The new girl, Charlotte, has taken the school by storm. Our school is small, K-12. Each grade is made up of roughly twenty kids who have known each other since we started school back in kindergarten. It’s not often that we get a new kid added to any of our grades, so for Charlotte, all eyes are on her.

Charlotte, Char as many people call her, moved here from Rosewell, Georgia. She has gorgeous blonde-brown hair, that curls into tight ringlets. They hang just past her shoulders. Her skin is dark, golden tan and clear of blemishes. She has a small constellation of freckles that work their way across her cheeks and her nose. The perks of living in the south is constant sun. Very different from the minimal sun we receive here in our small Illinois town. Her eyes’ hazel color match her tan skin. She is tall, but not too tall. The perfect, average size of 5’6” with an athletic build, that matches every other perfect aspect about her.

Today she is wearing one of her favorite outfits. A flowing white blouse with a dark blue jean skirt. Her style does not change much, even in the winter. The only discrepancy is that her blouses change to thick sweaters. Her jean skirt paired with tights or a pair of black leggings.  Her favorite color, red, is often incorporated in her outfit somewhere. Often times, it is a red scrunchie she wears around her wrist, other times, it is a bright red shirt paired with a soft beige-colored cardigan.

Char’s personality is that of the typical Southern Belle. She is kind and soft-spoken. Always volunteering her time to tutor those in math and English. Although she is humble and doesn’t like to admit it, everyone knows she is one of the smartest people in the school. Her 34 on the ACT gives that away. To go along with her perfect ACT score, she also has A’s in all of her classes. Even chemistry. Something myself and many others struggle with.

There is one thing she hides, however. I am not entirely sure what it is, but it’s something. Charlotte keeps to herself most of the time. Even after living here for 9 months, she has not made many friends. Everyone loves her and talks to her often, but she is never one to initiate a conversation. At lunch, she sits quietly by herself at a small round table in the corner of the cafeteria. Occasionally I join her. She doesn’t seem to mind. In her classes, she sits in the back of the room, tucked away in the corner. She never raises her hand to answer questions, but rather whispers them under her breathe in hopes that the person sitting in front of her will raise their hand and use her answer. I’ve asked her before why she does that. She just shrugs.

There is something mysterious about the way she acts. No one knows much about her past life in Roswell, besides that fact that she moved here with her mother after her parents’ divorce. When asked, she doesn’t have much to say other than she “enjoys the new scenery”. It’s a mystery to why a family would move to our old, beat uptown, but I guess that’s a mystery for me to figure out.

My name is Liz. Just Liz. Liz isn’t short for anything cool like Elizabeth or Eliza, it’s “just Liz”. I’ve never been one-hundred percent certain why my parents named me “just Liz”, but I guess it doesn’t really matter all that much. I don’t really belong to any crowd. I’m not an outcast, but I’m also not popular. I guess I belong to the intermediate crowd. The people somewhere right in the middle of the two extremes. I’m sixteen and I’ve lived in the small town of Abingdon Illinois for almost the entirety of my life. The exception being the few short months during the adoption process where I stayed at a foster home in Virginia. Most people don’t think I’m adopted due to the fact that I look exactly like my adoptive parents. The brown hair, brown eyes, long legs, and petite body do me well with fitting into my “chosen” family.

When I was twelve I decided that I wanted to look for my birth parents. My adoptive parents have all of my records, but I didn’t want this process to be that easy. I wanted this to be a game for myself. I searched my name, I went to the courthouse to find my birth certificate, and I searched for the adoption agency that my birth parents had gone through to find my adoptive parents. It took me two weeks to find my birth parents, Diane and Matt. I never contacted them, but I still have their information. The point of this game was to solve a mystery. I’ve always loved solving mysteries. My favorite game to play when I was younger was a clue. I got to solve the mystery of who killed who. I always won against my friends, mostly because they weren’t very secretive with hiding their cards.

Abington is not a town of many words. Not much happens here other than the occasional yelling match between the neighbors across the street about where the property line is. Other than that, everyone here does normal, everyday things. We go to school, go to work, and go to the small ice cream shop down the street. That is until Charlotte and her family showed up. They seem like a normal family, for the most part, but there is something I’ve always been suspicious about. I couldn’t tell you what it is, but it’s something.

 Another mystery added to my imaginary book of “Suspicious things that Occur in Abington”, was my neighbor across the street, Mr. Harper, went missing this past week.

Mr. Harper was an ornery man in his mid to late 80’s. He had no wife and no kids. His brothers and sister have since passed away. He is notorious for yelling about people “loitering” outside his house. No matter how it was explained, he never understood the concept that the sidewalk is public.

“Get out. Get out of my yard. What makes you think you can stand in my yard,” he yelled at me on my way home from school every day during my 8th-grade year.

