Something Bad Happened
One moody Monday in November, my neighbor Morgan Montgomery vanished. She was a barista at The Hideout, a coffee shop at the end of our block. It was a unique flower and ivy-covered cottage with seating inside and out. The aroma of roasted coffee would call to you from the street as you passed by. However, Morgan’s specialty wasn’t brewing coffee; it was brewing herbal tea. A very large, colorful apothecary lined the entire back wall of the shop. She had studied plant medicine for years and had a special relationship with herbs and their healing properties. People would come in with headaches, stomachaches, hangovers, stress, sleeplessness — and Morgan would blend them a variety of tea, and like magic, they felt as good as new. Nobody understood how it worked, but they knew it did, so they kept coming back for more. For that reason, almost everyone in our small town knew her, and we all felt the loss when she didn’t show up for work that day.
Morgan was 28, had long red hair and eyes blue like the ocean with a depth that could see into your soul. She was a free spirit with a joyful presence and a smile that was contagious. There were a few things in life she loved. Her many plants, the obscene number of books that she read that overflowed her apartment, the closet she turned into her very own apothecary of herbs, painting sunrises, and her rescue dog Sailor. Many people compared Morgan to the moon; she hid part of herself away. I knew she battled with bouts of depression. She was able to hide it well from most but I wiped away her tears many times. Some nights she paced the hallway. The creeks had woken on more than one occasion. She lived alone and never spoke of her family. Some years ago, she came to Missoula for college at the University of Montana and decided to stay. All was well until that Monday.
My apartment was below hers. That’s how we met initially. My name is Naomi Parker and I am 26. Morgan and I became close friends over the years. All my life I lived in Missoula. Around here everyone knows everyone and gossiping is a sport. That’s the thing about small towns, if you ever need anything everyone comes together but privacy is the price, we pay for that.
When Morgan vanished, it planted a seed of fear within me. Finding out who did this consumed me because I did not want to be next. The last time I saw her was Sunday early evening around 5oclock. She was walking Sailor and mentioned plans to meet an old friend for dinner. I smiled and waved as we parted ways, not knowing I would never see her again.
I awoke early that morning, around 2 AM, to a few loud thumps from above. There were a few screams but they ended abruptly and then blanketed silence. I wish I would have gotten up and checked on her. Nevertheless, I looked at the clock on my nightstand, rolled over, and fell back to sleep. I awoke that morning around eight, as usual. After showering, I left for work at the bank. On my way, I stopped at the coffee shop for my daily fix. I first learned of the concern; when Morgan had not shown up for her morning shift.
Just as you could be sure the sun was going to rise every morning; Morgan could be depended on to show up to work. She had never missed a day or even been late for that matter in over five years. So, at first, no one was thinking the worst, but I could see the worried look in her coworker’s eyes as I ordered my usual vanilla cappuccino. I offered to walk back and see if perhaps she had overslept. I paid for my drink and walked back down the familiar block.
When I reached her red door with mums on pedestals balancing on both sides, I knocked. There was nothing. I checked the handle, and the door was locked. I made my way to her parking spot to see if her white Ford Explorer was there. It was not. I scanned the entire lot, but it was nowhere in sight.
On my way to work, I stopped back at the shop to make sure Morgan had not shown up and reported back; she did not appear to be home. I relayed the dreaded information to her coworkers and with a heavy heart, I continued to the bank.
The rest of that day is a blur. When I got back to my apartment that night, a few police officers stopped by to take a missing person’s report for Morgan. Missoula being a small town, not much happens here. Some cities wait to file missing person reports but the officers here jump at the idea of some excitement. “Hi Naomi, was anything out of the ordinary yesterday?” the officer asked. “I did awaken around 2 AM to some loud noises above and some muffled screams but the thought of anything serious being wrong….” my heart began to race and my palms were sweating. “When was the last time you saw Morgan?” he asked. “It was around 5 when she was walking Sailor,” I replied. “You don’t think something bad happened to her, do you?” I asked. Warm salty tears begin to fall down my face as reality sets in. “We aren’t sure, ma’am, but we intend to find out. If you see or hear from Morgan or if there is anything else you remember please give us a call.” The officers didn’t seem to have any information, but the town buzzed the next day with the details of what they thought happened.
The story, as I heard it, was that the landlord opened the apartment so the officers could look around. There was no trace of Morgan or Sailor. Scattered on the floor, broken were a few herbs from the apothecary in her closet. Along with a trail of blood leading to the door. There was a full pot of brewed tea on the table with two dry cups. Clothes were thrown about in her room, and it appeared two large trunks were missing. Her toothbrush and shampoo were all in the bathroom. It did not seem like she left in a planned manner but maybe in a rush due to some unknown emergency. Perhaps she hurt herself and needed to go to the hospital? The search of her apartment provided more questions than answers.
