Welcome to Gaia! ::

Prologue
Sadie was heading home again after another sleepover with her four best friends. Well, everyone else was sleeping over. She had a soccer game at 7:30 the next morning, so she was heading home in order to avoid having to wake up the others the next morning.
The girls’ annual Friday sleepover had this time had its venue at Rhea’s house. It was the same ritual every weekend: they would all take the bus home from school, then they’d give each other makeovers and eat snacks. After that was a movie, pizza, and then another movie. The schedule was, of course, subject to changes, but nobody really wanted to be the one to break the tradition unless necessary.
That was how it had been for 4 years, since Sadie had moved to Cortland, New York, at age seven. She and Madison had bonded within the first week of second grade, and were best friends by the end of the first term. When Taylor arrived at the beginning of third and Rhea in the middle of the year, they were drawn into the circle. Then Becca and her designer labels from NYC blew in with grade five, and their troupe was complete.
Now, the girls were halfway through their third month of sixth grade and without a care in the world. Sadie smiled as she walked the two-and-a-half blocks back to her house and thought back on her evening with her best friends. Life was good.
That was the last time Sadie was truly happy. Somewhere along that half-mile walk back to her home, in less than a minute, she went from a happy-go-lucky dreamer to a child with more emotional and psychological problems than one could ever imagine. The worst part was, nobody knew why.



3 years later...
Sadie never told anybody about that night. In fact, she never told anybody anything. Ever. She refused to speak.
Whether it was fear rendering her incapable of speech, threats made by her attackers from that night, or something else all together, it didn’t really matter to anybody after a while. All everyone knew was that something had happened to Sadie and that she didn’t plan on telling anybody what it was in the foreseeable future. She was silent as can be.
I’m sure you’re all wondering after her best friends, her parents, her teachers. How could they simply let her behave this way? Didn’t she lose class participation points? The answer, my readers, eludes me as much as it does you. And I’m sorry to say that Sadie’s best friends didn’t really like or understand the “new” her, nor did they bother to try. As I’m sure you can imagine, they quickly grew tired of her silence. Her parents and teachers became equally frustrated, though they did their best not to let her catch on.

It is said that the first hours after a traumatic event are the most crucial to helping a child gain back confidence and trust. After that, each minute gets harder and harder. When Sadie arrived back home, she was shaking so violently that she couldn’t have formed words had she wanted to. Her mother knew that something was wrong, though she hadn’t a clue what it was, and proceeded to badger Sadie about it for hours that night. Poor Mrs Richards obviously didn’t have a clue as to the devastating proportions of her daughter’s issues, nor did she have a way to find out until much later in the game.
The morning after the incident, Sadie threw up several times and was kept home from her soccer game. Her friends called from Rhea’s house, looking for her, but she simply hung up the phone when she heard them. She promised herself that she would at least say hello the next time they called, but they never did.
Sadie’s fate wasn’t sealed until two weeks later, when a man who was later assumed to be one of her attackers showed up at a school event. Obviously, nobody knew this at the time, otherwise they might have helped the poor girl. He skillfully approached her and led her quietly off to the side, where nobody would hear them should it turn messy.
Several people saw her talking to a man they’d never seen before, but they figured it was a family friend or possibly a detective. Nobody bothered to note any special features of said man until it was far too late to remember. But really, what good could it have done Sadie anyway?


