#BUT WHO KNOWS MAYBE ILL FINALLY DRAW THE OTHER COVEN HEADS INSTEAD OF THE SAME TWO OVER AND OVER AGAIN 😭😭

[daughterthethird]

I AM STILL NOT OVER HOW GENUINELY AWESOME ALL OF THEIR NEW PUPPET DESIGNS ARE???? Ive said it once and ill say it again THE CREW MUST’VE BUSTED THEIR ASSES DESIGNING AND ANIMATING ALL OF THEM BECAUSE THEY ALL LOOK FAIRLY COMPLICATED + the fact that they are all animating the coven heads in the same scene no less

(Also, is it just me or are we gonna get a SECOND coven head fight scene!?!?!?! 👀)

[missingverse]

Missing Chapter Two

…..

Around the age of ten, when they had only started in the fifth grade, some sort of shift happened with Helga. It was something you wouldn't have noticed unless you were pretty close to her (or just very familiar with her, as Arnold was) and it was gradual, barely seen until one day you paid attention and realized she was a completely different person.

She started wearing her hair differently, ditching the pigtails and the head-eating bow for loose waves, a few strands tied back from her face with a more modest pink ribbon. She grew enough so that her eyebrows finally fit her face, and although they were no less bushy it was in around the time strong eyebrows were just becoming fashionable.

She tossed the spitballs and snide remarks and the all-round air of irritation with the rest of the world, and although she could still be sharp with the insults and quick with a fist mostly she treated everyone around her with a cool indifference. She could have easily become one of the cool girls (and indeed the cool girls at the time were desperate to get her to join their little coven) but she stuck with loyal, steadfast Phoebe. She joined Little League in the spring and quickly became their star player, easily forgiven for driving fast balls that sprained wrists for just how many games the team won with her at the helm.

Boys clamored for her attention, in and out of school. The boys on her baseball team, some of them sixth and seventh graders, jostled each other to walk her home. She got notes in her locker, slipped into her books, passed over at lunch. Arnold watched her open one of these notes once during lunch, watched as she rolled her eyes, tossed it into the garbage can and said something dismissive about it to a giggling Phoebe.

He missed her. He didn't think he would but he did.

He missed the spitballs and the insults and 'Football Head' and that way she used to glower at him with her eyes narrowed and those thick brows furrowed and the deadpan tone of her voice. She no longer spoke to or about him the same way she did, and she seemed to look through him instead of at him.

And then she disappeared, and he would have given anything to have her look through him again.

…..

She said she didn't need to sleep, but when she yawned for the third time he asked if he should set her up with a bed.

“I didn't sleep before,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I don't remember yawning much, either...”

“I dunno, maybe you're shifting or something?” he wondered. “Maybe it's different because I can see you.”

“Shifting? Why do you think that?”

“I read something online once, something about spirits taking on different forms for different purposes,” he shrugged. “Can't remember where I saw it though.”

“You think I'm here for some purpose?” she asked, stifling another yawn through her fingers.

“Well, yeah,” he answered. “Like, ghosts in the movies always come back because they have unfinished business...”

She hummed a bit dubiously, rubbing the carpet with her bare foot. The shoed one tapped on the leg of the chair.

“You have unfinished business,” he continued. “No-one knows what happened to you...”

“That no-one includes me,” she told him. “I have no idea what happened.”

“Yeah, and maybe you're meant to find out. Like, maybe you don't know anything now, but your memory could be jogged by something...we could find some clue the police missed.”

Now she looked a little more awake. She glanced at the flickering computer screen, where the details of her case were spread over ten different browser tabs.

“Where would we start?” she asked.

“The shoe,” Arnold blurted out before he could stop himself.

The shoe was that one detail that had caught him like a fishhook. Found in an irrigation ditch thirty miles from Hillwood, on partially deserted farmland. The nearest road was seven and a half miles away, and the land itself was fenced off and undisturbed. It was searched and partially dug up, looking for a body, but nothing was ever found except for that shoe. It was like it had been dropped from the sky.

And it was definitely Helga's shoe. Even if there had been a number of tween girls wearing these particular white sneakers with pink laces, even if her name written on it was a coincidence, the ghost sitting across from him wearing its twin left no room for doubt.

She yawned, again.

“The couch okay with you? It's pretty comfortable,” he said, going to his closet and dragging out the spare comforter and pillows.

“You....want me to sleep here?” she asked.

“None of the boarding rooms are free right now,” he said. “Or I'd clear one out for you, but I'd have to explain that to my Grandpa and....”

“I don't need a whole room,” she demurred. “Up until now I didn't even need a bed.”

“Then you've been awake for weeks, so you definitely need to rest.”

He laid out the pillows and comforter and left to change into his Pjs in the bathroom. When he came back in she was buried under the comforter, just a patch of blonde fuzz visible on the pillow.

“This is nice,” she said, muffled through the fabric. “Thanks.”

A spreading warmth trickled under Arnold's skin, looking at the girl-shaped lump of covers on the couch.

“No problem,” he said. “We can make a plan for the weekend after school tomorrow.”

…..

Helga was still asleep when he left for school. He checked on her, and she looked more solid and real than ever. She mumbled something in her sleep and he tucked her in before he jogged out the door.

It was hard to concentrate in class; he had made a catalogue of all the places he passed on his bike, and he tallied them over and over in his head.

Bob's old beeper shop. Would she have gone there after school? Why?

The street corner where the Jolly-Olly man stopped his truck. He was interviewed, said he didn't see her. But he sees so many kids, why was he so clear he hadn't seen her in particular?

The city library. Phoebe was there after school, Helga didn't go with her. Phoebe's phone was turned off because of the library rules. Helga might have tried to call her if she was in trouble.

The batting cages. Some of her teammates saw her there the day before. She went there a lot after school.

