BOOK ONE: I Found My Own Missing Poster

Chapter One __ The Impossible Artifact

The community board outside Bellamy’s Grocery had three constants:

A lost cat.

A church raffle.

And at least one flyer accusing the mayor of being the devil.

I only stopped because the wind lifted a corner of paper and slapped it

against my leg like a hand trying to get my attention.

I looked down.

And froze.

The poster was old enough to belong in a museum. Yellowed. Brittle.

Pinned with rusted tacks. Someone had tried to flatten it, but time had

curled the edges anyway.

A little girl stared back at me.

Big gray eyes. Dark hair. A faint freckle near the left corner of her mouth.

My freckle.

My eyes.

My face __ before I grew into it.

MISSING __ MARA ELLERY __ AGE 7

I laughed, because my body didn’t know what else to do.

It came out wrong. Thin. Breathless.

I touched the paper.

It felt like touching a dead leaf.

The date was printed beneath the photo.

October 14.

No year.

Just the month and day.

As if the town didn’t want to commit to when I disappeared.

A man brushed past me with a bag of onions. “Sorry,” he muttered,

without looking at my face.

I stared at the bottom line.

It wasn’t REWARD OFFERED.

It wasn’t CALL POLICE.

It was one word, stamped in red like a verdict.

RECOVERED.

My stomach dropped.

Recovered wasn’t something you wrote about a kid.

Recovered was what you wrote about property.

My phone was already in my hand. I took a picture __ then another,

closer, of the stamp. Proof.

Because in the strangest, most humiliating way...

I felt the moment trying to slide out of my mind.

Like grease on glass.

I went inside the grocery store, forced my legs to move, forced my face

to look normal.

Bellamy’s smelled like floor cleaner and oranges. The cashier __ Dani __

looked up from her register.

“Mara,” she said, cheerful. “You look pale.”

I swallowed. “Dani... who put that poster outside?”

She blinked. “What poster?”

“The missing one. The __” My voice cracked. I tried again. “The one

with my face.”

Dani leaned towards me like I’d told her I was hearing voices.

“Mara,” she said softly, “there’s no poster with your face.”

I stared at her.

My skin prickled.

“It’s on the board,” I said. “Outside.”

Dani shook her head. “There are flyers. Coupons. Someone’s yard sale.

But... no missing poster.”

My phone buzzed in my palm.

The photo I’d taken was still there.

I held it up.

Dani looked.

Her smile vanished so fast it was like someone had wiped her

expression clean.

She didn’t say oh my God.

She didn’t say that’s you.

She whispered something else.

Something smaller.

Something terrified.

“Where did you get that?”

“It was outside,” I said. “I just __”

Dani’s eyes flicked past me to the back hallway leading to the

manager’s office.

Then she leaned forward and lowered her voice.

“Mara... don’t show that to anyone.”

My throat tightened. “Why?”

Dani swallowed hard.

Because she didn’t say I don’t know.

She said __

“Because they’ll know you saw it.”

I stared at her, cold spreading through my chest.

“Who will?”

Dani opened her mouth.

And the store lights flickered once __ hard __ like a blink.

Dani’s face went blank.

Not confused.

Blank.

Then she said, bright and normal again:

“Did you want paper or plastic?”