The Mystery of the Missing Winslows

“Hey, Lucy!” A voice yelled my name from somewhere upstairs. My fingers slipped as I scrambled to regain my footing on the tree. I finally reached a good branch, high in the yellowing leaves, far from the ground that was covered in dead leaves that had already fallen. I was hiding from my brothers. Again.

I sighed to myself. “I know you’re up there.” My sister’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I slipped and struggled to catch myself. “Why do you still think that this is a good hiding spot? They find you every time,” Luna asked me, swinging herself up onto the branch beside me.

“You hide in the same spot every time as well,” I retorted, my voice a bit louder than I had meant. Our twin younger brothers, Luke and Luca, poked their heads out of a window.

“We found you!” They yelled together. Luna and I groaned at the same time and slid down the side of the tree.

“Not again,” I groaned as my feet hit the ground with a blaring thump. My fingers shook slightly after we started to walk away. I looked at them and their identical smirks of triumph. My brothers felt great pride in their searching skills. They could find anything, from buried treasure to a lost match to a sock, and were never known to get lost.

Luna and I, as well as my annoying younger brothers, were now pestering about our dreadful hiding spots. Soon, we climbed down the vast branches, one branch at a time, and soon our feet had reached the bristly, yet also cushiony ground once again.

“What do you want to do now?” my brother Luca asked, gazing at me with a curious blue-eyed gaze that seemed to seep through my soul as if it were air. I pondered it for a moment, unsure of what to do.

“We could keep playing hide-and-seek,” Luna suggested, looking around at us as if asking us if we wanted to.

“Sure,” I agreed, “boys, go count.” At my words, my little brothers both grinned and ran off, presumably to go and count. Then, we were at it again. I hid in the tree again, despite Luna’s glare as she ran off. I sat on my branch, carefully weaving together some leaves as I waited, knowing that the boys would find me at any time.

What I did not expect, though, was for Luca to yell, “Lucy! Luna! Come here!”

Confuzzled, I peered through the branches and saw the boys standing over a gaping hole in the ground.

“We already know where you are,” Luke called, not even glancing over his shoulder. I snorted as I slid down the side of the tree, seeing Luna crawling out from under the gleaming back steps. We hurried over to the twins and looked down into the gaping, shadowy hole to see what the big deal was.

“What is that?” Luna asked, staring at the metal tube that was at the bottom of the hole, with a look of puzzlement and confusion swirling in her pale-green eyes.

“I don’t know,” I muttered quietly, half to myself, my brow furrowing as I racked my mind for anything it could be.

“Should we open it?” Luca asked, kneeling beside the hole.

Luke nodded excitedly and motioned for himself to sit next to his brother. “Let’s do it!”

Luca’s face blossomed with glee as he reached into the hole and pulled out the musky, silver tube. He was practically vibrating with excitement as he carefully worked the lid off. As we all leaned in to take a peek at what we had found, a vast cloud of aged dust and grime caked our faces, resulting in a five-minute coughing fit between the four of us.

“Ugh!” I cried, my throat feeling as if it were coated in two bulky layers of sandpaper. Taking a deep gulp, my throat began to feel less scratchy, and the four of us got back to work on this investigation.

Peering into the rusty aluminum tube, I saw many jumbled objects. Inside the tube lay two old textbooks with stained pieces of paper sticking out from each side, as well as a small, tattered, leather photobook titled Winslow Family Album. Luna reached in and pulled it out. She flipped through the dusty pages, glancing quickly at each of them. When she reached the last page, she stopped, took a deep breath of unease, and began to read.

“To whomever finds this,

It is 1993, and our family, the Winslow family, is going to fake our deaths. We are moving away to the countryside, fifty-eight miles away. Come find us when you can. Sincerely, Eliza, Peter, Gracelyn, and Maeve,” Luna read slowly. When she finished, she looked up at us.

“Should we tell Mom and Dad?” I asked, meeting her green-eyed gaze.

“Yeah. We need to go find the Winslows!” Luca agreed, thrusting a small hand into the air as he ran full tilt towards the house. Luke was right at his heels. Within minutes, the boys were back with our parents.

“You found a time capsule?” Mom asked, adjusting her brown rimmed glasses and peering into the tube.

“And it is from a family that disappeared twenty years ago?” Dad asked, looking around at the four of us.

I nodded, saying, “The Winslows.” Mom looked up and stared at me intensely through her wood-colored frames.

