The next morning, Ellie returned to the maple grove.
The trees loomed larger than she remembered. Crimson leaves clung to the branches like bloodstains, and the wind whispered low through the trunks, carrying a sound almost like… breath.
The school behind her sat silent, closed for a teachers' in-service day. The empty playground creaked in the breeze. She stepped past the rusted gate and into the grove, boots crunching the frost-covered earth.
This was where Miss Whitaker said she'd seen the girl. A yellow coat. A blank face.
Ellie scanned the trees.
Nothing. Only silence.
She pulled out her phone and hit "record."
"This is Ellie Carter. I'm standing in the maple grove behind the old elementary school where my former teacher, Margaret Whitaker, claimed she saw a girl before her disappearance. She described the girl as wearing a yellow coat, staring from the woods. Records show no child matching that description was reported missing in the last ten years."
She stopped recording. Her breath misted in the cold air.
Then a soft sound behind her: laughter.
Childlike. light chuckle
Ellie turned.
A flash of yellow darted behind a tree.
She ran forward, heart pounding. "Hello?"
The grove stretched deeper than she remembered. She pushed through the trees—and stopped.
There, in a small clearing, stood an old stone well, half-covered in moss. She had no memory of this place.
But someone had been here.
Beside the well lay a tiny shoe, weathered and brittle. Ellie crouched to pick it up. The sole was torn. Inside, someone had written a name in faded ink:
"Lila."
She froze. The name rang a bell—not from her own memories, but from whispers she'd heard as a child. A name adults didn't say too loud.
Lila Harper.
The little girl who vanished in 1996.
Ellie stood slowly. And in that moment, the wind stilled.
Then, from the corner of her eye—she saw movement.
She turned to see what it is
And saw her.
A girl stood at the edge of the grove, no more than eight years old. Hair tangled. Face pale. Eyes hollow.
Wearing a bright yellow coat.
Ellie's breath caught. She took a step forward.
"Lila?" she whispered.
The girl tilted her head.
Then she smiled—wide, unnatural—and vanished.