From the files of Mary Sybil in regards to the disapperence of Ambrose Sybil in 1968.

I, Maria Sybil, was born sometime in the winter months of 1949.

That is all that I know within regards to my humble beginnings. The folks of the Appalachians, whether richer than the governors and high officials or poorer than dirt knew of their lineage. I did not. At first, I allowed it not to bother me. Why would it? There was the Irish and the English, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee and the Black. I was Black, sure but who was my family? I did not know.

I grew up on one of the finest manors in the entirety of the Carolina Virgina boarder of the Appalachian Range. The Kilman's treated my sister and I as if were kin. It did not matter that we did not look like them or that we were kept under a loosely regarded payroll at our sixteenth year as housekeepers for tax deductions.

We dusted, we swept, cooked, cleaned, and tended to the exotic plants of the gardens.

Mr. Kilman - It would be disrespectful of me to regard him by his first name even in the confines of a legalized document solely for the purpose of investigation - still I doubt that you the investigator who should be familiar with the dainty politics and social class hierarchy rivaling the renaissance era of France would not have his full name ingrained in your mind.

As I was saying, Mr. Kilman, stout and speckled faced, founded the AEC - Appalachian Energy Corp. suppling power to all homes and businesses from the mountainous ranges and sub ranges starting in Virginia to a small portion at the top of northwestern area of Georgia. He at the time of this incident in which I will soon address was a celebrity of Blue Ridge. His wife Ms. Kilman was popular in her own regard, an expert in the strange studies of the world, male dominated - Rudimentary and hippology. What gave her the air of fame was her beauty and therefore admiration of it. Diamonds were her best friends.

That life my sister and I had with them was a joyous one, though many would regard me as dependent and frightful of the world beyond Blue Ridge. I was and the person I saw in the mirror had no shame to be that way. We did not lack the television reports, the cruel whispers and the biweekly newspapers reminding us that in fact the outside world did exist. Horses, fine clothing, jewels swimming pools and education - oh yes!

We had young professors and old ones as well. I found delight in French and the epics of Shakespeare, the romance of Jane Austen and the visionary studies of Ralph Ellison. Segregation and wars and all that madness existed, even on the mountains but within the confines of the manor, I could ignore it and watch it on the television as if it were mere science fiction.

My sister Ambrose took to the instruments, the grand piano, the banjo, the harp, and the acoustic guitar and by her fourteenth birthday, she had mastered all of them, graduating to the violin, flute and less than graceful spoons.

Ms. Kilman's lady friends would abandon the gossip to hear folk songs or Wolfgang covers. My younger sister by two years could recite the entirety of the epic of Macbeth or the sagas of Norse with passion and vitality, her soul on fire when she spoke, heart ablaze. Sometimes I would encourage her to pursue preaching but she would always say it was no lord than her heart. She was a woman, so my suggestion was useless in the conservatives. Amber Rose was not perfect that was her fatal flaw, all her imperfections and shortcomings combated with guilt and self-hatred.

I can tell you more about her peculiar nature, but I am afraid I love her too much to place more scorn on her name than she already has.

The reporters gathered around the rose bushes encircling the scene, their cameras clicking like a chorus of cicadas in the dog days of summer. (This was perhaps the first year that cicadas came to the world, a gift from Satan himself, I think.)

The only evidence remaining of Ambrose's tragic descent was the broken roots of the roses and the pink petals scattered across the ground like a gruesome stain of botanic gore.

Bright scarlet splotches clung to the thorns as cruel, sinister decorations, adding a macabre flair to the story I painted with my words and hand gestures.

A strawberry blond reporter on the left side of the group dropped her camera back around her neck, giving me a chance to speak. I straightened my shoulders back, standing next to the shattered window seal, placing myself smack in the middle of the gathered reporters, police officers and other emergency personalities trying to construct a coherent story from my sobs, evidence, and tatters.

"Ambrose wasn't always troubled, jumping into things without thinking like a beast with a sickness in the head. One minute, she called me a sow, and the next, she hurtled herself out the window like it was the most natural thing in the world!" (I was exceptionally beautiful. I did not look like a sow. Ambrose said the first thing that came to mind. She had devoured a plate of bacon that morning.)

The reporter stepped from the mass, removing a pen from the folds of her trench coat along with a yellow pad. The cluster nodded sympathetically, eyes either to the ground or giving her that, " It's going to alright." stare. You would have assumed that everyone among the gathered had a lunatic sister lurking around in the shadows.

I shook harder, the dried-out petals of the dead rose I held so close falling apart. The wind carried them away, blowing them off in the distance of a long field of perfectly manicured dogwoods and bay pelted pleasure horses moving along them, chewing at what of the shortly cut grass under the shade. I began to wail again as the soft chatter of gentle replies subsided.

"What will you do?" I asked.

The reporter scribbles down something, the tip of her pen moving across the page with grace. "Did you two have any heated arguments, any fights or something like that before she-?"

The reporter paused mid question, angling it to a distinct perspective that would address the faux elephant on the lawn.

"Excuse me, ignore that. All of that." The report tried to rid of the irritation in her tone, fixing a stern expression on her face. "I understand your loss, but we have some many backed up missing person cases that we have limited time for this search, but we will ask a few more questions for the team."

