“Madeline! Madeline! Has anyone seen Madeline?!”
Madeline was only three years old, a tiny, bright child with soft curls and a vivid yellow dress that stood out like sunlight against the autumn grass, and within seconds, the laughter died, the warmth vanished, and a suffocating fear spread across the crowd like a storm rolling in.
People ran in every direction, checking bathrooms, classrooms, the woods, the road, while the pastor shouted through a megaphone, “Check the street! Someone get to the road now!” and I grabbed my flashlight without thinking, joining the search, because when a child disappears, every second stretches into eternity, and after fifteen minutes, there was only one thought left hanging in the air that no one dared say out loud—someone took her.
But while the adults were shouting, running, breaking apart in every direction, I noticed someone who wasn’t moving at all.
Her older sister.
Her name was Celeste.