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“The young girl was last seen sitting on the park bench on the outskirts of town. You know, that one where the bus to Portland makes its first pick up on its journey?”

“Yes. Seen by our resident travelling salesman n his way out of town. I know. He even said he waved to her as he drove past and that she smiled at him, but he thought she was crying. Crying and laughing at the same time he said. It was very odd he said. Thought she must have broken up with her boyfriend or something. But there is no record of her on the bus, or of reaching Portland, or any other towns along the way.”

“That’s true. Nor a sense that she would have wanted to leave town. She was happy by all accounts, nearing the end of her school days, hopeful of a bright future and still very much with her boyfriend.”

“Indeed I read somewhere that she was top of her classes, and her college applications were already progressed. And yet, there she was. We are sure of that at least, even though the rest is as yet unknown.”

“That park bench is a place where many seem to disappear from. This is the third case in as many years. We haven’t solved any of them, or found the children lost.”

“You know what the townsfolk say about that.”

“I’m not a man for idle superstition. Or a science fiction buff either. This talk of portals and crossing over to other realms leaves me cold. Yet something drew them there, and now she is gone, just like the others. There must be a more pragmatic solution to the mystery.”

“My money is still on our old friend Geoff M. We never should have allowed him to stay here after he got out of prison.”

“No, not given what he was in there for! And now young teenagers missing, one a year, since he was free. Not that we have anything on him, and not that we can work out how he might have got them to be at that park bench, each and every one, just before they disappeared.”

“Lured by the internet?”

“No records we can find. On his computer or on theirs.”

“Still, I think it was him. What else could it be?”

“But he has alibis, each and every time it seems. Still, it must be that, it must be him, or someone like him we don’t know about yet. What else could it be?”

“Only portals to other dimensions, as the townsfolk say. But who could ever really believe in that?”

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016