“Lost” by Seanan McGuire
The Pied Piper. Peter Pan. A thousand stories of children vanishing in the night–but what’s the reality? Those who survived the Year of the Children know the truth, if only they can force themselves to keep believing. The second star to the right has never been so far away.
An Excerpt:
Let the world tell all the lies it wants; I was there in the Year of the Children, and I know the truth.
This is how it happened.
***
We don’t know when or where the singing started, but the earliest written record I can find points the finger at Michelle Pierce, of Crows Landing, California. She was eleven years old, blue eyed, red haired, and full of wonder at the world. Her father found her standing barefoot in the backyard on the night of January 8th, with her face titled up towards the cloudy winter sky.
“She was smiling like she had some sort of secret.” That’s what the article says, a grieving father’s words preserved on microfilm. He was right. Michelle had a secret. We all did. It just wasn’t shared until it was already too late.
