Welcome to Fair River, Maine


Welcome to Fair River, Maine: population 353.  Well, 351 now.  If you're driving down the lone paved road, Fair River seems as quaint as any other small Maine town, but there's something different here.  You can feel it as you near the edge of the woods that surround the town.  The atmosphere seems heavier, the shadows longer.  The air is colder there, cool enough to raise goosebumps on your arms no matter the season.  I suppose every town has its place where you never feel quite right, but like I said, it's different here.  You'll see.

I'd like you to meet Willow Howard, a local college student, aspiring model, and Fair River's most well known resident, at least according the number of followers she has on Instagram.  If you've been keeping up with the local news, you might've seen pictures of her and her boyfriend Collin Phillips a couple of weeks back after they up and went missing one night.

The sheriff says maybe Willow ran off with Collin and got married.  Her parents never much cared for him.  Or maybe she went to NYC to make it big as a model.  Those explanations don't sit too well with folks, though.  Collin's car is still sitting in the driveway where he left it, and as best as anyone can tell, they didn't take so much as a suitcase of clothes with them.

It wasn't until this afternoon that anyone had a shred of evidence regarding what happened to Willow and Collin.  There was talk of the woods, of course, as there is each time someone goes missing, but nothing more than a quick "you know," followed by a furtive glance at the treeline, or whisperings of some fairy story from childhood.  But there was nothing to connect Willow and Collin's disappearance to the woods.

The evidence that did turn up is merely a shred, but it is perhaps the most to come out of any of the vanishings that have taken place over the past decade.  Grace Porter stumbled upon Collin's camera as she was walking through the gardens that the town maintains.  She hasn't turned it over to the sheriff yet and she's not sure if she will.  She doesn't think he'll do anything to find Willow and he might even make the camera and its pictures disappear.  She copied the pictures to her computer and she's thinking about writing a blog post, but she's not sure how to get the word out without revealing her identity.  She doesn't want to stir up trouble, but sometimes we have to take risks if we want truth and justice to prevail.

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