cultures. Many believe birds are the epitome of freedom. Their ability to spread their wings and migrate to a better place during the darker months is something we all envy. If my sister could fly, she’d fly far away from here, and never come back. But she can’t fly. And I’m happy about that.
The great Emily Dickinson once said so eloquently, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers.’
31 December 2015.
That was also the last night I saw my sister alive.
I lost everything that night.
And I haven’t been the same since. We all haven’t.
We used to spend every New Year’s Eve together, just the two of us. But then we began to drift slowly apart, the years driving us into adolescence and indifference. For years, we battled our way back to how we used to be, and we were there. We had made it. We were close once again, finding ourselves back where we started, just the two of us. We needed nothing else, no one else. We weren’t just sisters. We were best friends.
31 December 2015.
We were supposed to spend this one together. It was special for us. I’d picked a movie, bought popcorn – the kind you microwave in a paper bag until it puffs and expands. She’d gone out to see her friends but she’d planned to be back for ten o’clock.
I waited for her. Until half past, until eleven, and even until midnight. I waited in the living room where I could see and hear the front door. The DVD box sat on the floor by the TV unopened. The bag of popcorn lay beside it.
I waited.
But she never came back.
She still hasn’t come back.
My name is Alex. I am fifteen years old, and I don’t know where my sister is.
Or if she will ever come back.
All I know is that my sister was last seen sometime before 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve two miles from where I stood, watching footage of the birds falling from the sky on our small TV screen in our small living room in a small house on a small island, too far from reality.
They say you can sense when someone you love is in pain or has died. But I feel nothing. So she can’t be hurt or dead, right? Even that night, I didn’t feel any different going to bed, and I didn’t even worry when Dad said she hadn’t come home that night. I assumed she had stayed over at a friend’s house. I figured she had lost track of time, but my parents were worried. I told them not to be and that she’d be back later that day. I was wrong. She didn’t come back. She still hasn’t come home.
After they called the police, it was in the local papers that very evening – ‘Local Girl Missing’. She wasn’t missing. She had just forgotten to call, or something. Missing sounds like she’s dead. Who called the newspaper? How do they know things before we do?
I remember the doorbell ringing, and walking slowly to answer it. I remember turning the knob and pulling the door open, expecting to see my sister’s smiling face. But it wasn’t her. It was two policemen. One was older, scruffy-looking. He was the one that was clutching a small spiral-bound notepad in his hands. But it was the younger one who took my parents’ statement.
I watched as my mother put her hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs as she and my dad spoke softly to them. They told the officers that my sister had gone to a party with her friends and not come home. They told them they were worried about her. They told them they were scared. They hadn’t told me that. They had told me that there was nothing to worry about, that she’d come home. But now they’re lying. Or did they lie to me?
I remember that the older policeman wasn’t looking at them. He was watching me. And he had this look on his face that I couldn’t figure out – pity? Sadness? Indifference?
Either way, I will never forget his face. Or my mother’s when they told her that she needed to wait twenty-four hours before it can become an official missing persons case. Both will haunt me forever. I felt confused at first, like I had heard him wrong. ‘Missing persons case.’
I thought it was my sister playing jokes as she usually did. But then I saw the policeman’s face, and I knew it was true. Then I felt like all of the air had been violently sucked out of my body and I couldn’t breathe. It’s a strange feeling when someone tells you the person you love most in the world has vanished. It’s like you’ve been stripped from your body, and you’re floating above watching everything happen. Because you never think it will happen to you – that it is happening to you.
Being Orcadian, you are somewhat sheltered from that world. The world where evil is normal. Our island is small. Too small. Everyone knows everyone. But that is what’s so hard to understand. Someone must know where she is. Someone must know something.
She’s just staying over at a friend’s. That’s it. She’ll be back tomorrow.
Right?
What if she’s not back tomorrow? Or the next day? What then?
These police officers don’t know her. They don’t know anything about her so how are they going to find her?
I know her. She’s my sister. I know her.
She just turned eighteen years old on her last birthday.
Her name is Olivia.
She’s finishing school this year and is going to move to London. She’s looking forward to beginning her life. She wants to be a dancer with the Royal Ballet Company in London. And she will be, everyone says she dances beautifully. I love to watch her perform. She’s mesmerizing. She looks so free – like a blackbird.
Olivia.
Where are you?
Chapter One: 02.01.2016 (morning)
‘What time did you last see your sister on the night of the thirty-first?’
The room is cold, dimly lit, in the police station in Stenness near the Barnhouse Settlement. I pull my sleeves down over my hands and tuck them between my legs. How long have I been here? Is it still morning? Why am I here? I don’t know anything. I can’t share anything. I’m as in the dark as them.
I can feel my eyelids twitching, but I can’t stop it. I try opening them a little wider.
‘Alexandra?’
‘Alex.’
‘Alex, what time did you last see your sister on the night of the thirty-first?’ The police officer shifts in his seat like he’s uncomfortable, but his eyes never leave my face. Maybe he’s the reason my eyes are twitching. I remember him from yesterday. I remember the expression on his face.
‘Detective Birkens, is it?’ I cautiously ask.
‘Detective Inspector Birkens. I’ll be leading the investigation into your sister’s whereabouts. We met yesterday, very briefly.’
‘I remember.’
‘Sorry I had to get you up so early today.’
My body weighs heavily in the chair beneath me. My eyelids are starting to drop. It really is cold in here. There’s a breeze coming in from somewhere. The detective doesn’t seem to notice. What is the difference between a policeman and a detective anyway? Should I ask him?
‘Are you OK? Do you want anything to drink – water, tea, a Coke?’
No, I just want to go home.
The door clicks open and the younger policeman from yesterday steps into the room. He closes the door behind him, and leans against the wall by the doorframe. Now he’s watching me too. Everyone is.
‘Where are my mum and dad?’ I eventually ask.
‘They’re in the next room. They’re