The Disappearance of Selena Cole

Heather Cole — Tuesday, 7:45 AM

It was the silence that frightened Heather. It seemed to come from nowhere, a creeping, drowning vacuum racing across the playground, down the muddy bank toward where she sat, both feet planted firmly in the rocky brook. One moment the air had sparkled with her younger sister's laughter, the aching creak of the swing, then nothing.

There was a thrumming in Heather's chest, like a small bird had flown in there and was trapped, its wings beating against her rib cage, only Heather couldn't tell if it was the anger that bubbled up inside her seemingly all the time now, or if she was afraid.

It was anger. She screwed her face up, scowled at the water's surface. Thought for a moment that the water reared back in terror.

Anger was easier, she had learned.

She looked down at her feet, where her red patent shoes shimmered beneath the bubbling water. Mummy would be so cross with her. She had told her not to wear the shoes, that they were for school, that they weren't to play in. But Heather had screwed up her face, made her eyes all small and stern, had said she was going to wear them anyway. Had waited for the thunder, her mother's face sliding into that flat expression, the one that said she was up for the fight, waited for her arms to cross across her narrow waist, the look that said, "Fine, I can stand here all day." Heather would have given in then. Honest she would. She would have puffed and rolled her eyes until they ached, but she'd have pulled the red patent shoes off, slipping her feet instead into the warm embrace of her wellie boots.

But that hadn't happened.

Instead, Mummy's eyes had got full, the way they did when she was thinking about Daddy, and she had turned away, shrugging her shoulders. And Heather had stood in the hallway, staring at the red shoes, thinking how pretty they looked against the twisty tiles, and wishing she had just put her wellies on anyway.

Heather Cole sat on the bank, the tree stump hard against the small of her back, and listened, as hard as she possibly could. She cocked her head to one side, as if that way she could make the laughter come back. She glanced behind her, up toward the top of the embankment. Maybe Mummy was coming to find her. Maybe she'd taken Tara out of the swing and they were on their way to get her, only she couldn't hear their steps because of the water.

That could be it.

"I don't know, Orl. Heather is just so angry. All the time. It's like ... ever since we lost Ed ... she ... it's like she hates me."

Heather had stood in the silent hallway, hadn't moved or breathed, just pushed her ear against the living room door. Could hear the tears in her mother's voice. Heard Auntie Orla sigh.

"She doesn't hate you, Selena. Really she doesn't. She's just ... she's seven. She's grieving and she doesn't know how to handle it. Of course, she's taking it out on you. You're all she has left."

"I know. But she was such a daddy's girl. Sometimes I wish ..."

"What?"

Then her mother had sighed like a giant gust of wind. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

Maybe they had left her. Had Mummy taken Tara and simply gone home? She had said that Heather was angry all the time. Heather knew what that meant. She was naughty. Daddy used to call her his little spitfire. Heather preferred that word. It sounded better. Maybe Mummy had left because she just couldn't deal with Heather anymore.

Heather scratched at the dirt beside her, watching her white nail turn slowly black. No. Mummy wouldn't do that. Would she? But then nothing in Heather's world worked the way it used to work, and so now she simply didn't know.

The bird's wings beat faster now.

Heather pulled her feet free from the water, the rushing cold making her shiver. She began to clamber up the bank, steeper than it had been when she climbed down it, arching hand over hand. It will happen now. Now. Now. She strained. Was that it? Was that Mummy's voice? Wasn't it? No. It was just the wind. As the ground flattened out beneath her fingers, she raised her head to see the cloud-soaked sky, the dew-slicked slide, the swing hanging slack.

She stood looking around the empty playground. She wondered if she was dead. It seemed that her breath had stopped. Was this how it had been for her father? That he had simply ... stopped? That everything had fallen silent and then he was just gone? But no. She had heard the whispers, the word that Mummy and Auntie Orla were so careful never to say when they thought she was listening. Bomb. She was seven, only seven. But she knew what a bomb was. In her mind there was noise, more noise than seemed possible. Heat. Fire. And then nothing. So perhaps it did all come back to silence in the end.

Heather Cole pulled herself up, stood on the crest of the bank. She tried to breathe, the way she had seen her mother do when she was trying to stay calm, when fear was only inches away. She sucked in a breath through her nose, held it, then exhaled, the sound whistling into the silence.

They were gone — Tara, Mummy. She was alone.

She felt tears prick at her. Felt her lip shake.

It was the shoes. It was the stupid red shoes. If she had just put the wellies on like she'd wanted to really, they would still be here. Heather looked down at her sopping wet feet, hating them now.

Then there was a sound, a wail that punctured the silence.

Heather swiveled her head, left to right, trying to locate the source of the sound. Then she saw it. Tara sitting in the slack swing. She was still there. Tara was still there. Heather pushed the awful shoes into the long grass, took off at a run across the playground, ran like her life depended on it, past the slide, the empty roundabout, to the limp-hanging swing and her three-year-old sister.

"Tara! Tara! It's okay! I'm coming!" She slip-slid on the gravel, her voice coming out small, and even to her own ears she sounded younger than her seven years.

Tara's head snapped toward her, and she stared at Heather with those huge blue eyes, their...