Where Petals Fall by Melissa Foster Page A

at her watch. She’d been poring over articles for half an hour and hadn’t found much on Ellen’s disappearance. She’d have to head back soon. According to the articles, Ellen had been at the library before she disappeared, as Junie had remembered. Then there was a gap in time before she was reported missing, a full five hours between when someone saw her leaving the library and when her mother had reported her as missing.
    Junie and Brian had spoken about Ellen’s disappearance only a handful of times. Talking about it made Brian angry and depressed, so Junie put away her own selfish need to talk about the memories of her best friend. She’d learned to compartmentalize her feelings for Ellen and her life with Brian. The two did not intersect often, and when they did, it was very short-lived. What she remembered from their brief conversations was that the day of Ellen’s disappearance, he went home after lacrosse practice, and then his mother sent him to look for Ellen at the library. He didn’t find her there, so he went back to the school, thinking she might be there; then he went to the park, but didn’t see her there either. He said he walked all the way back to the library, which was about a mile and a half from the park, but he decided it was getting late and she would probably be home by then, so he turned around and went home. When Ellen didn’t show up at dinnertime, her mother began to worry. Mr. Olson went looking for her after he returned home from work, taking Brian with him.  Two hours later, Ellen was reported missing. Things were different back then. Unlike the couch potato youth of today, fixed to computers or glued to cell phones, back then children played outside, walked to and from friends’ houses, and played sports for fun. Kids would leave the house in the morning, pal up with their friends, and come back later in the day. It was difficult to keep track of them, but it wasn’t a time of fear. Without the Internet, pedophilia and abductions were rarely spoken of. Besides, the neighbors were pretty close-knit. Had there been anything unusual, they trusted each other to keep their children safe.
    Junie thought about her childhood and how one day Ellen was there and the next day she wasn’t. Not for the first time, guilt pressed in on her for having lived for all those years, happily going through each day, while no one even knew where Ellen was, or what had happened to her.  Her mother always said that life was not fair. She thought about her father and how he and her mother had been waiting to retire to do all the things they couldn’t while her father had worked. She thought about Sarah and her regression and subsequent silence, which no one could understand or accept. No , she thought, life is not fair .
    Junie read through a few more articles, unearthing nothing more than a mention about neighbors and persons of interest being interviewed. She checked her watch—she wanted to talk to Mrs. Walters, the librarian, and she needed to check in with Shane—not because of the business, but because she just needed someone to lean on.

    Mrs. Walters had worn only purple for as long as Junie could remember. Today was no different. Donning a light purple polyester pantsuit that buttoned up to her neck, Mrs. Walters stood behind the counter, smiling at Junie. “I wish I remembered more, Junie, but it was so long ago.”
    Another dead end . “Did you see anything out of the ordinary? Hear anything when she left? A scream?”
    Mrs. Walters shook her head. Her thin, sharp nose and gray, professionally set, short poufy curls made her look a bit like a poodle. “Her brother and father came looking for her. You know, she was a spunky little thing. At the time, I guess I thought she was probably just playing at a friend’s house and would turn up sometime soon.” She shook her head, her eyes cast downward. “It’s a shame, a real shame. Thank goodness there weren’t any other abductions. Poor