Found

The freshly fallen snow acted as a muffler to the night time nature of the local park. The crisp crunch of the frozen liquid was still and masked, sharp and dull at the same time, under her boot. Karen Morales was lost in thought. Her sister went missing just three days ago, mere minutes before her wedding. No one knew where she went. She wasn't in her suite, or anywhere. She was at no bar, or even at their mother's home. She was just...gone.

Her groom, a mousy, squirrel-like man, whose name she already forgot, was seeking comfort from one of the ceremony's bridesmaids. Karen's keen eyes knew that the secret tryst between the groom and the chosen bridesmaid Mary, is what caused her sister to disappear. She just had to prove it. But first...where is her sister? Where is the sweet and beautiful bride?

The muffling silence started to grow far too loud for this hour. As weird as that sounded in her head, it was an accurate description. Not a living thing was around at this time of night. She wrapped her coat tighter to her frame, fighting the perverted cold that wanted to rustle her clothes from her body. Maybe she should have changed out of her bridesmaid dress and into decent pants.

Faintly, Karen heard something land softly in the barren trees, so quiet, it might have been just a stray thought. Looking up, she paled as she saw the golden, moon-like face of a common barn owl. Owls were omens, and rarely ever good ones.

The deep black eyes kept a steady gaze into her pale green ones. Neither owl nor woman moved. Neither seemed to breathe as they focused on one another. More snow then began to fall in fat, dry flakes. As the fluffy whiteness encased both their heads like mourning veils, a shiver shot through Karen as the owl turned its head towards a secluded pond in the park. It knew something. This night raptor was an omen. When it turned back to face her, the owl shivered off the cloak of snow, still gazing at Karen, like it was apologizing.

Then silently, like a star's eternally silent shadow, the owl took flight and vanished into the small flurry of snow, its wing making not even a whisper into the blackness.

Karen glanced over to the spot the owl all but pointed to. Her boots crunched the snow under her feet as trepidation slithered up her spine. The fingers of skeletal trees tried to cling to her hair, pulling and ensnaring holly colored strands like cheap tinsel.

The pond appeared to be so pristine, untouched as it seemed, like a picture in a book of fairy tales. But there was something amiss around the pond. It looked like a cheap flyer someone made from their home computer. She took a few more steps towards the paper as it sat on a black bench by the water. It was weighed down by her sister's engagement ring. She picked it up, pocketed the ring to return to her sibling, and gazed down at the paper flyer.

Karen paled. It was the groom and Mary in a passionate embrace that told no lies. Both man and woman were bare as Adam and Eve; there were no secrets, no rebuttals the groom would have tried to hide behind. Karen snarled to herself. She was right; the groom was flaky, a sham of a man that had never deserved the bride's wonderous and loyal attention.

Glancing down at what rested under the paper, sat her sister's now snow ruined wedding slippers. There were days-old footprints going towards the pond. Kneeling, Karen brushed away the snow from the newly formed ice. She bit back a wail of despair.

She floated like a sleeping angel, her skin a pale blue and iced from the water. Her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around herself. She was still in her wedding gown, the lace floating around her body like the broken wings of a fallen angel. It was obvious that she drowned herself. Karen no longer fought her sorrow, her grief. She threw back her head and screamed for her broken-hearted sister.

And far away, the owl let out an answering shriek.