xxxxxDetective David Ritzmuhahd
I was sitting on a school bleacher, a few miles west of Cortland, and watching my daughter run across her school’s lacrosse field to score the winning goal when my cell phone rang.
I checked the caller ID and answered just as the crowd burst into applause. I looked up and met the eyes of my daughter, Courtney, standing in front of the net she’d just scored in. I’d missed it. Again. And she knew it.
After holding my gaze for several seconds, Courtney dropped her eyes and accepted her teammates’ congratulations, while I stepped away from the noise to hear my assistant better.
“This had better be important, Denaro,” I said irritably.
“We got a lead in the Richards case,” he replied, unfazed, and I couldn’t help but share his obvious excitement.
“What kind?” I asked before I got my hopes up. Unless the girl had miraculously broken her three-year vow of silence, we weren’t going to make much progress. And even if that managed to happen, it still wouldn’t make much of a difference. Who or whatever had hurt her was long gone, fueled by his or her victim’s refusal to seek help.
The few leads we had gotten had only given us the basics -- most random attack cases at least had a victim (assuming he or she wasn’t dead or incapacitated) who was willing to share information. We had nothing, and it had been driving me insane for years.
I’d basically given up hope at the same time as the Richards girl’s speech therapist, a middle-aged woman named Cindy who secretly worked in collaboration with us at the NYPD. Sadie sure was a stubborn girl, I’d give her that. Three years without a word? That had to be a new record.
Most people didn’t see it that way. In fact, even Cindy had suggested that Sadie may have sustained an undetected head injury and in actuality had not been attacked that night -- an idea that was quickly shot down by the rest of the force and the parents. Sadie wouldn’t have let the doctors do a CAT scan anyway; she had an inexplicable fear of hospitals. Her parents insisted that said phobia had been in place since she was little, but I wasn’t so sure.
“A witness has come forward. Mrs. Anne Baxter. Lives in an apartment approximately halfway between point A and the Richards house. Says she looked out her window that night and saw a child matching the Richards girl’s description walking down the sidewalk, alone. She turned to answer her husband’s question of whether or not she wanted sugar in her tea, and when she looked back out the window to watch the little girl, she was gone.”
I sighed. “That’s hardly telling us more than we already know, Denaro.”
“Now we have a specific abduction point,” he said, still unfazed.
“Assuming she was abducted,” I said, tired. “Look, Denaro, it’s been three years, and the case has gone cold. The few new leads we get usually only tell us what we already know, and the girl hasn’t spoken. We need a new approach.”
There was silence on the other end, and I worried briefly that he’d hung up on me. “Hello?” I said.
Denaro cleared his throat. “Well, sir, what kind of new approach? Several people have made suggestions via the tipline, but I don’t know if...”
“At this point, it doesn’t really matter. Anything that could get the girl to talk could be a tremendous help.”
I saw Courtney walking across the parking lot with her lacrosse bag over her shoulder. Rubbing my temples, I looked away and quickly ended the call with Denaro.
Courtney was mad, and she had a right to be. This was hardly the first time I’d let work interfere with family affairs, and she’d told me on multiple occasions to just turn off my phone when I was around her. But for some reason, I never did. And every time I answered it, I could see the impact it had on her. Like I was hitting her heart with a hammer. It killed me, yet I had to do it. She and the Richards girl were the same age, same grade. If it were Courtney who was suffering, I’d never stop trying to find out what had happened. I’d hire the best detectives around, even if I couldn’t afford such a thing. I knew how those parents were feeling, how much it must hurt them every day to see their daughter not reaching her full potential.
“Good game, sweetie,” I said, smiling.
She glared back at me. “Let’s just go.”
I took her bag and followed me to the car, getting in and starting the engine. Courtney slammed the door as hard as she could and then pulled out her phone, sinking down in the passenger seat and ignoring me.
“Seat belt,” I said, and she obliged.
After a few minutes of silence, I spoke. “Look, Court, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have answered if I didn’t think it was important. Denaro said --”
“That’s what you always say!” she shouted suddenly, causing me to swerve a bit before regaining control of the car. “It’s the same thing every time. I’m sick of it. Every call you get could be important. Everything seems to rank higher than me, Dad. I hate it. I can’t even remember the last time you took me to a movie where you didn’t stand up halfway through and walk out with that stupid phone pressed against your ear. You think you’re the better parent because you kept me when Mom walked out, but you’re hardly better than her. You might as well have joined her.”
I cringed at that last part. My wife, Lillian, had walked out on us when Courtney was three. It had left its mark on both of us, though Courtney hardly had any memories of her. The hurt that came with the knowledge of someone willfully abandoning you -- the same someone that gave you life -- was surely more powerful than what most people knew. Of course I had taken over parenting duties and had done an okay job for the past 11 years, at least I thought so.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry, Courtney. I promise that next time I’ll turn it off completely.”
She rolled her eyes and continued texting. “Yeah, whatever. I’ll see it before I believe it.”
We drove the rest of the way home in silence, and as soon as we got there Courtney jumped out and headed up to her room. I sighed, something I seemed to be doing a lot of lately. Going into the living room and switching on the TV, I let the sounds of Sunday football fill the silence my daughter had left as I researched selective mutism for the thousandth time.
That was what the Richards girl had been diagnosed with by Cindy. If one typed it into Wikipedia, he would be met with the following sentence:

