Asterisk*

Desperado and Dependability*

*Within the situation of Kadance's disappearing act

Poof.

A magician draws a bunny from the hat,

Coin behind the ear,

Scarves where scarves shouldn't be.

The magic we've convinced ourselves to believe,

A last ditch hope.

Poof.

Marcus

Kadance had been the new kid in our preschool class. The rest of us lived in a pretty close vicinity, so we all knew each other from around the neighborhood. The teacher told him to sit next to me. We were for the most part, on good terms. We ate lunch together, talked about our favorite toys, and pretended like we were astronauts on a spaceship heading for Mars. Kadance started hanging out a lot with Aiden, and eventually, he ended up sitting with us at lunch too. He was super into cars, so instead of astronauts, we pretended that we were race car drivers who were in line to win the world cup. We were a friendly bunch. Our moms noticed we played together, so they started associating with each other. They got along really well, so they started doing things themselves as well. Eating lunches together, going shopping, picking up each other's kids on the playground.

Aiden had the nice toys. His parents were in a more comfortable place. He lived in a nicer house in the nicer neighborhood. In fact, everything about his life was just nicer. He had the giant candy bars on Halloween. He was the one who put money in his Easter eggs instead of M&M's individually wrapped in tinfoil. His parents had the car with the best heating and cooling system, the cool color that they had chosen themselves. He always went on trips every summer, while Kadance and I went to the local summer camp for some sort of entertainment. At first, Aiden would send postcards and bring back souvenirs for us, and we would give him the shitty artwork we had learned to do while the counselors yelled at us for making too much of a mess with the glitter.

When we were fourteen, Kadance discovered this little grassy area in the woods behind the high school. We would do our homework there together for the longest time. My parents found out about it and told us to not go there anymore, probably due to it being where all the older kids went to do drugs and smoke cigarettes. Kadance had his first cigarette there too. He didn't really like it, or so he said. I never saw him smoking again, so I assume he was telling the truth. We went back there, hiding it from our parents by saying we were at a chess club, and would take the late bus home when we stayed. Eventually, someone from our class kept coming in the woods to fuck with some girl, so we just decided to listen to our parents and stay away from there forever. I knew Kadance had gone back a few times, just to clear his head. I think it was peaceful for him. That was the only place I could think of that Aiden wouldn't have already searched. We never told him about it. He would've brought over more friends and turned it into a party in the woods.

Apollo and I were currently in the car, driving just a few streets away from the place in the woods. I had told Aiden to meet me there. Apollo tried to check in on me, offering a few glances, but I kept answering with some of the dryest one word answers that I could justify. I didn't even know where to begin. Aiden had told me that none of Kadance's family had heard from him since last night, and he had never come home. They thought he might have been out with someone else, but when they visited him this afternoon, he wasn't at his apartment. He wasn't picking up his phone and no one could track the location. None of his friends had heard from him after his family had. I couldn't push away the terrible thoughts that kept running through my mind.