On her job application, there was an emergency contact. The person listed was Bob Marshall. The police reached out to him. He lived in Seattle, where Morgan was from originally. He said they were childhood friends and had kept in touch over the years. He explained Morgans’ parents had died in a car accident when she was twelve. She had an older brother Mat who lived out in Colorado, but they were not very close. Her aunt raised her in Seattle. She went to community college there and transferred to the University of Montana and lived here ever since. He had visited here a few times over the years and found the town quirky with a hippie vibe, just like Morgan. She mentioned wanting to leave, having an eye on a cabin up in the mountains. The only other detail that stood out as she told him she felt like someone was watching her. He mentioned she kept a journal, using it to write down thoughts, and things she came across that captivated her. He said that if he heard from her, he would let them know.
I had met Bob a few times in the past and I wasn’t very fond of him. Morgan and I were close. She was casually dating a few guys in town but I could tell Bob liked her. I asked if they had dated or if there was something going on now but Morgan laughed it off. “Never! No Way!” she said emphatically. I guess she never saw the way he looked at her but I had and he gave me the chills.
The police wound up finding her journal. It was not until some time passed by, we learned the details of the content. Tucked in the very front flap was a crinkled-up ad for an off the grid cabin about an hour south of Glacier National Park. The officers followed up on the cabin, but it was still vacant. The realtor said there were many other towns and cabins like this all over Montana, and just because she did not buy this very one does not mean she did not wind up someplace else. Yet another dead end. It seemed Morgan had felt like someone was watching her. The suspicions were in her journal a few weeks before her disappearance. When she was sleeping, a light shined in her bedroom, weird phone calls with someone breathing, flowers sent from an anonymous sender, and someone had grabbed her from behind when she was walking home. That was the scariest of all. The man was wearing all black, around 5'10, had a deep voice and large ice-cold hands. He claimed she was the wrong girl and ran away into the pitch-black darkness of the night. The police took note of the description, but it was vague and could describe many of the men in town. I didn’t sleep well for months after hearing this. I had never known Morgan to be fearful. I wonder why she never told me about all this?
There was another journal entry I found intriguing from a few months prior, written in red ink — the exact date Morgan went missing. Circled and next to it read something bad will happen and the name Cassia. There was only one Cassia in Missoula and she coincidently was a fortune teller. Morgan was intrigued by the occult and would frequently go to Cassia to seek out guidance in her life. When I learned this, I knew I needed to talk to her myself.
When I stepped through the door to Cassia’s shop, it was like traveling back in time. It was very dark in there with a dim red light shining, and there was Cassia. She was wearing a turban sitting on a velvet couch with a large table in front of her. To the left was a large quartz crystal ball, and there were many colorful tarot cards strewed around. She motioned for me to come to sit. I did and asked, “What happened when Morgan came to see you? Why did she have the date circled that she vanished?” Cassia explained, “I read tarot for Morgan and November 18 kept coming up along with something bad happening to her that day. I can’t explain it but I know things. Morgan is gone for good.” “Did you go to the police?” I asked. “No of course not. They don’t believe me,” she replied. Cassia was adamant she didn’t know the specifics of what happened to Morgan. Did Cassia predict that something horrible would happen, or was Morgan told this information and willed it to be true?
The one and only time I met Morgan’s brother Mat was when he came to collect her things from her apartment. We spoke for a bit as he packed up and moved out what was left of my friends’ life here. Apparently, Mat had not spoken to Morgan in quite a few years. When their parents were killed in the accident, they left Morgan the sole beneficiary of the estate. He harbored resentment because Morgan had kept all of the money and hadn’t shared it with him. I wonder if he would inherit it now?
There were so many things that could have happened to Morgan but none of us could agree on what we thought happened to her. Eventually, it came out that Bob was in town when Morgan went missing. Alarm bells sounded in my head. The last time I saw her, she told me she was meeting an old friend for dinner. He said he did not mention it because they got into a heated argument that caused him to leave abruptly and drove straight back to Seattle. Bob claims Morgan was alive and well when he left. The police have looked into him but have not been able to find evidence that he killed her. I often wonder, did Morgan write those things in her journal, or did Bob? Did he do this as part of his plan to get away with murdering her?
Morgan had vanished, but the world didn’t stop. Nothing was different. Leaves still fell from the trees; people went to work, everyone’s lives carried on except she is not a part of it. Weeks turned into months and although Morgan is gone, her memory lives on in Missoula. The apothecary is now nothing but a framed picture on the wall. All the herbs were sold or given away. Morgan’s gift with herbs is not standard practice anywhere, especially in a small town in Montana. I still live in the apartment and visit The Hideout daily for my vanilla cappuccino. I hope Morgan is in the mountains. Not buried in one of her trunks like many people believe. Instead, living off the grid in a cabin with Sailor, painting sunrises, reading books, and healing all those around her.
