September challenge. "The Box"

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Four year old Lesley kept insisting to her mother that she could hear dancey ballerina music. Of course Lesley's mother couldn't hear it.

"Can't hear it sweetie. Can you explain it?"

"Can't explain it. Just follow it. The other little girl beside you mom."
A smile and a sigh the mother scoops Lesley up for day care.

She returns later to pick her daughter up from daycare to discover Lesley is missing.

Frantic workers were looking everywhere. "We were just about to call you. We can't find Lesley." A worker says as they noticed the mother standing there.

The police were called to aid in the search. "No luck yet." An officer says after searching for hours.

Exhausted the mom collapses and hears Lesley calling her. "Where are you? Where are you?" Mom asks frantically reaching for her daughter.

"Here I am. Here I am." She hears her daughter calling out.

The Mom moves towards the sound of her little girls voice that seems to move farther and farther away as she moves closer to the sound.

"Over here! over here! Do you hear the music yet mommy?"

The Mom frantically chases her daughters voice. Still not catching up to her.

"Here we are. Here we are. Can you hear the music yet mommy."

The Mom catches the faint image of two little girls dancing together. "Baby baby please come back to me. Please. please." The mom reaches out and the image is gone.

A worker goes to check on the mom. To find her missing as well, but this time there is a trail. Search dogs are brought in to follow.

"Mommy! Do you hear the music yet?" A little swirl of movement catches the mothers eye. "Here we are. Here we are. Look at us dance mommy." More urgently now the Mom runs as fast as she can towards the movements. She too begins to hear the music. A trilling sound of ballet with happy giggling. "here we are. here we are. Do you see us now?"

"Yes baby I see you come back. Come back."

"No you must follow me. Come here. Come here."

The Mom is running out of energy and becomes a where of her surroundings, it's a trail in the park near the play school. "Why am I here? Lesely where are you?"

"Here mommy. We are here."

The Mom nearly stumbles in a ditch in the dark and instead falls on something soft and whimpering. "Mommy? Is that you?"

"Yes sweetie. I am here. Why did you run off?"

"I followed the music mommy look what I found."

The Mom pulls out her phone and turns on the flashlight. And there in the ditch is a ATV wreak with a body beside it. "She is alive mommy.but hurt bad."

The Mom looks carefully over the body to realize it is alive though barely. She hears dogs in the distance behind her. So she phones the searchers to tell them to bring medical aid. All of a sudden she hears music. Looking down she sees the bodies cell phone is ringing. A lovely trilling of ballet. A soft moan of "please help" comes from the body Lesley has found. "Help is coming dear. Help is coming."

"Thank you. For finding. Me."

Rescue comes and carefully loads up the body. An officer asks if that is Lesley "no silly. I am here." The once missing four year old says smiling up at the officer. He smiles back. "Glad you are ok."

Once again. The ballet music twinkles across the night. The officer picks up the phone and reads the messages. He looks startled at Lesley. "This young lady went missing a week ago. And no one could find her. You did. How?"

"I heard the music box singing to me."

The officer smiled looking down at the phone once again and realized the phone has been dead for days.

<><><><><><>the end<><><><><>
For a writing contest for

ParanormalCommunity And adventure