Search for the Fae

Chapter 1

The fog was thick and the night was crisp in the town of Yggdrasil Barrow, though the fog carried even more tension that particular night. A young woman with short, wavy strawberry locks took a deep drag of her cigarette. She exhaled slowly, the cloud of smoke disappearing in the fog. Her cigarette burned low but provided a small light in the fog. Though her eyes were partially hidden by her hair, her expression was grim. She watched as men dressed in police uniforms moved in and out of what appeared to be a normal suburban house. Bright yellow police tape blocked off any nosey but concerned civilians from stepping over the property line.

"Another one missing," one police officer muttered with a pitiful shake of his head.

"This happens every few years. You'd think we'd have some leads by now," said another, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration.

But they didn't. And after almost 100 years since the town's founding no one had the slightest clue about what happened to all those missing children. The strawberry-haired woman put her free hand in her pocket to shield it from the cold as she took another long, deep drag of her cigarette. She put the butt in her empty smoke box and slid the box into her coat pocket as she solemnly made her way to greet the police officer stationed at the door as she made her way in.

Though she was inside the house the temperature didn't differ much from the outside. The cold within the house was something felt more in the soul rather than on the skin. It was something she was familiar with: the feeling of an invader's presence, or a person's lost warmth. The woman's solemn eyes scanned the walls of the plethora of pictures of the household's family as she walked down the hall. A mother, a father, a sister, and brother. She kept her eyes on the brother, though. While the family appeared to grow more loving and happy as the years passed between these photos, the brother seemed to grow more physically distant from the others.

His happy smile started to get smaller and smaller and seemed to diminish to almost nothing as the years went by. As she peered closely at the brother, the young woman swore her eyes were playing tricks on her when she thought she saw a glimmer of an unnatural color in the boy's eyes. "What—"

"Detective Nole!" A voice called out to the woman, making her blink and just shake her head. When she opened her eyes again, the brother's eyes had returned to normal. Just a trick of the light, she thought. As she hurried into what appeared to be a white-walled living room, an older salt-and-pepper-haired man wearing a white button-down shirt turned to look at her. The wrinkles under this man's eyes showed years of experience with cases like this, and they didn't look like the cases were getting any easier.

"Chief Rowan," the woman said, looking toward the married couple standing nearby. The man looked to the two detectives while rubbing the back of his wife, who had not spoken or even looked up since they had been there.

"Mr. and Mrs. Brice, this is Detective Resistance Nole," Rowan said as Resistance made her way to stand next to the chair. Mr. Brice raised a brow at hearing her name, which didn't surprise her. She had been getting looks like this most of her life. Mrs. Brice, who previously hadn't shown any hints of interaction, finally looked up and gave a puzzled expression at the name she heard.

"Your name is Resistance?" Mr. Brice asked, wondering if they were pulling his leg.

Resistance let out a deep sigh and rolled her eyes before presenting her badge to the couple. "Do you believe me now?" Both of them looked puzzled, but when they saw the name inscribed on the badge, they nodded.

"Mr. and Mrs. Brice, I know you've probably been asked this question more than once already, but as you know the first 4 hours after a minor goes missing is the most critical. So I want you to tell me everything that happened today before your son Jeremy went missing and what led up to it," The green-eyed woman asked as she sat in a chair opposite the Chief.