Finding Maisie

Finding Maisie: Chapter 3

Finding Maisie

Chapter 3

'No, Poppy! You're doing it all wrong!'

I huffed. I was doing it exactly right, thank you very much. It was not exactly hard. A three year old could do it let alone an eight and a half year old. Maisie was just being over reactive, as per usual. If it wasn't perfect then it was no good at all. I clapped my hands together and performed the routine again.

'Patty cake, patty cake bakers man,' Maisie chimed. 'Bake me a cake as fast as... Poppy! What are you doing! You're meant to be going from right to left not you're left hand on my left hand.'

'Well sorry, Maisie,' I grunted, putting emphasis on each syllable. 'It's not my fault I'm not perfect at everything like you. Can we play something different now please, I'm bored.'

Maisie flapped her hands at her side but stood up anyway. I joined her and looked around for what to do when I noticed a strange man looking at me. He looked quite young, like the pictures of my dad when he was younger my mum showed me after he left. At first I smiled thinking he was just being friendly but as his eyes continued to glare into mine I got the shivers. Those eyes. They didn't look right; they looked vengeful, evil almost. I tried to turn away but I couldn't. It was as if those eyes were keeping me trapped, locked in a cage or bound by chains. I felt like if I turned away, those eyes would follow me. As if wherever I went, however hard I tried to avoid them that they would always be watching me.

'Poppy! Maisie! Come over here for a picture,' my mother called.

I ran over still feeling a burning gaze in my back. I stood next to Maisie and my mum arranged us into a position fit for a picture. When I stood in my mothers' allotted spot I could still see the strangers peering eyes in my view. I ignored them, it must have been a trick of the light and the man probably wasn't looking at me at all. Why would he want to look at me anyway?

'Say cheese!' My mother cooed.

'Cheese!' Maisie and I called as my mother put up her camera. And as she did I thought I could see the stranger pointing a camera at us also.

**

I awoke from my slumber in the hotel room and ran to my phone. I had always remembered that day in the park with Maisie, the one I had visited yesterday, as a happy one. I had never remembered seeing a man with evil eyes glaring at me. It was like something had triggered my mind to remember it. Like a picture that I had seen many times on my own phone. A picture that I had received from someone unknown and thought something was different with it. A picture that, if I can remember correctly, was taken from a different angle from the one my mother took.

I unlocked my phone and opened my gallery. The picture the abductor had sent me popped up on my screen. I was correct; it was from a different angle. It was taken from further aback and Maisie's and my eyes were looking in a different direction. This was a different photo from my mothers.

So he was the abductor, the one who had been staring at Maisie and I playing in the park. Or at least someone helping the abductor. He had been watching us months before the abduction. This proved something. This proved that Maisies abduction wasn't a spur of the moment event but was cunningly planned and schemed for months. It was revenge for the people who had taken something from the abductor.

This gave me an advantage, though. I would never forget those eyes. They were clear cut emerald green, cold and snide. They were hidden with secrets and revenge and anger. They made me scared and less hopeful. Thinking that those eyes had taken or helped take Maisie made me worried... really worried. However, I would be able to recognise them a mile off. Even though I couldn't remember the rest of the man one thing was for sure. If and when I saw those eyes again, I would know I came face to face with the snatcher or one of the snatchers of Maisie.