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Gillian Lennox didn’t h Mad because she had missed her ride home from school, and because she was

cold, and because it eeks before Christmas and she was very, very lonely

She walked by the side of the e and hilly as every other country

road in south-western Pennsylvania, and viciously kicked offending clumps of snow out of her way

It was a rotten day The sky was dull and the snow looked tired And A after Gillian cleaned up her studio art project, had already driven aith her new boyfriend

Sure, it must have been an honest mistake And she wasn’t jealous of Ao they had both been sixteen and never been kissed

Gillian just wanted to get ho

She stopped, looked around It sounded like a baby-orfroht was, Paula Belizer But that was ridiculous The little girl who’d disappeared

soone for over a year now

The crying ca from the depths of the woods This

time it sounded more human

"Hello? Hey, is somebody in there?"

There was no answer Gillian stared into the dense stand of oak and hickory, trying to see between the

gnarled bare trees It looked uninviting Scary

Then she looked up and down the road Nobody Hardly surprising-notin there alone, Gillian thought She was exactly the opposite of the "Oh, it’s such a nice

day; let’s go trah the woods" type Not to mention exactly the opposite of the brave type

But who else was there? And what else was there to do?

Soh her backpack strap, settling it on the center of her back and leaving her

hands free Then she cautiously began to clie that fell away on the other side to

the woods

"Hello?" She felt stupid shouting and not getting any answer "Hi! Hello!"

Only the crying sound, faint but continuous, soan to flounder down the ridge She didn’t weigh much, but the crust on the snoas very thin

and every step took her ankle deep

Great, and I’ into her feet

The snoasn’t so deep once she got into the woods It hite and unbroken beneath the

trees-and it gave her an eerie sense of isolation As if she were in the wilderness

And it was so quiet The farther Gillian went in, the deeper the silence beca

Bear left, she told herself Keep walking There’s nothing to be scared of!

But she couldn’tweird about this place

Deeper and deeper into the woods The road was far behind her now She crossed fox tracks and bird