Genre: Mystery

Theme: Just because you've known someone for years, doesn't mean that they don't have an evil past, or have never harmed someone.

   "Ughhhh, why does the future have to be so difficult?!" Maddie Robinson groans while slamming her head into the desk. Her friends, Elijah and Evelyn Larkin laugh at her frustration.

   "It's only difficult for you, Elijah and I got it figured out pretty quickly." The female laughs at her.

   "Yeah Mads, we're gonna go to college, get degrees in law, and rule the courts! Mwahahahaha!!!" He leaps up, his hands outstretched towards the ceiling.

   Rolling her eyes at the twins, she scoffs, "Well unlike the two of you, I have too many things I'm interested in. Animals, rocks, music, history, art. There are just too many options." She rests her forehead into the palm of her hands rubbing her temples.

   Evelyn steps forwards and rubs her back, "It's alright girly, we will figure this out, I promise."

   Thankful for her friends comfort she calms down a bit," Thank you Ev, it's just frustrating."

The male twin adds, "Well, let's brainstorm and make a list. You already said animals, rocks, music, history, art. So, let's break it down. We can refine, or add details to certain things you're more interested in." He grabs a notebook and pen and starts jotting down the first ideas. "Okay, lets put it all in order of most interest, to least."

   She nods at him in agreement, "Thank youuuu, okay, most would be history, rocks, animals, art, music." He writes them all in a list.
   "Okay, lets cross out music and art, and take it to a list of three options." He draws lines through options four & five. "Now, lets go a bit more in depth with the three options we have left. What topics of history would you want to cover if you had to in college?"

   "Um, well I could go into our towns history? Maybe dig into some mysteries that haven't been solved yet?"

   "Now that, sounds like an amazing idea." He adds notes under the 'History' category on the paper. "Moving on to rocks, what specifics interest you there?" He looks at her, reminding her of a detective getting information from suspects or witnesses.

   "Hmm, well up near Tear Drop Mountain I've seen some interesting things, pretty geodes, and I found a crystal cave that I've kept hidden. But there is another cave with some weird things going on." She thinks back to the strange things she's seen there. "Even Calypso acts strangely near that cave. I could dig into the history with that too." She mentions how her black lab behaves around there.

   "Ooooo thata girl, mixing three ideas into one. I think we've got something to investigate now." He smirks at her, then he pulls his laptop out and starts setting up. "I think all three of us can try researching these things to help you get more connected to it, right Evelyn?" He changes the list a bit.

   "Absolutely! Come on Maddie! We can do it! This sounds so fun!"

   "Fine, fine," she rolls her eyes, "I got so lucky to have the two of you as friends. I guess that we should get to work now." She gets her laptop ready, and the three of them start their research.

   Three hours have passed, and the three friends have found some hints towards something have happened up near the mountain, though it was many years before they were born. Strange disappearances, events, animals going berserk near the cave entrance. Documents from X189 and a few years earlier than that. But most sources point to the strange occurrences only happening after June in X182.

After all the hours of sitting researching Maddie stretched, "Okay, I think we've found most of what we can online, how about we take a break from the electronics and go to the library and check out the old newspaper articles from X182?"

The twins stretch as well, obviously tired of the sitting as well. Evelyn responds to her first, "That sounds amazing, a definite improvement from beings stuck in your room much longer."

"Agreed," her twin replies. The two get up and get their laptops ready to take to the library. Maddie gets her stuff ready too and they all head downstairs. Reaching the kitchen, they see her parents, Amelia, and Daniel Robinson, sitting on the barstools at the counter. Her mother looks up hearing her daughter and her daughters' friends coming downstairs.

"Hey, you three, is the future planning going well?" Her mother wonders.

   "Yeah actually, we narrowed down her list, and now we have a way to connect 3 things she wanted to do." Elijah replies to her.

"Yeah! And we started looking into Tear Drop Mountain and some of the strange things that have been going on around it. We've found that since X182 there have been strange disappearances, unexplainable events, and animals behave very strangely around there. I went up with Calypso once and she went bonkers trying to dig to something in a cave I found." She explains to her mother. Her father's eyes widen, and he stops in the middle of eating, but he doesn't say anything. She finds this a bit strange but ignores it.

   "Oh, that is quite strange, but I thought the city told people not to go up there? I'm sure you knew that? It's dangerous up there." Her mother responds with interest.

