Christmas Spirit

Beth. Disappeared when she was 16, braces still on, smile still crooked.

Disappeared on the 24th of December, 11:20 pm.  

The police searched the oily sea, the seething fields, the snaking roads. To no avail.

Every year, on 24th December, we hunt for a new clue. Each clue takes us a little closer to understanding what happened that night. And why. This is our Christmas game, and these are its rules: 

Rule 1: Gather the Suspects

The policeman, why does he go to your old house, and decorate your Christmas tree every year, Beth? Your sisters and brothers (sly smiles and hollow tears), a Christmas prank gone wrong, maybe, they shoved you down a chimney and you never ever came back up? 

Why were your shoes- red, white, green, with a mistletoe design- found by the warehouses? The stranger at the candy shop, why did he give you that candy cane? Why did you smash it with a hammer, little sugary pieces under your bed discovered by a line of investigative ants? 

We found Beth’s toy reindeer last year, it turned up on the beach. Every child has one, but hers was recognisable because she ripped out the eyes, just before she disappeared. (Why would you do that, Beth? Were you going insane?) The clues are light, teasing nudges, like breeze ruffling at the edges of our consciousness. As if the town does not want us to forget you.

Or maybe I am being overly paranoid, blaming a town when the fault could lie with one twisted individual. Like a struggling, twenty-year-old author (that’s me, by the way), craving excitement and adventure, feeling an electric thrill with every clue she hides and then pretends to find?  

Which brings us to Rule 2. 

Rule 2: Find the new clue.

We start behind the warehouses lining the beachfront, dank and dark. Christmas music, faint, attempts to cut through the pernicious waft of things in stagnation. Dead things. (It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas). Decomposing things. (Toys in every store). Sleeping things? (On your own front door).

All sleeping things wake up eventually. 

Beth’s family found disturbing things in Beth’s room. Pictures of smiling children lining the walls. Children that nobody- not even the police and their omnipotent computers- recognised. 

Past the candy shop, luminescent and enticing. Gingerbread and Jujubes. The stranger in the candy shop, where did he go? How did he disappear without a trace? 

Beth’s family found a diary, in which Beth had written her own address. Over five hundred times. 

Down, on the beach. Shadow-saturated sand. A girl, barefoot, walks towards the chilly, shuddering waves. Her shirt: red, white, and green, emblazoned with the words “Christmas spirit.” She walks into the water and does not come back out for air. 

Beth’s family found a fishing net in her room, under her bed. 

Past the school. Small and narrow. Christmas decorations hide the nail marks on the walls, scratching, scratching, begging for air. 

Beth (who never submitted homework late) started skipping school the month before she disappeared. Was she avoiding someone? (Or something?) 

I stumble across other people trying to find this year’s clue, Beth. We shout your name, voices hoarse. We scratch at the ground, pulling out pavement slabs with our fingernails, now bloody (red is a Christmas color after all). We claw at basement doors to reach the corners that people see and then forget, and then see again but never recognise, not until, half awake from a 3 am nightmare, they realize that the corners are not dissimilar from those found in their parents’ bedrooms. 

I find it this time. It’s taped to the underside of the bridge, a note small enough to fit into a candy cane, smelling faintly of sugar (or is that just my hopeful imagination?). The note simply says “Stay away from the beach.”

There is no sudden click, no final jigsaw puzzle piece that falls into place. Instead, a slow surge of golden realization and bruised purple horror, my hands shake as I check my notes and formulate a theory. 

Rule 3: Formulate a Theory

Here’s my theory:

You saw something. You saw a girl go into the sea and never come out. (Was she wearing a t-shirt with “Christmas spirit” written on it?)

You told the policeman, who dismissed your concerns with condescending amusement. But you wouldn’t let it go. 

People tried to warn you to keep your mouth shut, to stop investigating: the man at the candy shop smuggled the note (“Stay away from the beach.”) inside the candy cane. And ripped the eyes from your reindeer. 

But you didn’t listen. The next time you saw a girl- or maybe boy- walking towards the water, you left your shoes near the warehouses, where they wouldn’t get wet, and you followed the girl into the water.  And then, you disappeared.

But you had taken precautions. The fishing net, the diary with your address on it. You were prepared. Somehow, you were determined that you would find your way back home.

The policeman never mentioned your suspicions, your fearful stories of the girl by the sea. Did he feel guilty for not taking you seriously? Or was he an accomplice in this nefarious plot? Does he decorate your Christmas tree out of remorse, or triumphant glee? 

The town, Beth, the girl at the beach. Questions that congeal like dried blood on fingernails. (It is hard to remove dried blood from fingernails). 

Here is one thing that I am sure of, though. 

It is you who leave the clues, year after year, Beth. You’re somewhere. Hiding. I don’t know if you’re safe, or healthy, or even alive. But I know that you are waiting and watching, biding your time. 

Of course, it’s just a theory. It’s just a Christmas game. 25th December, and the town unwraps Christmas presents and frolics in domestic bliss. 25th December, and the town trots onwards, like a one horse open sleigh. 25th December, and the town seems to forget.

But I remember, Beth. And I see you.