The corner store. Security cameras put her there between 4 and 5pm. She bought a soda and a bag of chips. She was alone.

That kid he sometimes talked to at lunch (Dan?Dave?)asked if he was feeling okay. He hadn't realized but he had been staring hard at his lunch without actually touching it for most of the lunch period.

“I'm fine,” he laughed weakly. “Didn't get much sleep last night, that's all.”

“You worried about the test?” Dan (or Dave?) asked.

“Little bit,” Arnold lied.

Who saw her that day?

She hadn't gotten on a train or bus, security cameras showed that much. She had her bike when she left the corner store, and then Andrew Lancie was caught trying to pawn it two towns over. The woods had been searched with dogs. Speed cameras on the outskirts of Hillwood hadn't picked her up on foot. If she left Hillwood, it would have had to have been in someone's car.

“Maybe you should go to the nurse's office,” Dave (or Dan?) said. “You're seriously spaced out.”

A throaty laugh from the edge of the cafeteria made him jump, and even before he turned around to watch he knew Harold was tormenting another freshman. Apparently he had cornered some poor skinny goth-ish kid and was setting fire to his homework. The cafeteria monitor was watching impassively, with no sign he was going to intervene.

Harold was never this bad before.

That wasn't quite true, was it? He had always been a bully....but his bullying had been a mildly understandable front for his insecurities regarding his weight, his slowness, his appearance. These days he was downright sadistic.

But if he thought about it (and sometimes he did) everyone was worse than they had been before. His former best friend was egocentric and careless with people's feelings. Phoebe was a crumpled shell of what she had been. Rhonda was even more self-absorbed and cruel to other girls. Sid was a creep, Stinky hardly even turned up at school any more. Eugene was constantly out of school with 'illnesses' that doctors couldn't find any evidence of.

Arnold had wondered from time to time if they would have been different if Helga hadn't gone missing. He knew Phoebe at least would be in a better place, but who was to say?

The effect it had on the class couldn't be denied. Before Helga vanished, kids had walked to school, hung out on street corners, let themselves into their homes while their parents were at work. After, parents picked up their kids or got someone they trusted to pick them up. They were called in from the street before the sun even began to set. There were no more latchkey kids, parents quit their jobs instead.

The class was numb for months, disbelieving that anything could have happened to Helga. Their teacher was shaky, prone to tears, and the grown-ups spoke in whispers. Playground rumors spread around were nasty, graphic and upsetting. They couldn't have come away from it all without being damaged in some way.

…..

As Arnold unlocked his bike, he spotted Phoebe shuffling out of the library door, shoving a stack of books into her backpack.

When did I last speak to her?

Helga's ghost had come to him, for some reason, and not her best friend. He felt bad for her, in an all new way.

“Phoebe!” he called.

She looked up, frowned, and hurried away. He rushed after her, his bike clattering against the pavement.

“Hang on,” he gasped as he caught up to her. “I just want to talk for a minute.”

“What do you want?” she snapped, not slowing, not looking at him.

“It's been a while,” he said. “I just want to know how you're doing.”

“I'm fine.”

No, you're not. Everyone can see that.

“I mean, really,” he said, drawing up alongside her to look at her face. “I know it's been hard. I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner...”

“Do what?” she said as she stopped suddenly, glaring at him.

“You know...” he shrugged, at a loss. He had been impulsive, hadn't expected to get this far. “Check in on you.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Furious red spots bloomed on her cheeks, a sharp contrast to her deathly pallor.

He shrugged again, suddenly embarrassed.

“I feel like Helga would have wanted me to keep an eye on you.”

She had been angry before, but as soon as the name left his mouth her fury could be felt radiating from Phoebe in waves. He took a step back; she looked like she wanted to hit him.

“You don't know what Helga would have wanted,” she hissed. “You didn't know her.”

She pushed past him so hard he nearly fell over. He let her go, watching her helplessly.

That could have gone better.

…..

“You feeling okay, Shortman?” his grandpa asked.

The nickname was ironic, now that he was a head taller than Phil. He smiled weakly, and stirred his potatoes into mush.

“Didn't get much sleep last night,” he lied for the second time that day.

“It's those chinchillas,” his grandma muttered. “Too noisy at night.”

No-one in the boarding house had chinchillas, of course, but Arnold nodded in agreement anyway.

“Hey Grandpa,” he began, pushing his plate away. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Remember when Helga Pataki went missing?”

Gertie got up from the table, shaking her head as she left the room. Phil pushed his own plate away, looking uncharacteristically grim.

“Hard to forget that kind of thing, Shortman,” he said quietly. “What about it?”

“What did people say about it? I mean, I read the reports and a bunch of stuff online....but what about you and the rest of the neighborhood?”

Phil leaned back in his chair and sighed.

“It was pretty obvious to us, Arnold,” he said. “Someone was watching her.”

He blinked. That was pretty unexpected.

“Why do you think that?” he asked. “I thought everyone thought her dad did it....”

“Big Bob was an asshole,” Phil said, and now Arnold knew he was in serious mode because he almost never swore. “But he didn't kill that little girl. He let her wander all over town on her own for years, though. Might as well have painted a great big target on her back.”

…..

Upstairs, Helga was waiting for him. She had made a little nest out of the pillows and comforter.

“I left the house today,” she told him, not even bothering with a greeting. “Made it as far as Stoop Kid's stoop.”

“That's great,” he said. “You think you'll be able to go further?”

“I think so,” she replied. “I feel like I can walk around as long as I have some connection to the house. I can see Stoop Kid's stoop from here so...”

She trailed off with a shrug. Arnold took out a notepad and brought up Hillwood on Google Maps.

“Right,” he said, uncapping a pen. “Tomorrow, we're going to start retracing your steps.”