Selective mutism (SM) is a communicative disorder in which a person, mostly a child, who is normally capable of speech is unable to speak in given situations, or to specific people. Selective Mutism often co-exists with shyness or anxiety.

I snorted; Sadie had a very different case from most. Though she was capable of speech as far as we knew, silence transpired in every situation, with anyone who approached her. She hadn’t uttered a word to anybody in three years, be it classmates, teachers, or her parents. Even at this point in the case, it would help tremendously if she would.
The house was practically shaking with the beat of some pop song blaring from Courtney’s room, and I could feel a headache coming on. She did this every time she was mad, which was pretty much every day. This must be what the parenting books meant when they talked about the ‘terrible teens’.
Rising and setting my laptop down on the neatly organized coffee table, I headed back through the entryway towards the stairs and marched up, preparing for the inevitable battle. I arrived at the first door on the left and knocked.
“Courtney, can you turn that down a bit?” I said to the door.
No reply.
“Courtney?” I said, a bit louder.
Still nothing.
I knocked again. “Courtney, please turn it down.”
The music stopped and I waited for a few seconds. Finally, the door opened.
“What?” she snapped.
“I was just asking you to turn the music down,” I said.
“Why?” she retorted. I sighed and closed my eyes briefly, trying to keep my cool.
“Because you’re not allowed to have it turned up that high.”
“It’s my room,” she glared. “And you’re not allowed to have your phone on when you’re at my games.”
She had a point. For a moment I considered giving up and going back downstairs, but I knew I had to be the parent.
“Courtney, I know that what I did was wrong. But I’m your father, and I’m asking you to keep the music quiet -- you don’t have to turn it off, just keep it at a reasonable volume.”
“What if I find the volume it’s at to be perfectly reasonable?” she said, looking smug.
“I’d like you to keep it to what I consider a reasonable volume. If you don’t do that, then I’ll have to take the stereo out of your room.”
“And I’ll just go and get it back once you go to work in the morning.”
I opened my mouth to start yelling when my phone vibrated in my back pocket. My hand automatically went for it, and then I stopped. Was it really worth seeing the hurt on my daughter’s face again? To prove to her that I considered my job to be more important than my parenting duties? I decided I’d just check the caller ID to make sure it wasn’t anyone important, and then I’d finish up with her.
Pulling my phone out, I saw the sass on her face change for a brief moment to one of anger before she composed herself again.
“You’d better get that,” she said sarcastically, slamming the door in my face before I could respond. I heard a lock click as I pressed ‘talk’.
“What?” I growled.
“I checked some of the suggestions given. I have a few that might interest you right here,” Denaro said.
I cleared my throat and counted to ten before replying. “Ok, let’s hear it.”
I walked downstairs to my office and sat at the desk, pulling out a legal tablet and a pen to write down the best ones.
“One woman suggested that you force it out of her --”
“Next,” I interrupted. “The last thing we need is to traumatize the child more.”
“Right,” Denaro continued. “Another says that we should try therapy for selective mutes.”
“We’ve already done that. Denaro, is that really the best you have?”
“Ok, how about sign language, or simply the written word?”
I paused for a moment, considering. Of course we’d already asked her to write a statement for us during the first few days of the investigation, but she’d refused. We’d actually never asked about sign language, but as far as I knew she wasn’t able to do it.
“I’m really not sure. I could send an email to her parents though,” I said, making a note to do so on my legal tablet.
“We could try enrolling her in a school for the Deaf,” Denaro suggested.
I shook my head “No, that would make her feel as though we think she’s handicapped, which she is not. I think I’ll look into the sign language, although it’s a pretty desperate attempt.
“Thanks for the help, Denaro. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
I hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair for a moment before rising and heading into the living room, where my laptop still sat. I picked it up and began a new message to Mrs. Richards.
On second thought, maybe I should just call her. That seemed like a quicker way to get this kind of information, and at this point, I didn’t want to spend hours pursuing something only to get a reply telling me that the girl could not in fact speak sign language.
Picking up my phone again, I momentarily remembered Courtney upstairs. The music wasn’t shaking the house anymore, so I decided to let this one go.
I speed-dialed the Richards’ home phone. It only rung once before someone answered.
I heard quiet breathing at the other end, but no one said a word. I assumed it was Sadie.
“Is your mother home?” I asked, pointlessly hoping for some kind of verbal response.
A moment later, Mrs. Richards came on the line.
“Hello?” she said tiredly.
“Mrs. Richards, this is Detective Ritzmuhad with the NYPD. I was calling in regards to your daughter.”
“Is there a break in the case?” she asked, hope rising in her voice.
“No,” I said, cringing as I did so. I could practically hear her deflating on the other end. “But we do have an idea that could help us in communicating with Sadie. Tell me, does she speak any other languages?”
There was a pause while she thought. “No, I don’t think so. Well, she takes French at school, but obviously she isn’t anything close to fluent.”
I nodded, something I had a habit of doing, even on the telephone. “What about sign language?”
Another pause. “Come to think of it, she took it up when she was eight or nine. Learned so much she was almost fluent. She used to always talk with her hands...” she trailed off.
I smiled, delighted. “Really? Well, Mrs. Richards, I’m hoping that we can find a way to use this to our advantage.”
“Is that all?” she asked, a bit sullenly.
“For now, yes. I’ll keep you posted, Mrs. Richards.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said quietly. “Good bye, Detective.”
I hung up, feeling a bit more depressed after talking to that woman. I supposed she couldn’t help being a complete downer in her current situation, but it did make it a bit more difficult to talk to her. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and returned to the matter at hand.
So the girl knew sign language, eh? That was an unexpected twist. I was surprised that no one had thought to try and use it earlier; it might have helped a bit more towards the beginning of this nightmare.
I pulled my laptop towards me and continued scavenging Google for help. After a few minutes of opening and closing one webpage after another, I was met with an inspirational statement:

