Gillian Lennox didn't mean to die that day.
She was mad, though. Mad because she had missed her ride home from school, and because she was
cold, and because it was two weeks before Christmas and she was very, very lonely.
She walked by the side of the empty road, which was about as winding 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 Amy Nowick, who should have
been waiting after Gillian cleaned up her studio art project, had already driven away-with her new boyfriend.
Sure, it must have been an honest mistake. And she wasn't jealous of Amy, she wasn't, even though one
week ago they had both been sixteen and never been kissed.
Gillian just wanted to get home.
That was when she heard the crying.
She stopped, looked around. It sounded like a baby-or maybe a cat. It seemed to be coming from the woods.
Her first thought was, Paula Belizer. But that was ridiculous. The little girl who'd disappeared
somewhere at the end of this road had been gone for over a year now.
The crying came again. It was thin and far away-as if it were coming 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-not many cars passed by here.
I am not going in there alone, Gillian thought. She was exactly the opposite of the "Oh, it's such a nice
day; let's go tramping through 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?
Somebody was in trouble.
She slipped her left arm through her backpack strap, settling it on the center of her back and leaving her
hands free. Then she cautiously began to climb the snow-covered ridge 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, somewhere in front of her.
Gillian began to flounder down the ridge. She didn't weigh much, but the crust on the snow was very thin
and every step took her ankle deep.
Great, and I'm wearing sneakers. She could feel cold seeping into her feet.
The snow wasn't so deep once she got into the woods. It was white 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 became. She had to stop and not
breathe to hear the crying.
Bear left, she told herself. Keep walking. There's nothing to be scared of!
But she couldn't make herself yell again.