November rolled in crisp and dead. The changing seasons was of little concern for me and my older brother. Vengeance was on our minds.
Bryce and I camped out in his station wagon, a few driveways down the road from our parent’s house. The keys had been sitting cool in the ignition for some time. I could see my breath inside the car. I cupped my hands over my mouth and blew warm air through my fingers.
Mom and dad used to call Nina their little miracle. It was endearing up until the night she disappeared. After that, the very hint of her memory sliced their insides up like razor wire and exposed them on a silver platter for the whole world to see.
Everyone in a small community comes together when one of its families are stricken by tragedy. There’s not a single person in London Landing that doesn't know what happened to our little sister.
Our family had become universal recipients of flowers, homemade food, and the well-wishes from all the neighbours. Everyone pities the two aging parents; already well into their fifties, trying to establish a new medium in life after the passing of their youngest daughter.
It was never their intent conceive another child after Bryce and I, their older sons, had already grown up to become functioning members of society. Raising an unexpected child into their old age was a challenge they were equipped to handle. Having that very child torn away from them was something they could not.
Nina disappeared the night of her ninth birthday. Dad tucked her into bed, read her a few pages from a book, and let her drift away to sleep. Her room was right across the hall.
The next morning, her bed was empty. There was no sign of a struggle or forced entry anywhere in the house. The subsequent police investigation was fruitless, as were the countless community-wide searches all over town and the surrounding area.
Her body wasn't discovered until a few weeks later. She was found in the forest behind our parent’s house by a little boy who had wandered off the path while walking his dog. It was a spot that had already been passed over by search parties many times already.
I still remember the way she laid there. Her skin was pale and cracked. Her night-time pajamas were torn and weathered from exposure.
There were no wounds or markings on her body. No sign of trauma, no trace of toxins-- nothing. Much like her disappearance, we were given very little on her ultimate cause of death.
The only solid fact for us to carry on with was the terrible and irreversible fact that she was dead. Our family spent the next few months believing things could never get any worse.
That was before things progressed. It's amazing how quickly the stakes can be raised and life can kick you while you're down.
A knock sounded at the door during one of our mundane and mostly silent family dinners. Our father got up to answer it and wailed like an infant when he opened the door. Bryce and I ran to the front hall only to discover him clutching a bleached-white bone.
The following DNA tests were nothing more than a formality. No one doubted that the child-sized femur belonged to our little sister.
Her gravesite, by all appearances, had remained undisturbed. We had local authorities dig all the way down to her coffin, where they found it just the way it had been left. The rich mahogany was still pristine and hadn't even started the rotting process. Her body was inside and cut open. Most of the bones had been taken.
How someone had managed to get a hold of her bones, and however in the hell they had done it, we had no idea. Neither could we figure out how different parts of her body were still showing up on our parent’s doorstep in the subsequent evenings going forward.
