25

Leah

Wednesday, October 25th, 1989
Lucy missing 3 weeks, 5 days

The first person to get a black rose in their locker was Brandi Miles. It happened on my first day back to school, the Wednesday before Halloween. Ali told me in the girl’s bathroom just after fourth period, her eyes darting around underneath the sickly fluorescent light.

“They say she screamed when she saw it! Can you imagine?” Ali was talking fast and chomping ferociously on her gum. “Everyone is saying it’s from devil worshippers! I’m SO scared, Leah! I mean, what if it happens to me? I’ve got blond hair and blue eyes, too!” she said, flipping her hand through her sheets of golden hair.

We had all heard the rumors that if a girl finds a black rose in her locker, then she will soon disappear. This had never happened to anyone we actually knew, of course, but the rumors still persisted. The cloying smell of Lysol mixed with hairspray was making me feel claustrophobic and I wanted to get out of there.

“She brought it straight to Principal Davis, of course,” she continued. Ali would’ve kept talking but the school bell buzzed, cutting through her monologue. “Oh! Gotta run to English!” She turned in the mirror and primped her hair, smiling at her reflection before sprinting off.

Brandi was a senior and captain of the drill team. She had thick, bleached-blond hair that she teased up into a mountain every morning before school. Her eyes were pale-blue and she was tall and thin and would glide down the halls with model-perfect posture.

Because she found the black rose so close to Halloween, everybody thought it was just a Halloween prank, but one week later, at night, when Brandi came out of drill team practice, she went to her teal-colored Suzuki Samurai and all of the tires were slashed. Someone had picked the passenger’s side lock and there was a note on the seat, scribbled in red marker that read:

Heat and power
This dead flower
By this curse,
I make it worse

The police came to the parking lot to dust the car for fingerprints and take photos, and after that night, her parents escorted her to and from practice.