Thursday, October 6th, 2016

After a few days of research, it was hard for Sid to focus on anything other than the woods, and the fact they were haunted by the ghost of a nine-year-old girl who went missing exactly 54 years before, to the day. Sid couldn't help but feeling sad for the fact that it was probably the exact date she died, and all they had done for days, was scaring her off with knifes to get some decent sleep.

It worked, since Sid knew what to expect if he would show her a knife, but she hadn't shown herself ever since he stayed with the Bray family. In fact, the problem had shifted back to Cory as soon as Davy had started sleeping in the same room too. The boy was able to handle it quite alright—he had done it for two years after all—but it didn't feel fair at all.

But Sid didn't say anything about it since he was dealing with hearing her throughout the day more and more often. She seemed ever so present in school, following him around class. For the most part, Sid was scared her influence on him would grow, the stronger their connection got. But a tiny part of him didn't exactly mind hearing a ghost; she had on separate occasions helped him out by telling him the right answer to a question. Once when a teacher noticed he wasn't paying attention, and it prevented him from getting sent out of class, and once during a test.

Sid wasn't so much scared of the nine-year-old any longer. If she wanted to harm them purposefully, wouldn't she have done it already? No, in fact, Sid genuinely felt like she just wanted to be found, like Amber had suggested. She had left him alone once he had made it clear he couldn't help her.

Still, the least they could do, was try and find as much information about her case—or other cases—as possible, and perhaps offer an answer to the pranging question: who killed her? Maybe finding her killer would give her enough peace to help her pass over.

"Where's Ed?" Sid asked, as he walked up to Cory, Amber and Annika focusing on printed articles about disappearances throughout the past 350 years. "Ed's classes finished an hour ago."

"Yeah, he went home," Amber replied, rolling her eyes, "and so did Amara. I don't know what crawled up their asses, but they've been ruining my vibe all week already."

"Why though?" Sid frowned as he sat down in between Cory and Annika, "not being haunted by a ghost? Or us not having time to play his lame videogames right now, because of said infestation?" He had noticed they both hadn't sat with them during lunch for two days, but that day they did join. Though they had been silently texting each other for the biggest part.

Both, probably.

Sid had to stop himself from smirking when he heard Angela reply to his questions. He really didn't want to acknowledge her presence in any way. That would probably only strengthen her connection and she was still a ghost trying to send him on a suicide mission. It was best to ignore her and maintain his distance.

Well, except when she saved his ass in class, maybe.

"Whatever the reason, it isn't important right now," Annika said, holding up her hand to ask for attention. "I waited until Sid and Davy were present, but Davy is stuck in detention, so I'll fill him in later. We've looked into more disappearances for the past hour, and I've noticed two things."

Sid couldn't help but love her slightly more than he already did for her mind. She was the Hermione in their group, and he was glad she was on their side.

"We already established it seems like there were always six children who went missing, and it shows up in more years. There're indeed always six children. They're never over the age of eighteen."

"Patterns are interesting," Amber mumbled, "I found hints that suggest there have been devil's worshippers in the woods for decades already. Sounds like some sort of ritual."

"Exactly," Annika replied with a nod, "which makes it more interesting to look at the years in which these kids disappeared. There're years before another group goes missing, so I wrote the years down."

I like her, she's smart.

"It repeats itself every thirteen years. It starts in March and stops right after the sixth kid disappears. Angela Donna was the last in '62. She went missing 54 years ago, today. And then there's this," Annika tapped the paper she was last reading, "On March, 3rd, 1975, three kids went missing. Rob Laru, Hannah Hayes and George Dunn."

Annika looked back and forth between Cory and Sid with a frown before she continued, leaving them no possibility to respond to the fact that two kids with the same last name as they had, who disappeared on the same day. "Aside from the fact it might just be coincidental that Hannah and George have your last names, Rob Laru is the younger brother of Evert Laru, who was the first child to disappear in 1962, the year Angela fell victim as well. What if those blood bonds are a reason for you guys to be affected, and Edward wasn't?"

I knew I was drawn to you for a reason.

"I'm dizzy," Sid mumbled, leaning his head on the desk with a sigh, "you're telling me, every thirteen years, six children disappear, and three of them have connections to either me, Cory, or the girl who's haunting us in any way? And are connected to each other?"

"Where does that leave Davy?"

He's brave. But I was drawn to you, Siddey."

Sid swallowed, before he turned to Cory, feeling desperate. "Tell me, aside from seeing her in your dreams, do you hear or see her elsewhere?"

Cory frowned, shaking his head slowly. "She moves around stuff, why?"

"No reason. Just trying to make sense of any of this."

Annika, Amber and Cory all frowned, but decided not to reply to it. Amber took in a deep breath and handed him a paper. "We need to establish if Hannah Hayes is related to you, and if George Dunn is related to Cory."

"What about my sister?" Cory asked with a soft voice, "I'm obviously related to a missing child already. Does this George really matter?"

"Everything could matter," Annika muttered, staring dreamingly at her screen, "we're onto something way bigger than most people probably know. I mean, we had to dig deep into archives to find these cases. Most of these cases were covered up or kept silent until way after it happened. There's a part of the woods that had been forbidden grounds for around eighty years already, until they closed off the woods entirely."

"Government might actually, really, seriously, try to hide something in there that they can't wrap their heads around."

"And why would it be realistic for us to think we can make sense of it all?" Sid asked annoyed, just wanting a simple solution to get Angela to leave. Not a cover up by the government of some sort of ritual which took place every thirteen years. "Wait, when was the last cycle?"

"2014. The year Cory was in the woods."

"And he would've been the first?"

"Second," Amber browsed through her papers until she found what she was looking for. "Fourteen-year-old Jordy Dane went missing after camping in the woods with his brother and two friends. March 14th."

"Did you say Dane?" Sid asked, sitting upright so fast it caused Annika to softly yelp in surprise, "wasn't the U.S. Marshall in Angela's article called Dane?"

Annika's eyebrows shot up, and it remained silent for a few seconds until they all started looking through the papers to find the article in question. Once they did, the four of them stared at the name, allowing it to sink it that it was highly likely that their names, or blood bonds, had something to do with the cases. As if, for some reason, kids from the same families were sacrificed or something.

It freaked Sid out slightly, not knowing if perhaps his family didn't want to get the cops involved because they wanted him in those woods. They just had to play along for the time being.

"Well, I guess I won't be sleeping comfortably for a while," Cory muttered tiredly, "if this is all real and I'm at high risk... She's currently visiting me again every night."

Sid bit his lip a few moments, taking in Cory's sad face, before he sighed deeply, "do you think it would help if I'd stay over at your place instead? It seemed to help to have someone with you during the night for me and Davy. He'll have Annika, I'll keep you company?"

"Would you really do that?"

"Yeah, sure, I mean, we'll have each other, right? What could go wrong?"

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