   "Yeah well, you know how people are, rules mean nothing," she giggles, "Anyways, we best be off now. I'll see y'all when we get back!"

"Hey, it's getting a bit late, why don't you guys just go another time?" Her father finally speaks up, seeming a bit, nervous maybe?

   "Honey, its only 4 o'clock, let them go have fun. Besides, don't you have some council stuff to finish up for tomorrow?" His wife butts in. "Ignore him kids, go have fun. Ill see you when you get back. Be safe please."

   "Of course, mom. Love y'all, see you soon!" Maddie and her friends leave and start off towards the library.

They got a few blocks away from the house before anyone said anything. "Do you also agree that your dad was acting a bit, off?" The younger twin, Evelyn asks.

   "Yeah, I don't know what's up with that, he always gets like that whenever Tear Drop Mountain gets brought up. And now that I think about it some of his council friends get like that too." She replies while walking.

   "That definitely sounds suspicious. Hmm." Elijah adds.

   "Whatever, you know how older people are about things, let's just go check out the newspaper articles!" Maddie shouts in excitement.

   After about 30 more minutes of walking, they reach the library, an old building showing signs of being overgrown, big messy bushes, vines stretching towards the top of the roof, giving the impression of trying to bring the old library into the ground. They walk up the old concrete steps and go through the olden oak doors. Greeting Mrs. Stinson at the desk they ask her where they could find the old news papers from X180 to now.

   The older librarian walks them towards the back of the building, into a dark, musty smelling hallway that makes Maddie's nose scrunch up. At the end of the hallway there is an open doorway leading to an archive room. Mrs. Stinson walks to the unit labeled X180-X200. "This is where it'll be dearies, now I gotta head back up front, but knock yourselves out!"

   Smiling at the kind older lady Maddie thanks her and watches her leave. "Okay, let's start with X180 and go from there? Alright? I think we can each take a year at a time to get through it quicker." Hearing sounds of agreement she opens the drawer, Elijah grabs the folder for X180, Evelyn grabs X181, and Maddie grabs X182. And then they get to work, setting aside any articles that seem useful. 30 mins later and the twins had each found articles about votes for the towns council that seemed to be helpful. Maddie however, had found numerous clippings about people who went missing and articles about the same vote, which kept being put off for 4 years until X182 when it was finalized.

Headings from X180 included:

• Talk about starting a council for the city, but who agrees to having it founded?

• City Council gets enough votes for approval, but how many seats will be available?

• 7 Seats decided for city council, but who will enter?

• 15 Candidates all in their twenties apply for city council

• City Council voting approved to start next year

Headings from X181 included:

• Council voting starts!

• Council Voting put off after 2 candidates disappear, Roseanne Boothe and James Lyman

• Bodies of the two missing council candidates found in Tear Drop River

• Council voting back on after 2 months of a break, with thirteen candidates

• Council voting paused again when three candidates, Helen Perry, Dorothy Ryder, and CJ Turner die in tragic car wreck, car found in Tear Drop River.

• Council voting paused until next year

Headings from X182 included:

• Council Voting starting up this year with 10 Candidates

• Council voting going smoothly with Alexander North and Daniel Robinson going head-to-head

• Council voting on pause once again when candidate Audrey Rogers and her little brother Ray Rogers were found mauled by a bear at the base of Tear Drop Mountain

• Council voting back in the works 1 month after the tragic loss of Audrey and Ray Rogers.

• Council potential star, Alexander North, missing, voting put on hold.

• Voting back on after 2 months and no sign of Alexander North, people believe he ran away to a different town.

• Before voting finished between the eight candidates Edward Winchester backed out, leaving the last seven candidates to get the seats

• Council decides after the disasters around Tear Drop Mountain for it to be off limits.

   "Wow... these are definitely linked. There is no way they're not." Evelyn points out. The other two agree with her.

   "But how would we figure out who is behind it?" Maddie questions?

   Elijah, finding this the perfect moment for his ideas gives his input, "I honestly think, no offense to you Maddie, that those who won the voting are behind it. I don't know why I feel this way, it just seems, right? Ya know?" His sister agrees, and Maddie reluctantly agrees.

