September, 1999

Amy, honey, I still don't know where you are, so I'm going to write you this letter to tell you everything that's happened. Everything I feel. Everything.

Everything? I still don't even remember it clearly, so how can I tell you what I don't know?

I think--there was that murder, those two children. I looked at their pictures in the paper, and all I could think of was that it could have been you dead in that park. I truly believe it would have been you if your mother hadn't disappeard like she did.

Then Joyce Summers started that organization of hers, MOO. Well, maybe it was Mothers Against the Occult, or whatever it was actually called, but since your mother never was very much against the occult, I thought it was up to your father to safeguard you from this "pit of hell," as your mother called it (and she would know.) That's what fathers are supposed to do, after all; protect their children. It all got very hazy after that. I remember going to a meeting with Mr. Giles--the librarian who was so much help on Parent/Teacher Night last year. He had some disturbing books, and Joyce--and MOO--was concerned. Then I think we talked about disciplining you, and a group of us went home to talk to you.

The principal had found things in your locker, Amy, and called me. They found herbs, and books like your mother would have read. I was worried, honey, and scared for you.

Catherine wasn't a very nice person. Something had twisted her, made her bitter. I think that she always thought she was entitled to more, though what more she could have wanted, I never could have imagined. I was content--I had love, and you, and that was all I needed. I didn't want to see you end up like her.

I just never expected that you would run away.

Amy, please come home. I miss you. It can't be that bad. Whatever it is, whatever the problem, we can work them out. I know we can.

Prom has passed. Willow Rosenberg told me about it when I saw her at the grocery store one day. It was lovely, she said, and she'd just gotten her pictures back, so she showed them to me. She had on a beautiful dress. She would have liked you to have seen it, she told me. You'd always urged her to wear something like it. You planned on going dress shopping with her and Buffy Summers, she said.

You're her second oldest friend, you know. She tells me you're okay, and I can see she believes it, but I can also see she worries too. Then she makes obscure references to cheese. I don't understand it, but her mother *does* say that Willow does odd things when she copes.

I *am*, though, thankful you missed the travesty that was graduation. It was a horrible massacre, and the entire school was destroyed. I have your diploma, though. Your grades were good, and the school decided to award it--not, they hoped, posthumously, though Principal Snyder wasn't happy about giving it to me. I have it framed in your bedroom now. It's waiting for you.

School will be starting soon. You're supposed to be a freshman. The school--I think they'll still let you in. They know you're missing, and, this being Sunnydale, they'll make exceptions to the normal rules if you come back. They *do* understand what it's like in this town.

Please, Amy. I just want my little girl back.

-end-

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