Find Me

Lost Girl

The lake was frozen on the surface, but not enough for the ice to sustain a human body, especially not the one of an adult, no matter how skinny she was. There were no signs of anyone having even set foot there ever since the first blizzard in November having blocked most routes, especially those leading to the lake. But winter has always been like a sneaky fox, covering its tracks... or other's tracks. And however pointless it was to even be there, that was the only place where the police had not checked for the missing girl. Indeed, there was little to no chance of finding footprints or any signs of her maybe already drowned body, or at least not yet, but maybe... just maybe that fluttering red wool scarf caught in the fir tree he was standing under was the same one she was wearing in her last selfie with her husband, the one taken at the winter fair right before she disappeared.

***

Police officer Skywalker returned to the lake every day throughout those three years since the young lady vanished. That day seemed to not be any different than any of those before. He stopped under the fir tree where they'd found the scarf with the bloodstains and hair. Poor thing. Drowning was already a cruel theory, but with the blood on the scarf, a much crueller fate was presumed.

He sighed and continued walking. The lake was as frozen as it was that December. The ice was probably as thin and deadly. He looked up at the crow just landing on a tree branch. The echo of its caw was breaking the morbid silence. The irony was that that place seemed like a tomb anyways. A cold tomb forgotten by time and people.

"Help me..."

And now it appeared to be also haunted by ghosts. He inhaled the cold air feeling his nostrils freezing, then exhaled watching the steamy cloud and imagining a breath of life that would metamorphose and take her shape.

"Help me..."

He shook his head. The cold was already freezing the circuits of his damaged brain. He was no longer imagining a cry for help, but also seeing the shape of a young woman by the lake. She reminded him of a snow queen or even a banshee with only her brown hair and dark eyes standing out in that sea of blinding whiteness.

"I-I-I cold..."

He tilted his head and furrowed. He took one step further and then another, watching the figure grow bigger as he was getting closer and closer. He stopped a couple of steps away from her. She was sitting on the pier hugging her knees, her image reflecting in a small portion of water where there was no ice or at least the layer was thinner and also not covered by snow. Once she lifted her head and turned her lost gaze to him, he noticed her frozen tears and purplish lips.

Skywalker closed his eyes. His obsession for that girl needed to come to an end.

"Please... cold..."

The voice was barely audible at that point, but he managed to recognize it from the home videos. Could ghosts ask for help or instead of a question with a certain religious undertone it was more a matter of his own degrading mental health?

"Ple-ase, sir..."

He looked at her hand. The voice didn't seem ethereal. Maybe she was a strigoi or a messenger of death, but he was already old and tired, too consumed by the disappearance of that girl. So he took off his glove and touched her hand. It felt like death indeed, but it was very much alive and clinging to the warmth of his palm.

"Oh my... You're not a ghost!"

***

The ambulance was slowed down by the snow blocking the roads, especially the one to the lake, so Skywalker had to carry the girl in his arms to the closest establishment. But now she was being attended by doctors and the police were roaming around investigating the place as if it were anything to investigate. He stood farther and waited patiently to see his car. He knew that the boy was not particularly his biggest fan, but he was not that much of an idiot to ignore his text. Especially not after finally finding her.

He looked at the girl again from the distance and checked on her. She still had that lost look in her eyes and it was to be expected, but she seemed to be fine physically. The doctors mentioned that she had not been out there in the snow for too long, but she had been wearing only a sheer white dress and she had been soaking wet as if she'd just come out of the lake. It was something impossible, but still... No! He would not waste any more energy on stupid theories. He had to wait for her to recover and answer all the questions when she was finally ready. He got closer and listened to the murmurs, despite being still quite far away from the group, as he did not want to seem too invasive, though he truly was because he was close enough to use his cop ears to listen to some important information.

Whisper, whisper and... Oh my!

He ceased eavesdropping once he noticed the headlights of a car pulling over. He looked at the girl once more and then ran to the taxi, stopping only a few steps away from it to wait until the man finally got out of it. His face had matured a lot in the past years she had been away. His face was pale and his eyes were empty, soulless as if he were the one to return from the dead and in the process of being pushed back into society for recovering.

"Look..." the younger man was barely breathing. Yet, he managed to speak slowly yet menacing. "If this is another one of your stupid games and you opened up this wound just to fuck with me, I swear I will no longer hold it back and I will ignore every promise I made, your age and your relationship with-"

"I found her."

The younger man made a pause, holding his breath with his eyes closed, then inhaled and exhaled loudly and opened his eyes.

"Where is the corpse?"

Skywalker shook his head.

"No, Ben."

He grabbed his shoulders establishing that he was in control, despite the significant height difference.

"She's alive. She's here."

He took a step to the right, no longer blocking Ben's view. The younger man looked at the ambulance. He squinted his eyes barely noticing anything. The headaches following the stress caused by his wife's disappearance had led to his eyesight becoming poorer and poorer - or so was he told by his ophthalmologist four months after her disappearance.

"It... can't... It's not her."

"It's her."

Ben made a step unconsciously and the language of his body announced his uncle that he was about to run to the ambulance. The older man grabbed him by the arm immediately and pulled him back.

"Wait. There's one more thing you must know."

He didn't even turn his head to look him in the eye. He was too busy trying to distinguish her shape among all the other figures in white, the white snow and the white ambulance. His vision was a mess, but that was the least of his problems.

"She seems to not remember much."

"Her disappearance?"

Skywalker shook his head despite Ben's gaze being directed somewhere else.

"The past six years."

Ben finally turned to look at him.

"Ben, Rey doesn't remember you."