Chapter 3
I gripped the handle of the visitor center and held my breath, slowly peeling back the screen door. The faded gray siding dangled off the edge of the building and the chimney was lopsided. Entering seemed so final. I scurried off to the front desk, a wooden table with a brochure podium and came straight out with my sentence, surprising even myself as I spoke confidently,
“I would like to report a missing person, Heather Winthrop.”
An elderly woman with a gray streaked ponytail wrote down the name and asked of more details. At that moment I desperately wished I had them, but I told her everything I knew. Her seemingly fake extensions wrapped around her forehead and shoulders as she jotted down each word. After we discussed for a bit, she told me they would get a search party out on the ridge as soon as possible, but we had already tried. I couldn’t believe that my best friend could disappear so quickly with no warning. And the beware marking on the tree, what could it mean? I was so suspicious I could’ve hiked Woodlawn ridge myself right then and there. And that’s exactly what I did.
Sweating, I once again climbed the ridge as a new storm approached. The pine trees looked freshly cut and I did a double take on the beware warning tree once again: Because today, the marking had disappeared. I had reached the crack once again, where I had stopped last time, for better or for worse. As I crossed over it, a twinge of doubt shook me, doubt that I would survive the climb. I got over it as I realized what Heather had gone through and what I would go to to get her back. A storm cloud passed over the sun and cooled me with a light rain. For now it was nice, but I had the suspicion it would start pouring like most Illinois afternoons. If it did, I would turn back and watch the rain from my villa and settle in with a book on my huge green armchair. Before I left though, I had an interesting idea. If I was going to hike the ridge tomorrow anyway, I might as well experiment. I took a stick from the ground and wrote “Keep Out” in Railfence on a pine tree near the crack. It looked like “KeOtepu” scrawled on the white, freshly cut timber. As I left, the rain started pouring. I mean SERIOUSLY pouring: lightning, thunder, and a heavy rain. I ducked into the nearest building, the gift shop, for shelter while the clouds passed. I wandered around the shop so they wouldn’t kick me out, half focused on the actual items and half lost in thought. I continued browsing, until I came across a familiar name. The book read “Woodlawn Tourism,” but what really stuck out to me was the authors names-Leslie Howards and Maggie Lane. I snatched up the book from the old bookcase and darted to the checkout counter. There, I spotted the same old women that interviewed me in the visitor center. It wasn’t a surprise though; this place has been oddly vacant since the disappearance. I paid for the book swiftly and the sky had already cleared. I took a walk back through Lowell Park to my villa and curled up with the book under a thick wooly blanket. I had my suspicions that Woodlawn Ridge wasn’t just a tourist attraction, and I had my methods of finding out.
