Never There

It started with a crunch of leaves.

It always does. The girl with the long hair, wrapped warm against the coming winter, walking to clear her head, to get away from controlling parents or perhaps a disagreeable boyfriend, or simply on a long run in a new place; beautiful but unfamiliar. This girl is a stranger to her surroundings, unaware that she is about to be the start (and finish) of an arduous story with pleasant apprehension.

This girl was no stranger to the woods. In fact, she knew the path quite well. She had ventured into the beautiful surrounding brush in the past, but had removed enough ticks and spiders from her jeans that the wilderness was no longer so enticing. She was not a ranger, nor a farmer, nor a neighbor. She found the woods a nice place to be. It was quiet and slightly wild. One could theoretically get lost among the crisscross of trails but the old clay pit that ran along the edge of the forest provided good orientation for even the most hapless of wanderers. Besides, she knew where all the paths led by now.

She walked not to get away from the other world, but to inhabit this different one. The past two Halloweens, she had made a habit of walking through this forest, along the most gnarled and narrow paths, feeling like an excited child, as though about to catch some fairy or gnome hiding under a leaf, or behind a bush. As she spiraled into the…