A light flickered on in the dead house.
No one's been in there for years, but there was a light on.
I don't think anyone's even payed an electric bill for that place for what must have been forever.
Maybe the previous owners had sold it?
It's very unlikely, but maybe.
I passed the house again on my way home.
There was a silhouette in the window where we could see the light coming out of.
Our neighbourhood's kids like to play in front of the yards sometimes, it's usually trimmed by the next door neighbours, but even though the grass was trimmed, and the toys that no one knew who owned, but were always there, were out, the kids weren't there.
Even one of those things alone would be weird enough for me to check it out, but in addition, I could see through the window, the silhouette looked like it was swaying.
Nobody's parents believed it at first, of course, but once we started to show them, forcing them to take us to or from school, cutting past the house on our way to the library or the playground, they started to worry.
"It's alright," we could hear them murmur, from beyond the door of the city hall building, having left us at home, but coming out anyways. "I'm sure she's not back, and even if she was, it can't be for us. God knows our parents already drove her away, she can't be back so soon..."
We exchanged glances.
This sounded serious, and no one liked it.
Almost as one unit, thinking with one brain and multiple bodies, we all decided to gather at her house the day after, all of our parents going to city hall and leaving us again.
In a circle, we gathered about her front door, doing our best to try and gather the courage to ring her doorbell.
I can't quite recall who rang it, but in the end, someone did.
Who answered the door was an old lady. None of us knew her, but we knew better than to be rude to old people, our parents teaching that very quickly.
"Hello," I can recall myself saying when we saw her face, not sure how I'd gathered the bravery to speak. "We just wanted to say hi! We could see your light on, and we wanted to know if you were new? Because we haven't seen the light on before," I continued to say.
"Well hello then little dears," she said to the crowd of us. Her face was that of a normal old lady, but her voice sounded like nails scratching on a chalkboard. I'm not sure how we had managed to stay there, but I'm sure the crowd of other little kids around me, us, made us a lot braver than normally we would have been. I know it made me braver. "I am not new, I have lived here for longer than your parents have, but I have not had cause to return to this home. Thank you to all of you for coming to greet me, but are you not supposed to be at home? Where are your parents?"
I did my best to keep myself from shuddering at her voice. It was hard, and I'm sure a couple of the smaller kids didn't quite manage, but she acted as if she didn't notice.
"Our parents are at city hall ma'am! We're allowed to play together as long as we're all together, and our older siblings are watching us," another kid, I think I recall going to kindergarten together, but that wasn't a surprise. Most of us went to school together at one point or another, there were maybe enough for three classes of about 15 kids per grade in our town combined.
"Oh! Really? Alright then! Thank you for coming to welcome me, again, children, but I have to return inside now. I have something on the stove," the old woman said, shutting the door.
I think we all shuddered in unison once she finally shut the door. She was perfectly polite, even to a group of children that were likely annoying the hell out of her, but I don't think there was even one of us that found her voice even mildly pleasant.
After that, as a group, we once again, a crowd of elementary kids, no one older than maybe ten or eleven, scattered to our houses, having got what we came there for, and not wanting our parents to notice us gone.
Another few days passed.
The old woman's silhouette (or at least, what we assumed must be the old woman's silhouette) remained in the window, and continued to sway.
Our parents remained worried, and kept trying to hide whatever they were so worried about.
It wasn't working, and it was just making us worried, our older siblings even more worried, but trying to distract us with this and that. That wasn't working very much either, but we pretended, not wanting to be the source of more worry.
I don't think anyone else went to visit the old lady again, and we didn't discuss her, but everyone that was young knew of her, and of what had happened, even if they weren't there. I'm honestly not sure how our parents didn't find out, but they didn't, and nobody was complaining about that.
Regardless, another few days passed and nothing much changed, worry growing, but not much else, until we returned one day to find our parents gone.
We didn't worry about it until a few hours had passed, our older siblings frantically trying to call our parents, not succeeding.
Eventually, once most of us were asleep, our older siblings met at city hall, passing along messages through group chats with friends, reaching everyone that was old enough to have a phone within a few hours.
Between all of them, not one of them could find or reach a single adult that lived in our town, be that their parents, or even just a family friend or older neighbour.
They discussed it for a little while before eventually agreeing to call the state's authorities.
Within an hour, there was a state police car in the town.
I was one of the people who was asleep (even despite the fact I did not want to have been, but I was too young to do much about it) so while I can not provide a first hand account of this, I do know what happened, and I do know that the police were quite baffled about what happened, unable to find a reason the adults may have gone.
They tried for a while, but once they realized it would take quite a while, they sent a few dozen or so police cars to pick us up and take us to somewhere with adult supervision, our siblings waking us, and going to the houses of those of us without older siblings to help, getting us woken up, half asleep themselves, but packing us clothing and snacks and important documents and some money and getting us to get some things that we did not want to be without, ushering us to police cars.
We were all barely awake, and I know our older siblings can't have been much better, but they still presented a brave face for us, making sure we had everything important or useful or sentimental, not wanting anyone to have to leave something they would really miss, helping each other to make sure we all had what we needed before the police cars took us to the state station.
Honestly, they were so much more mature than they should have had to been, taking care of us and doing their best to make sure we were okay, not doing well at all themselves.
I can't remember much of that night, but I remember passing the house, the silhouette of someone swaying and the light still on in that room, and I remember thinking that I hoped the old woman had gone with our parents, not liking her very much at all.
After that, I think the next thing I remember is waking up at the police station. I know my older sister had discussed something with the officer that was driving with us, but me and my brother that was even younger than me were asleep in the back, and it wasn't anything very important anyways.
The officer watching over us was very nice. They asked us some questions, 'what's your name', 'do you have any family from out of town', etc., etc.
We answered politely as we could, and the officer seemed happy enough about it.
Our sister left the room a few times, presumably to talk privately with the officer, but other than that, we just read the books and played the games our sister packed for us while we waited for something to happen.
Eventually an aunt, from a few states over we saw at christmas and thanksgiving sometimes came over to pick us up, and we went to her house after a long while of sitting around being bored.
I don't know about anyone else from my town, but I know my parents were never found.
Once I grew a bit older, I began to realize our parents would likely never be returning for us.
That was a rough day for us, but my aunt had gotten a lot better at handling kids emotions by then, so it definitely wasn't as bad as it could have been if my aunt wasn't prepared for this to happen eventually with me or my brother.
Honestly, I'm not quite sure what happened that day.
I do suspect the old woman had something to do with it, but I don't wish to assign blame to anyone, no matter how odd they may have been.
This has reminded me I should catch up with everyone from our town. I know my older sister still has a group chat with the people that were teenagers the night our parents disappeared. I think I'll go ask her about that now, maybe I can get in touch with my old friends, and see if any of us can remember anything else about that night.
I hope this helped, but I don't really see how it could have.
Good night officer.
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