   "Yea... I just didn't want to admit it. But there is no denying it. The way the candidates died off like flies is too suspicious. And Alexander just disappearing when he was about to win? No way. That wouldn't just happen, he wouldn't just get up and leave. And I highly doubt Edward would have just backed out. I think we need to talk to him."

   "Agreed," the twins say in unison.

   And so, the three friends go, getting evidence, and proving their suspicions. After a bit of prodding, they were able to get Edward to admit that he was threatened. And after talking to the families of the deceased candidates the families also think that there was foul play, and that their family members we're murdered. After rounding up all their evidence Maddie didn't know how to interact with her father, not that she did much before, but she knew that she couldn't let on to him knowing and had the twins keep all the research at their house. So that Maddie's father couldn't find it.

"So how does all of this, link to the weird things still happening around those caves? And how the animals were behaving?" Maddie thinks aloud, confused.

   "Well, we could always take Calypso back up there and let her dig for whatever she was looking for?" Evelyn offers as an idea.

   "Yeah, let's go ahead and do that, I'll head home and grab her real quick. Meet me at the twin trees?"

   They all head their own ways, but Maddie's father has been questioning her more often when she goes out, fishing for information. She manages to leave and meets up with the twins. She leads them towards the caves and at the entrance; and Calypso started to get restless, whining pulling at the leash. So, they let her lead the way towards the second cave. Once inside Calypso went straight towards a bundle of rocks digging at them frantically, the three friends joining in.

   Soon they get to what made Calypso so frantic, a deteriorating plastic bag, a body bag. Everything seems to stop. No wind, no animal noises, nothing. Calypso even stopped moving, kind of displaying, 'Mom look, danger.' The group stayed like that for a while, un-moving, in pure shock. "Oh my god. What have we found..." the older twin states?

   "Evidence of foul play," his sister manages to respond.

   "Guys, I think its time to call the police officers. This can't keep going on." Maddie suggests. And that's what they do, they go to then entrance of the cave and call the chief of police, Benjamin Martin, and ask him to meet them there.

   "What are you guys doing up there anyways? You know its off limits." The wise old man asks.

   We uh, we know, but please, just come and meet us. Its really important, we uh, we found something." Maddie responds, trying to stay calm.

  
   "Alright, on my way now, just please don't get into any more trouble."

   "We won't, don't worry."

   15 minutes later and he reaches them in his old pickup truck, the one with the faded blue paint. When he gets out and reaches the group he can feel the tension, worry, and fear, emanating from the kids. "Hey, are you three all right? Even the dog even seems upset. What in the hell did you guys find?" The look up at him, not exactly sure what to say, so Elijah, being the oldest adds instead.

   "I think its better if we uh if we show you. Just, follow us please."

"Alright, if you kids say so, I'll trust you. Lead the way."

The four of them, plus the dog head in, right outside the second cave Maddie stops him, "Uh, Mr. Martin, I suggest preparing yourself a bit, please?"

   "Okay, I will, I am a cop Maddie, I've seen some pretty serious stuff." After he says this, they head in, but Evelyn stays behind with Calypso because it was to much on her.

   Reaching the dug hole, the officer looks in, and his jaw drops. "Because of some research we had done before coming up here and finding this, I believe that this is the body of Alexander North, a candidate for city council from X181, who suddenly went missing with no explanation." Maddie informs him.

"Are... are you sure? 100%?" He looks at her, pleading.

"Absolutely. You can have the morgue run any tests needed but we're sure, and we think we know who the culprits are too." She looks up at him, somberly.

"Wha... but who? Who would've done this? Alexander was my best friend, and I KNEW that he didn't just run away, I knew it!"

"We believe that it was the seven members of the council. Walter Cotton, Jen Hill, Bryan Harris, Abigail Harris, Betsy Woods, Chandler Delvin, and... my uh, my father, Daniel Robinson." She finishes, getting quiet at the end.

   "We have all the evidence, notes, everything. We just want justice to be given to the families and friends that suffered because of the council voting's." Elijah finds the strength to add.

   "Okay, yeah, I'll get the proper team together and we will remove his body and run tests, send me over whatever you have." So, they do. They get everything together, the body is carefully removed, and the truth got out. Even though it was seven people everyone trusted, the evidence was too much to rebut.

At home things were tense for Maddie for a while, her mother upset about what happened, but soon it calmed down, everyone was just glad the truth was out, and justice properly being served.

The End