Many children who suffer from Selective Mutism find it easier to confide in peers or children close in age.

I leaned back, lost in thought. They say that one small thing can lead to genius ideas, and before then, I had no idea what they meant. I had to act fast and smoothly, only letting a few key people in on my plan. But it was the only idea I had left, and I was determined to milk it dry.


xxxxxCourtney Ritzmuhahd
Having a detective for a father can go several ways, some good and some bad. Mine mostly went south, just like my mother.
The detective-side of my dad shows through in almost everything that he does. One of his main attributes is that he’s a control freak. If I stay out past curfew, he wants to know why, who I was with, where I was, how I lost track of the time, what time I left said location, who drove me home, and repeat. If I casually remark to him that someone at my school TP’ed my friend’s house, he wants to know who her ‘enemies’ are, the estimated time of the TP’ing, what each enemy was doing around said time, what brand the toilet paper appears to be, how quickly it must have been done, and, branching from that, how many people could have helped. And repeat. At home I’m not allowed to have my music turned up louder than he says because he needs to make sure he keeps a ‘controlled environment’.
I’m not saying I’m the only one with problems at home, and yeah, I know that I could be a starving child in Africa. But that doesn’t mean that I need to be grateful for everything I have. And at least those African kids have parents without cell phones... well, the ones who have parents, that is.
Honestly, if my dad were to die of AIDS, I know I’d be able to live on my own. I spend every other ‘family dinner’ on my own anyway. I know how to cook anything from crème brûlée to pancakes, whereas my father would be lucky to successfully make toast.

