Missy Crawford's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Missy Crawford had spent three weeks hunting the man who charmed and robbed girls across Fern Gully. Now a witness sat at her table, and she was already standing to leave. The young woman twisted her shawl in both hands. Her lip trembled. She would not say his name. She would not say what he took from her. "Please," Missy said. "I only need to know where you met him." The girl shook her head. Her cheeks burned red. "You'll think I'm a fool. Everyone will." She pushed back her chair. "I shouldn't have come." Missy's chest tightened. Four girls before this one had refused to speak. Shame kept them all quiet, and shame let the man keep hunting. If this witness walked out the door, Missy had nothing. She reached for the girl's wrist, then stopped herself. "Wait," Missy said. "I know how he works. He finds a girl who feels unseen. He makes her feel chosen. Then he's gone, and so is her money." She kept her voice steady. "That's not foolish. That's a trap built by a clever man." The girl froze with one hand on the chair. A knock sounded at the door. Missy cursed under her breath. She opened it to a stranger who smelled of woodsmoke and wet earth. Gray streaked his beard. His coat was patched and worn from living outdoors. He held his hat against his chest. "Name's Silas Thornwood," he said. "Folk say you're asking about a certain charmer." Missy stared. She had told almost no one. "Who sent you?" "No one. I've been camping near the old wooden cabin out past the tree line." He nodded east. "The abandoned one. Three nights back I saw a man meet a girl there. Fine coat. Smooth talker. He walked off with her purse and left her crying on the broken steps." Behind Missy, the witness gasped. "That's the place," she whispered. "That's where he took me." Missy turned. The girl had sat back down. "You saw him," the girl said to Silas. Her voice shook, but she did not look away now. "You saw what he did. So I'm not making it up." "No, miss," Silas said. "You're not." Something broke loose in the girl. The words spilled out. The man wore a green silk vest. He had a ring shaped like a wolf's head. He promised to marry her. He took forty dollars and the locket from her mother. She named the hour and the place and the lies. Missy wrote every word. Her hand shook with how fast the girl spoke. When it ended, Missy had her first real trail. A silk vest. A wolf ring. A meeting spot at the old cabin. She looked at Silas, still in her doorway. He had cracked her case open. But she knew nothing about him, or why a man who lived in the woods watched that ruined cabin at night.