The Girl

The Girl

Macey stopped. There was the ragged girl she had seen that morning. Tangles in her hair, dirt on her face, rips in her clothes. Macey had no idea what to make of her. she knew everyone in the neighborhood, so she must be new. But there was only one intermediate in the whole village, and Macey hadn't seen her at school. However, Macey was a slave to curiosity, so she cautiously approached the girl. Just before she reached her, a crowd of teenagers passed in between them. "Hi, I'm Macey." said Macey, only to find she was talking to thin air! The girl had merged into the crowd. Just then, she noticed a hollow in the brick wall the girl had been sitting on. A small corner of paper was peeking out, as if a note had been hastily stuffed inside.

Macey extracted the thin paper with extreme care. Knowing it was not for her, she did not want to tear it. It looked like a half-folded origami swan, screwed up and stuffed in the hollow. It was written in a simple number code, except the numbers were Roman numerals. Macey quickly decoded it, with little trouble. 'Ryan's disappeared. We don't want to assume the worst but we will now rejoin groups. We have no food and as you know the assassination is tomorrow at sundown. We cannot go further, we must stay in this village. Sammy's dead, knife to the throat. Meet at Clover Park ASAP in the tallest climbable tree to discuss. We have a problem that we can't fix. Too risky to put in a note. Good luck, Annabelle' This all made no sense to Macey, but she replaced the note as she had found it and strode over to Clover Park to find out.