My alarm went off like it does every Monday morning, way too early and way too loud. But of course my dad placed it on the other side of the room, so I have to get up just to turn it off.
I was almost ready and brushing my teeth when he knocked on the door and just walked on in. I opened my mouth to say something but he cut me off, as usual.
“Why are you up?” he asked, a puzzled expression on his face.
I laughed sarcastically. “You might not remember this, but I attend this thing five days a week called school.”
He still looked confused for a moment before understanding replaced the ignorance on his face.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? You’re not going to school today.”
Excitement lit my features and faded just as fast as I became suspicious. “Why?”
Dad shuffled his feet and looked away, and I knew that I wasn’t going to like the next words out of his mouth.
“I’ve transferred you to Cortland High, starting tomorrow.”
I couldn’t help but drop my toothbrush. That was last thing I was expecting to hear.
“Um, why?” I said, my voice rising. Cortland was an extra half hour’s bus ride away, not to mention the inconvenience of changing halfway through the second quarter.
“I think it would be... better. For both of us. And the academics at Cortland are more advanced than your current school.”
“So does this mean we’re moving?” I said, almost shouted. I was just starting to establish my place in high school, and now I had to start from scratch again? If we moved, then I’d also be without my friends, which left me with virtually nothing.
Dad shook his head. “No. The bus will pick you up tomorrow at seven.”
I stared at him. “Seven o’clock in the morning?! You’re kidding me! You know what, it doesn’t matter if you are or not, because I refuse to go. I’ll call CPS. There’s no logical reason for you to...” I trailed off, hit with a sudden realization. “This is because of that case you’re working on, isn’t it? The one that you’ve been working on for three years?”
I didn’t know much about the case itself, but I knew the basics, such as the fact that he’d been on it for three years, and that it was surrounding some attack in Cortland.
He didn’t respond, and I took that as my confirmation.
“I can’t believe it -- you’ve hit a new low. A new selfish. Forget my happiness, as long as you keep getting paid.” I couldn’t believe how angry I was, but I had a valid reason. My dad was a very likely candidate for the ‘Worst Parent of the Year’ award. I wished there was someone there to vouch for me, but of course that never had been nor would it be in the foreseeable future, and so I was left to defend myself.
After he left, I simply laid back down in bed and glared at the wall. What else was I supposed to do? At that moment I truly hated him, and I was going to make him as miserable as possible.
I almost laugh thinking back to that day. Almost.