I was heated. You must understand have devastating that is to hear.

"She vanished into the night, leaving nothing behind but smashed roses! My sister may have not had all her screws in the right spots, but that is no reason to give up on her. She deserves to be found."

"Without a trace of where she went? Hints or places where she would go hide off the Kilman property?" The reporter had clearly never encountered anything as strange as this. She was skeptical all the way around, but for now, she keeps her opinions to himself. "It's blood remaining on the window and the rose thorns."

They were ignoring me again, reforming that circle.

She pointed down at where the blood trail stopped at the red bricks guarding the roses. "Strange that the blood trail stops right here. With those injuries, she'd be bleeding like a hog from here to wherever she passed out."

One of the officers stepped free from the group, clearing his throat with a soft rumble that comes deep down from the gut. The suit, far too tight for him, made his statue stiff, each movement less fluent than the next.

"I can confirm that the trail stops too short. With injuries sustained like those, the emergency team came to the conclusion that this case needs deep investigation. There's no sign of her on the other side of the bushes or in the yard."

"What does that mean?" I asked, voice laced with curiosity. "Does that mean she didn't run away?"

The police officer shrugged, his expression unreadable. "It means something happened to her," he said gruffly. "We don't know what, but it ain't natural for a blood trail to just stop like that."

The reporters, on the other hand, were scribbling furiously in their notebooks, their minds racing with possibilities.

The other reporter, an older man with a cigar in his mouth, spoke up. "Do you think she was abducted?" he asked, his voice laced with excitement. "Maybe by a gang or a crazed madman?"

Murmurs swept through them as the sound of pens clicks and moving merged with a rumble of cars moving down the street and the soft neighs of horses.

The reporters exchanged glances, their curiosity growing. The officer nodded in agreement, taking a drag on his cigar.

"We already checked that," he said gruffly. "The manor has hunting hounds in the pins, and usually they're pretty good at spotting any intruders. But they didn't bark or make a fuss. That could mean a lot."

The lady of the house came out of her gilded bird cage without warning, her eyes sweeping over the reporters and police officers. It was as if she'd come from out of nowhere, moving along the balcony with her palm against the cool railing. "This manor has been in my family for generations. These mountains have seen no gangs or such nonsense."

She turned to the reporters, her expression growing more serious. "As for your questions, I can offer some insight into the girl's behavior. She's recently been erratic and unstable, prone to fits of hysteria."

"Ambrose was not that bad." I tried to fight for her, but I feared Ms. Kilman. I feared her power and influence. For the first time, when my words were lost, and I could not defend my sister. I knew that my relationship with the Kilman's was not natural. Something happened to my sister and Ms. Kilman was involved. Though speculation at its finest, I knew it was true. How? I just did.

"Spare me your sentimental nonsense," The lady said dismissively. "Your sister was mentally ill."

"Well." The older reporter said, a smirk on his face. "We'll be back for updates, hopefully when things have calmed down to a more approachable degree."

The younger strawberry blond reporter nodded in agreement, a wry dry smile on her face. "Good luck to both of you both. We'll notify the local news and radio stations to spread the news."

The lady of the house sniffed disdainfully, her expression betraying just a hint of annoyance. I merely huffed.

"Good riddance," the lady snapped. "And don't bother coming back until you have something useful to report."

The burly police officer spoke. "We'll keep looking for answers," he assured the reporters. "It may take a day or two, but we'll do our best to find out what happened."

The younger police officer chimed in. "You can contact us if you see anything out of the ordinary," She added. "But don't go poking around yourself."

The reporters exchanged a glance, their expressions filled with mock commiseration. In lowered voices, they shared their fair share of under the breath jokes as they filed out from the front yard.

They never came back. Pictures of Ambrose were replaced with fresher faces. I stood by the radio for five weeks straight, listening for her name, bits of my testimony, anything. Nothing but diner advertisements and sports news. I figured it was something these mountains were hiding about the missing children of area and why I was the only one hellbent on a search.

They found missing dogs and lost property, but they did not find my sister.

No matter how many times it rained, her blood remained in the grass. Immortalizing that night that she disappeared.

My time with the Kilman's lasted no longer than six months. We talked about the weather, but we could talk about Ambrose.

"I want to talk about Ambrose!" I declared at dinner.

They changed the subject to the weather again.

So, I left in 1969. The humiliation was far too much for me to bear. I didn't tell the Kilmans that I was leaving, I simply left by train with my earnings and took a job as a secretary for the Asheville police department. During my time, I found myself introduced to the WIRES, people who searched for the missing. My sister was on their photo boards. They were looking for her, as if they cared about her with the same seriousness that I did. I joined them.

I pulled strings behind the scenes for many great cases. Notorious serial killers, the exposure of Hawkins labatortory, remaining frations of MKUltra, and the Tuskegee syphilis studies.

Forty cases from 1970 to 1991 solved by me. Some were found alive, others found just in the name of justice and closure. In that time, I worked from coast to coast, Marie Sybil, the greatest detective known to the WIRE. That is, if I could find Ambrose Sybil, the most important face hung on that notice board.

1991 will be the year.