The night before my best friend, 16, vanished, she handed me $5 and said, “I owe you money. Take this bill!” It felt random, but I put it in my jar without looking twice. 3 weeks later, I suddenly remembered and opened the jar. I looked closely at the bill and froze: there was a small line of handwriting tucked into the white border near the portrait—so faint it looked like part of the texture. It wasn’t her usual bubbly script, but I recognized the way she wrote certain letters, sharp and hurried when she was anxious. The message was only three words: “Find the oak.” My breath caught. There was only one oak she ever talked about—the old tree behind the abandoned observatory where we used to sit during summer, watching bats flicker across the twilight sky. It was our secret spot. She hadn’t mentioned it in months, not since her parents’ arguing grew worse and she started withdrawing from everyone. Why would she hide a message in money? And why give it to me the night she vanished?

The next afternoon I biked to the observatory, the bill tucked safely in my pocket. The building looked even more weathered than before, its dome rusted like a forgotten relic. The oak stood tall beside it, branches stretched out like tired arms. At first, I saw nothing unusual. But when I circled the trunk, I noticed a strip of bark that looked cleaner than the rest—as if it had been peeled back recently. I pressed my fingers along the edge, and the bark shifted, revealing a shallow hollow someone had carved. Inside was a folded scrap of notebook paper, the corner torn jaggedly like it had been ripped out in a hurry. My hands trembled as I opened it. Her handwriting filled the page this time—messier, frantic. She wrote that she hadn’t run away. She’d overheard something she wasn’t supposed to, something involving someone she trusted, and she feared for her safety. She didn’t want to disappear, but she had to hide until she knew what to do.

I felt an ache in my chest—fear, relief, confusion tangled together. She ended the message with instructions: “If you find this, don’t tell anyone yet. Come back at sunset on the first clear day.” My mind raced. That was tomorrow. I barely slept that night, imagining every possibility—maybe she was safe, maybe she needed help, maybe she regretted trusting me. Maybe the danger she mentioned was real. When the next evening came, the sky glowed amber, cloudless and calm, as though nature itself had aligned for her signal. I returned to the oak, heart thudding. For a moment, I thought I had imagined everything. Then a faint whistle drifted from behind the observatory—our childhood signal, the one we used when playing hide-and-seek.

She stepped out from the shadows, thinner, tired, but alive. Tears blurred my vision as she whispered, “I knew you’d find the message.” I wrapped her in a trembling hug. She finally explained everything—how she’d witnessed something suspicious in her own home, how she hadn’t known whom to trust, how she’d left clues only I would understand. We sat beneath the oak as the first stars brightened, planning what to do next—together. The bill, the message, the hidden note—they weren’t just clues. They were her way of reaching out for hope, and I was determined not to let her face the darkness alone.