The station was quiet.
Willis burned. They should be dashing about the place, re-opening the case of the missing teenagers.
He walked up to the receptionist who was calmly, and typically, doing her nails.
"What's the deal with this jacket you found"
"And who are you, sir?" She asked, not looking away from her nails.
"I'm his brother. Dan's brother"
She paused before lifting her phone.
"Hi, Rick? Yeah, we've got a guy here saying he's one of the missing teenagers brother, should I send him down?...Ok...Ok...Ok...Sure"
She hung up.
"He wants you to identify it, go through that door there"
Willis did as he was told.
And there it was. In the small room, on the cold, metal table was Dan's jacket.
It was muddy and had faded but it was his alright.
A tall police officer, who Willis knew to be called Rick, greeted him.
"Willis, how've you been?" he asked.
"It's his," Willis gasped, "I know it's his, he always wore it. And he was wearing it on the day he went missing"
"That's good," the officer nodded.
There was an awkward pause.
"Well," Willis asked, "Are you going to re-open the case"
"We'll send a squad round the area to check it out but that's all"
"Why not more? They might be still alive"
"I hate to say it, but that's doubtful"
"But it's possible right? If he's still had his jacket all this time..."
"Willis, according to tests, this jacket has been there for almost three years. What is intruiging though is that the people who found it had seen it before"
"What do you mean?"
"It was found by three boys who'd just got out of high school. They were the same people who reported the mysterious faun sighting three years ago. And they said that the faun they saw was wearing it"
"Officer, wasn't that proved to be a hoax"
"No, it was never proved, it was only just assumed. But I beleive the two stories to be connected"
"So you're going to investigate it"
Rick sighed.
"No," he told Willis, "we closed it and it will stay closed for the timebeing."
Willis was exasperated.
"He was my brother!"
"He died, Willis, accept it! It's been three years for Gods sake!"
Willis said nothing, he just stared at the floor.
"Can I at least take his jacket?" Willis asked quietly.
"We don't need it, knock yourself out"
Willis stood slowly, grabbed the jacket and left.
For days, the jacket remained on Willis's kitchen table, spread out and untouched.
He didn't know what to do with it. But he couldn't just throw it away.
Perhaps he would just put it in Dan's old room. But what if his parents sold that house? What would happen to it?
No, he had to keep it. It's all he had of Dan.
But the jacket had re-awakened his loss. His work was slipping, and he was quickly fired from the diner.
For weeks Willis just stayed at home, sitting around in his underwear, not doing anything.
The jacket was haunting him. He was having dreams about Dan.
Memories of happy times.
Sometimes they were at family outings, like the zoo or at theme parks when they were very young, but usually it was in Dan's room, and the were just talking like they used to. But no matter where they were, they always ended in the same way.
Dan would vanish when Willis wasn't looking. Willis would run around the place, calling for him. But of course he never found Dan.
He was getting depressed, and many were worrying about him.
But it had been three years. Why hadn't he moved on? Everbody else had.
It was a Thursday when it happened.
Willis had woken up in the middle of the night after another nightmare.
He'd gone downstairs for a drink and saw the jacket there.
For some reason, the sight of it boiled something up inside him.
He punced and the jacket and began the shake it violently, as if it were a person.
"WHY DID YOU DIE? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME? YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE I COULD TALK TO!"
He threw the ragged thing across the room, collapsed on the floor and began to sob.
But wait, what was that?
Something had fallen out the pocket. A folded up peice of paper.
It gently floated down and landed between Willis's feet.
He picked it up and opened it.
Have you ever thought of transforming yourself or
others into a mythological or fantasy creature? Just
approach the person(s) you’d like to transform and
read the spell written below.
Below that was a complicated array of words and symbols. Willis had to read it twice to understand it.
Was this for real?
Suddenly, a thought hit Willis.
Was this something to do with the bizarre sightings of the faun three years ago? The ones suspiciouly at the same time Dan, Ian and Nick and vanished?
Was he on to something?
Was Dan alive after all?
"NO!" Willis scolded himself, "Don't hope. He's gone"
But what if he wasn't?
Willis stood up and re-read the incantation, committing it to memory.
What if he tried it out? What if it worked?
It wouldn't work! That was crazy!
But...what if it did.
Okay, he thought, let's try it out.