“Are you sure it was the Winslows?” she asked, her brown eyes sharp.

“Yeah,” Luna answered, “that’s what the note said.” Mom looked stricken.

“Why do you ask?” I asked her, curiously.

“When I was a teenager, I used to babysit Gracelyn and Maeve. That was, before they mysteriously disappeared,” she told us, still looking stricken.

“What happened?” Luca asked, his eyes bright with curiosity and excitement. It wasn’t every day you found a time capsule from someone your mom used to babysit.

“After two years, they closed the case. The whole family was deemed dead. We haven’t heard from or seen any trace of them since,” Mom told us, looking confused, her usually fair skin turning a ghastly pale color with each minute that went by.

“Well,” Luke said slowly, pondering over his choice of words. “The time capsule was left twenty years ago. Maybe they left it before they disappeared.”

“Should we try to find them?” Luna asked, her green eyes shining with excitement. “It tells us to go find them, and where to find them.”

“Alright,” I agreed, with an adventurous flair coursing through my veins. The twins nodded, and then all four of us looked expectantly at our parents. They exchanged glances, and then Dad sighed.

“Okay, fine. We can go looking for them,” he said, smiling and shaking his head slightly as we all cheered. We pranced to the car and clamored in. Once all of us were ready, we drove off toward the countryside, and about an hour passed before we arrived. There was a small house about a half mile from the road.

“Should we walk?” Luca asked.

“Yeah!” Luke exclaimed, and he took off toward the house. Luna and I snorted, shaking our heads at our brother’s usual predicament, and then followed the boys toward the little house along the road. Five minutes later, we were all at the front door.

Dad glanced around at all of us before ringing the doorbell. The door opened, and there stood a smiling woman with dark hazel eyes gleaming with a loving glow, and streaks of salt-and-pepper hair crawling down her hairline. She looked to be about fifty years old. “Hello, my dears,” she said warmly,

“Please, do come in. You will catch your death from the cold out there.” She shepherded us into the house.

“Mrs. Winslow?” Mom asked, staring at the woman, flabbergasted.

“Ah, Lulu, I wondered if you would recognize me. It has been twenty years, after all,” the woman, whom I now knew was Mrs. Winslow, smiled. A man of about the same age, along with two young women, came into the room. “Oh, Peter, look who has discovered the time capsule!” Mrs. Winslow exclaimed, gesturing to Mom.

“Lulu,” Mr. Winslow said warmly,“Welcome. I assume you remember Gracelyn and Maeve?”

“Oh yes, Mr. Winslow, I have never forgotten,” Mom said, smiling.

“Lulu?” one of the young women asked, stepping closer, “Is that really you?”

“Yes, Maeve,” Mom laughed slightly, “it is me.” The other woman grinned.

“I see you have children of your own now, Lulu,” she smiled widely, appearing as if a younger version of her mother.

“You see correctly, Gracelyn. My daughters are twins, twelve-year-olds Lucy and Luna, and the boys are also twins, eight-year-olds Luke and Luca.” Mom introduced us. Each of us waved as our name was said.

“So,” Mrs. Winslow said, changing the topic. “How did you come to find the time capsule?”

“We were playing,” Luca told her.

“Hide and seek,” Luke continued, appearing next to his brother.

“In the backyard, by the big tree,” Luna added, taking a step next to Luke.

“The boys found a hole with the time capsule in it,” I finished, smiling slightly as the words left my mouth.

Mr. Winslow smiled as he spoke. “So you’ve found the truth then. The truth of what really happened to us. Not the story that was in the paper for months. The real truth. We did not disappear forever. We disappeared to save our daughters from the dangers that never

happened. The war that we feared many years before, but still feared then.”

“The Cold War?” Luna asked, her brow furrowed slightly.

“Yes. The Cold War, which never became a real war. The one that we feared even after it ended,” Mrs. Winslow said softly, her smile slight but true.

“So, that was it?” Mom asked, seeming confused. “That was all there was to your disappearance? You were thought dead for twenty years, and you were afraid of the Cold War that ended two years before your disappearance?”

“Yes. That was all there was to it,” Mr. Winslow said quietly. And that was that. Who knew that hide-and-seek could solve a mystery of four missing people? Who would have thought? Well, I guess that’s that. The Mystery of the Missing Winslows had been solved by four kids playing hide-and-seek in their backyard. What more could you ask for in an ending such as this?