Shimmer & Guild

Chapter 3

When my father vanished, only my mom was there to see it. I had been at school, reading a new book my dad just bought me. After a teacher came and pulled me aside for someone to pick me up, I don't remember much. I couldn't comprehend how someone could disappear, and it drove me crazy to not have any answers as to whether they were dead or not. Most people assumed they were dead, another one of life's cruel tricks to take someone from the earth. Funerals were always held, my father's being my first funeral. I didn't cry for a while after he disappeared, not knowing exactly how to handle the emotion or lack of it. I couldn't cry for someone who I felt wasn't dead. Id heard from word of mouth that knowing someone who vanished was bad, but physically seeing it happen was earth-shaking. Disturbing. Not natural. Which is exactly how it felt when Willow wasn't standing in front of me, just worse.

My hands went to touch the bits and pieces of the kettle on the ground, shaking so badly that cuts were appearing on my fingers and palms. I couldn't help but call out for her.

"Willow?"

A pathetic whine came from my throat, almost inhuman. I was going to be sick.

" Willow !" I yelled.

Maybe she couldn't hear me. If I screamed loud enough, she would come back.

I started screaming, my vocal cords shredding at the sheer pain in my voice. She couldn't be gone. And she was.

My legs took me running outside into the frosted air, my lungs and limbs unaffected by the cold due to the numbness already encompassing them. I don't know how far or long I ran. Sobbing, my tears forming ice droplets on my cheeks.

Willow's funeral was exactly how I pictured it. All the way up to the abundance of flowers, the countless men who "loved her" that showed up, the endless servicing of jasmine tea for the reception afterward. All playing out how I already envisioned it. Except that I wasn't an old woman, and she had actually died rather than vanished.

The few days after her disappearance were a blur of crying, anger, and a black void. My mother had come home hours after Willow vanished, finding me nearby in the snow, shaking and lifeless. I couldn't even get out what happened, and she had been too drunk to console me or fully understand what happened. She brought me in and passed out on the couch, only to awaken to the horror of where Willow was the next day.

It should have been me, was a thought I couldn't help repeating the last few days. Willow was the one people liked, I was only tolerated by a few. She was the sun, the light that spread through her words, her touches, her radiating smile.

I can't think about it. I couldn't think about it too much or I would forget to breathe again.

Sarian met up with me during the funeral reception. His sad eyes met mine, greeting me with a tight and long-lasting hug. We had never really touched each other like this, both of us feeling awkward and distant when it came to physical affection. But it felt nice.

"How are you doing? How's your mom?" He asked.

"How do you think?" I pointed my eyes over to my mom. He followed his head, as we watched her. Drinking and crying and drinking some more.

"I hate that you had to see it. See what vanishing is," Sarian mumbled. I stayed quiet. I couldn't speak about it anymore without the fear of flying off the rails as my mom had.

"This whole situation is just... It's so messed up. People vanish and we hold funerals and then just move on, without any questions or search for them."

"What else can we do?" I asked hopelessly. My voice had cracked.

"I don't know. I just don't think I could move past it, without at least trying to look for them."

His words were discouraging and depressing me even more. Of course I wish I was doing more, but nobody has known what to do, not for decades.

There had been theories of course. That those who vanished were chosen. They got to see eternal life early. They were sucked into a void that we all eventually were going to meet. They simply became invisible and were unheard or seen for the rest of their time.

Lunacy is what it was. But I always considered every option.

The only proof that those who vanished may not actually be dead or gone was when James Calloway vanished and came back days later. To this day, he has not talked about his experience which has driven everyone mad.

At that moment, with the hole in my chest tightening and filling up with desperation, I decided that I would not let Willow's life, or possible death, be in vain. She could be fighting out there somewhere, and if she was, I would beat myself up every day about not trying to scrape a way up to find her. I had felt like her protector ever since my dad left, and I needed to be with my mother drinking herself into oblivion every day.

Willow. My little sister, who felt at most times like my only true friend and family. Gone. The idea sat on my chest like an unbearable weight.

As I watched my mom stumble over the table filled with people, the empty casket, I decided. I was going to find her, whether it took everything out me, or caused me to fall into insanity trying. I needed to try, for her sake and mine.