The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45, wishing I could just curl up and die. My usual process was still followed, step by step. I brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, chose and outfit, got dressed, washed my face, did my makeup and hair, then rushed downstairs in the remaining five minutes and grabbed a bagel for breakfast.
That morning, however, I was significantly earlier, and I found myself sitting outside on my front steps like some loser with nothing better to do. When a big yellow bus reading Cortland High School pulled up, I considered telling it that it was at the wrong house. Then again, my current location pretty much gave away the fact that I was waiting for a bus, and no other ones came around the neighborhood until 7:30.
Grudgingly, I got on and looked for a seat. The options by myself were limited. There were a lot of people sleeping in different rows, another guy laying across the very back row with his iPod in, two girls giggling in another row, a third leaning over the seat behind them, an unidentified playing games on his or her laptop, and then the empty two rows right behind the driver.
Getting the lay of the land, I finally spotted an empty row right across from the gigglers. I walked over and sat down by the window, putting my bag in the aisle seat. I was about to turn on my iPod when the giggles stopped and I heard a voice behind me.
“Hey, are you new?”
I whirled around, completely taken by surprise. I hadn’t expected anyone to be nice to me at this school. Now I felt guilty.
“Yes,” I nodded. Great, so now I sounded like a Brit from the 18th century.
They smiled anyway, and I forced a small one back.
“I’m Taylor,” the first said, sticking her hand across the other’s lap and smacking her gum. I shook hands with her as she introduced the others. “This is Becca and Claire.”
She didn’t give any indication as to who was who, but I wasn’t going to ask. I nodded in Becca and Claire’s direction before focusing back on Taylor, who was obviously the leader.
She had one of those voices that all the popular girls in the movies had and, well, I bet she was. Taylor had stick-straight, thick blonde hair that fell effortlessly into a soft waterfall over her shoulders and down her back, ending a few inches above her butt. Her makeup was obvious but not too obvious, completely symmetrical on her already flawless complexion. Her boobs were a nice C-cup -- not too big, but not too small, either, and they were portrayed nicely in her fitted powder blue eyelet blouse. She was thin but curvy, with her white skinny jeans showing that off. I couldn’t help but be envious as I compared her with my faded blue jeans and layered tank tops. My boobs were a decent size too, but I didn’t have them paired with those stunning eyes and hair. I ran my tongue over my braces and looked at her perfect smile.
“So, like, is this your first day?” Taylor said, leaning in and looking around as if we were sharing some deep, dark secret. I leaned in as well, but only so that I could hear better.
“Um, yeah,” I answered, not willing to offer more information unless it was bluntly requested.
“Did you just move in? You know there’s a school, like, a mile away, right?” she said, as if she wasn’t also riding this bus half an hour each way. I kind of wanted to point it out to her.
Instead, I shook my head in response to her first question. “No, I’ve lived here my whole life. I kind of went to that school up until... yesterday.”
The three of them exchanged a look, the kind I usually punched people for. I tried to keep a pokerface, though, considering it was my first day.
“Oh...” Taylor said, flipping that freaking hair. “It’s funny, we’ve never seen you around the neighborhood before... I live on Oak, by the way.”
The way she said it kind of made me want to rip out that perfect hair of hers. We, as if the three of them were some kind of unit that had the exact same thoughts and feelings at the exact same times. Then again, it was starting to look as if they were, and Taylor happened to be the mouthpiece. I was starting to wish I’d sat next to the driver.
Just when I was starting to think the conversation was over, the girl sitting next to Taylor, either Becca or Claire, piped up.
“Come to think of it, I think I have seen you somewhere before. Like, at the store, or something.”
If Taylor was pretty, this one was drop-dead gorgeous. Her brown hair was about the same shade as mine: light, but not enough to be called blonde, and falling a few inches past her shoulders. That alone wouldn’t have made her stand out, but paired with her tight ringlets and ocean blue eyes, it was killer. The hair was what mine could be if I ever figured out a way to banish the frizz and make it obey some kind of styling gel. This girl’s -- Becca or Claire, I really did need to find out -- was perfectly curled, with not a hair out of place. As for her attire, she was all decked out with customized Converse high-tops, tight-fitted dark-wash jean capris, a white Hollister T-shirt with silver lettering and a dark violet tank top sticking out underneath. Her forearms were covered in mismatched bracelets that made me wonder if she really took the time to put them all on every morning. Her eyes suggested that she was more submissive and quiet, but kind once you got to know her. Reading people was one of the few benefits that came from being raised by my dad.
Taylor looked at the girl next to her and nodded, as if reluctant to accept that she had her own voice. “Well, I guess I’m just unobservant then,” she said, shrugging. She smiled and reached across the aisle and the girl next to her, grabbing my hand. “So do you want to sit with us at lunch?” she asked, though her eyes made it seem more like a demand.
I half-wanted to wait until I’d been through all my classes to see what better options I had, if any, but I knew that saying ‘no’ now and then changing my mind later was probably not the best idea. So, I nodded. “Sure.”
Taylor squealed one of those annoying you’ve-totally-made-my-day-but-then-again-a-tarantula-could-do-the-same-thing kind of squeals, and I wished desperately that I could get off this bus right now. Leaning back in my seat, I got out my iPod and began to unwind the headphones, signaling that the conversation was over. It was going to be a long day.

its good, but not good enough to keep the reader wanting to read more.

My advice: advocate the mystery a bit better to draw the reader in and make them read more. Use descriptive words. Ask yourself questions like:

1) what does the character(s) look like?
2) what type of persona should each individual character have? (keep in mind that in order to have a certain persona, it is recommended to have a different character with the opposite persona)
3) how can I make this story exciting/different?
4) When will the 'villain' first make its appearance?

This is friendly advice, it is not recommended that you take it seriously. As a fellow writer, I am only trying to help out with constructive critiq. And, like I said, it is VERY good.
is this the first story you are writing?