The police have been investigating his disappearance for a little over two weeks now. No new information has come up, and today, May 27th, they called it a cold case and stashed it away. Two weeks doesn’t seem very long to investigate, but when you only have three guys on the police force, you could say our resources are limited. This is why I decided to take it upon myself to investigate the disappearance of Mr. Harper, I knew I couldn't go into this alone, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

“Charlotte, wait up,” I call across the commons as Charlotte walks towards the front doors of the school. She turns around and looks at me with a questioning stare.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing tonight,” I ask her, not leaving any room for her to answer as I continue, “Do you want to help me solve a mystery?”

“Umm… A mystery. What exactly does that mean?”

“A mystery. You know Mr. Harper, the guy I told you about a few weeks ago that went missing, yeah the police are calling it quits on his case, I’ve decided to pick it up for myself and find out where he went.”

She stares at me with a confused, but slightly curious facial expression.

“Come with me tonight and we’ll explore his house,” I pause for a second and watch her facial expression turn from curiosity to concern. I quickly add, “The door is still wide open. The police haven’t been back to the house in a few days. The only thing stopping us is some caution tape.” I wait for her to say something, but that something didn’t come. I add, “It’ll be something fun. We don’t have to be there for long, just do a little investigating and then leave.”

In a hesitant voice she says, “ I mean, I guess it would be fun…”

“Great! See you tonight at 7? Meet here.” I smile and walk away before she can change her mind.

I stand in the parking lot of the school and look around. I look down at my watch. It is 7:03. I look back up and scan the parking lot. I see Charlotte walk across the parking lot. I run up to her.

“Hey, You ready?”

“Yeah... I guess,” she says hesitantly.

“It’ll be fun. Trust me.”

We run across the parking lot and down the street towards my house. We stop before we get up to Mr. Harper’s yard.
“Come here.” I whisper and motion for her to come closer, “we’re going to cut through the backyard and go in the back door.”

She nods in agreement and we run through the grass at the edge of the house. We stop at the back of the house. A small fence blocks our view of Mr. Harper’s backyard. I pull myself up on the edge and jump over. Charlotte is over a few seconds later.

“No one will be able to see us back here,” I say, still using a whisper.

We walk up three steps to the back door. I grab the doorknob and turn, half expecting it to not actually open, but it does. We step inside. The house is clean. Everything seems to have its place. The kitchen to our right is clean and put together. The small countertop space doesn’t have much on it other than a coffee maker, a container of sugar and a bowl of apples. I walk over and open a drawer. Silverware. I move to the next drawer. Napkins, paper plates and plastic forks. I move again. I pull the drawer, but it doesn’t open. I pull it again. Nothing.

“Hey, Char…” I call out and turn around to no one standing in the house with me. I call out again, “Charlotte?” Again there’s no answer. I turn back towards the drawer. I jump.

“Yes,” Charlotte asks in a monotone voice.

Charlotte stands behind me looking into the drawer. Inside there are letters and papers, crumpled and folded.

“How did you get that opened?”

She holds up a butter knife.

We page through the letters. I pick one up. The writing is scribbled, like someone is writing quickly and urgently. I hold it up to try and decipher the scribble in the page. The writing is not in English.

“This isn’t in English,” I lean and show Charlotte.

“It’s in Russian. It’s a shopping list.”

“Oh. How do you know Russian,” I ask her intrigued.

“I lived in Russia for a few years when I was in grade school. Before that, I lived in Cambodia”

“Oh, that’s interesting. Why did you move here?”

“A lot of reasons. I found this room upstairs that has a lot of boxes in it. Come check it out with me.”

We walk up the stairs that are just off the kitchen. At the top, there is a bedroom to our right, a closed door in front of us and a hallway to out left. Charlotte opens up the door in front of us. Boxes stacked on each other pushed against the wall. There's a small pathway in the middle that opens into the middle of the room around us. Boxes are piled up on all sides. A few are open. The contents are nothing more than old clothes. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that Char is standing next to the door watching me. I don’t think much of it. I open a few more boxes. Nothing interesting in the contents. Some old tax papers, a few pictures and some more clothing. I turn around. Charlotte stands right behind me.

“Not much in these boxes,” I say is a cheery tone, although I am a little uneasy with her being so close.

“Yeah, I didn’t know if maybe you would find something that would be helpful,” She smiled slightly, “Why don’t we look in some of the other rooms. Maybe find something better.”

She pushes me forward towards the door. I trip but keep walking forward. I step out and stand at the top of the stairs. I turn around.

“So what do you want…” Charlotte cuts me off before I could finish.

“You know how I said we moved here from Russia,” she said quizzically.

“Yeah,” I respond questioningly.

“Well, we moved here because my family belongs to a small group of people, who...get rid of people that challenge us.”

Nervous, I ask, “What does that mean?”

“Well,” she takes a step forward, “It means that,” she places her hands on my shoulders, “I kill people.” She shoves me and I fall backward. My head hits the stairs and I roll. My visions goes black.

I open my eyes. I look around. My room. I sit up and grab the back of my head. No pain. My mom calls out to me.

“Liz. Liz are you up? You’re going to be late for school. I turn and look for my phone. May 26th. It’s 7:43. It was a dream.