remember him. And while he isn't missing like these kids are, he is worth grieving too.

A lot of people know Elijah. Like really know him. We're outside, trying to shelter from the rain. A guy, almost as tall as Elijah, gives him a hand shake and a side hug. Something is said between them and a laugh exchanged. I busy myself by staring off into the distance. I hope he knows he doesn't have to babysit me.

Some woman calls his name and he waves back at her. I'm really starting to feel out of place here.

After a few minutes, Elijah glances over. "That's Peter's mom, Diane."

It takes a minute but my gaze eventually lands on the woman in the pink rain coat. She has a bob, slightly matted by the rain. 

"Peter?"

"Disappeared from his front garden, aged seven."

"Shit."

"She's been at nearly every protest since then but she's recently been put on dialysis."

"Shit."

He turns his head, his eyes humorous. "Still a potty mouth, I see."

I'm compelled to swear again. Once you get going, they keep streaming out. I used to swear like a motherfucker as a teenager. It started when I really got into music for the first time. And then a permanent stamp on my vocab. But then I went to college and I had a fresh start. I got to be someone else for a while.

"Sorry," I say loosely. "This is just... intense."

He furrows his eyebrows a smidge, formulating his thoughts. "To be honest, I didn't think I'd ever see you at one of these."

"If I'd known, I think I'd have shown up."

The corners of his mouth pull upwards slightly. 

"I'm not an asshole."

"I'm not saying you are," the thing in his neck bobs up then down. "Just that, you always seemed closed off. I don't know. Ignore me."

I agree with some part of what he's saying. I have a tendency to lock myself in my own head. Elijah noticing shouldn't come as a surprise. I mean, I overlooked all these missing children cases. I never noticed anything amiss within my own family. Maybe there is something wrong with me. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it."

I shake my head, "I know. I'm just thinking."

The group begins to chant. I spot Clara with a megaphone. Elijah shifts his weight next to me and I pull up my hood. My phone buzzes in my pocket, breaking the quiet between us. I glance down to see John's name flashing on the screen, and guilt prickles.

"Everything alright?" Elijah asks, his gaze dipping to the phone in my hand.

"Yeah," I murmur as I slip it back into my pocket, out of sight, out of mind. "Just... not now."

Elijah doesn't press, just nods, and we head to the middle of the ground. There's no longer any trees to keep the rain off us. Elijah doesn't pull his hood up and almost immediately his hair is dripping.

"We demand you find our children, bring them home!"

I follow the voice and see a pink parka. Diane throws her fist in the air and yells again.

"Remember their names, remember their faces, we won't let them fade!"

The crowd's chanting rises, crashing against the pale, unyielding walls of the city's downtown square. I stand with them, my voice a thread woven into the louder shouts around me, each cry feeding into a collective plea that seems to ricochet off the buildings. A fog rolls in, twisting through the streets, and the fading evening light bleeds through. Every face around me is grim, determined—mothers clutching signs with children's faces printed in stark black and white, fathers holding banners that read "Bring Them Home." 

Elijah stands close, his voice loud and unwavering, hands cupped around his mouth as he leads a new round of chants. There's a fire in his eyes I've never seen before, as if he's fueled by something rawer.

As we chant, a heaviness settles in my chest. Each name we shout feels like a plea sent into a void, and the sheer vastness of it, the tens of children who remain missing starts to weigh on me. My voice wavers for a second, swallowed by the unrelenting rhythm of the crowd. 

A knot forms in my stomach, a tight, twisting reminder of why I'm here, of the secrets buried in my own family's past, of a brother I never knew.

The crowd surges forward slightly as we press closer, our chant turning from a mournful cry into something sharper, more urgent, as if we're trying to cut through the veil of silence that has settled over these babies.

"Bring them home!" we shout in unison, louder now, the words leaving my throat raw, yet the sound hardly enough. The fog thickens like the air itself is responding to our voices. I glance over at Elijah, and for a second, he meets my gaze, his face set with a grim determination, his eyes reflecting a flicker of something fierce and wounded.

It's strange, but in this moment, I feel both small and connected, tethered to a collective grief and anger that reaches back decades. Diane weeps but she calls out. Her tears shine past her thick glasses. 

A local news crew arrives eventually, the camera perched like a silent vulture capturing every anguished face, every raised fist. The cameraman is a wiry man in a gray windbreaker with a hunched posture. His face is impassive, eyes hidden behind thick glasses that reflect the dim light of the approaching evening, but there's a certain tiredness to his expression, as if he's seen too many stories like this one.

Around me, the chant falters for a moment as people notice the crew, voices wavering under the weight of being watched. It's unnerving to be scrutinized under a lens. I know we'll all be printed black and white soon, under a fat headline. Diane wipes her chin and one of the cameras hit flash.