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Dad and Riot had things to do. The boys had jobs, practices, errands, lives. Marion was at the flower shop.

Mom had me. She made coffee and sat with me on the back porch like this was something we did every Sunday morning now.

She’d brought home a handful of anemones from the shop the night before, the deep red ones that had opened too far to sell, and put them in a little glass vase between us.

Maybe it would become something we did every weekend.

I didn’t hate that.

I was still in running shorts, an old tank top and sneakers, dressed without much thought before coffee.

The air was already warm. I had one foot hooked beneath my chair, coffee balanced against my knee while Mom talked about something that had happened at the shop.

I was listening.

I think.

A sound came from somewhere beyond the yard.

Small. Nothing.

I looked toward the woods.

Mom kept talking.

I stood.

She stopped. “Hazel?”

Snap.

Static.

The world slipped sideways.

Run.

I was moving.

The coffee hit the porch behind me.

Mom shouted my name.

Grass. Pool. Fence.

The yard disappeared beneath my feet.

“Hazel!” My mom was screaming now, moving behind me.

I ran faster.

The tree line came at me. No. I came at it.

Fast. Too fast to stop.

Branches. Shadow. Dirt. I was inside.

I hated these woods. I knew that.