The town of Halewick always smelled of woodsmoke and damp earth, the kind of place where nothing ever changed. Folks liked to think of it as a safe pocket, a village where kids played by the creek and parents trusted each other’s hands. But safety was a lie. Someone had gone missing — a little girl, only eight years old — and that lie was unraveling fast. The sheriff’s whistle called everyone from their porches that night, lanterns bobbing in the dark. No one could refuse the summons. A child’s life — or death — was at stake.

The sheriff organized the search the way he always did: in pairs. The woods were large and confusing, tangled with trails and old logging paths. Better to have two sets of eyes, two lanterns. People clutched each other’s elbows, neighbors joined at the hip. Except you. You were the last to be paired, shuffling your boots in the dust. The sheriff didn’t trust you to go alone — he worried you’d walk in circles or mistake deer tracks for clues. So he placed you with him: the most popular young man in town, admired by fathers, whispered about by mothers. Every parent had once hoped their daughter might catch his eye.

He was called Lyle Wren. Tall, smiling, with a way of looking at folks like he could see straight through them. You never understood why he was so adored, why people laughed at every word he said. To you, he seemed ordinary enough. But you did notice the way his hands were steady when everyone else’s trembled. And you noticed something else: when the sheriff mentioned the missing girl, his smile had not faltered.

You carried your lantern clumsily, swinging it too much, almost dropping it in the mud. “Sorry,” you mumbled. Your words always came out thick, like they tripped on your tongue before reaching the air. Folks teased you for that, the same way they teased you for believing chocolate milk came from brown cows. The whole village carried those stories about you like little pebbles in their pockets — easy to throw whenever they were bored.

Lyle chuckled softly as you stumbled over a root. “Careful now. Sheriff wouldn’t forgive me if you broke your neck out here.” His voice was easy, calm, even kind. He held his lantern lower, lighting the path so you wouldn’t fall again. To anyone else, it might have looked like friendliness. But to you, there was something else there — like he was enjoying how clumsy you were.

The woods pressed closer the deeper you went. Branches scratched at your sleeves, owls hooted somewhere far off. The night was filled with the shuffle of other pairs, voices calling the girl’s name in fractured echoes. You wanted to call too, but the sound stuck in your throat. Lyle’s lantern lit the trunks around you, and in that yellow glow his face looked different: sharper, shadowed. His eyes didn’t match the rest of him.

You thought about asking him if he thought the girl was still alive. But you didn’t. Instead you asked the only thing you could think of: “Do you think… she’s scared?” Your voice cracked at the end.

Lyle looked at you then. He didn’t answer right away. He tilted his head, studying you as if you were a puzzle. Then he smiled, slow and practiced. “If she is, then let’s hope we’re the ones who find her. Not everyone in this town is as gentle as you.”

The words confused you. Everyone adored him, didn’t they? The fathers who shook his hand, the mothers who trusted him with their daughters. He was the golden boy of Halewick. But his eyes — they gleamed when he said it. Gleamed the way a knife does when it catches lantern light.