Lightning

grabbed the trunk of a tree to avoid a bad fall, regained her balance, looked up—and discovered that the man had vanished.
    The grove was comprised of perhaps a hundred trees. The branches were densely interlaced, allowing sunlight through only in thin golden threads, as if the fabric of the sky had begun unraveling into the woods. She hurried forward, squinting at the darkness. Half a dozen times she thought she saw him, but it was always phantom movement, a trick of light or of her own mind. When a breeze sprang up, she was certain she heard his furtive footsteps in the masking rustle of the leaves, but when she pursued the crisp sound, its source eluded her.
    After a couple of minutes she came out of the trees to a road that served another section of the sprawling cemetery. Cars were parked along the verge, sparkling in the brightness, and a hundred yards away was a group of mourners at another graveside service.
    Laura stood at the edge of the lane, breathing hard, wondering where the man in the white shirt had gone and why she had been compelled to chase him.
    The blazing sun, the cessation of the short-lived breeze, and the return of perfect silence to the cemetery made her uneasy. The sun seemed to pass through her as if she were transparent, and she was strangely light, almost weightless, and mildly dizzy too: She felt as if she were in a dream, floating an inch above an unreal landscape.
    I'm going to pass out, she thought.
    She put one hand against the front fender of a parked car and gritted her teeth, struggling to hold on to consciousness.
    Though she was only twelve she did not often think or act like a child, and she never
felt
like a child—not until that moment in the cemetery when suddenly she felt very young, weak, and helpless.
    A tan Ford came slowly along the road, slowing even further as it drew near her. Behind the wheel was the man in the white shirt.
    The moment she saw him, she knew why he'd seemed familiar. Four years ago. The robbery. Her guardian angel. Although she had been just eight years old at the time, she would never forget his face.
    He brought the Ford almost to a halt and drifted by her slowly, scrutinizing her as he passed. They were just a few feet apart.
    Through the open window of his car, every detail of his handsome face was as clear as on that terrible day when she had first seen him in the store. His eyes were as brilliantly blue and riveting as she had remembered. When their gazes locked, she shuddered.
    He said nothing, did not smile, but studied her intently, as if trying to fix every detail of her appearance in his mind. He stared at her the way a man might stare at a tall glass of cool water after crossing a desert. His silence and unwavering gaze frightened Laura but also filled her with an inexplicable sense of security.
    The car was rolling past her. She shouted, "Wait!"
    She pushed away from the car against which she had been leaning, dashed toward the tan Ford. The stranger accelerated and sped out of the graveyard, leaving her alone in the sun until a moment later she heard a man speak behind her, "Laura?"
    When she turned she could not see him at first. He called her name again, softly, and she spotted him fifteen feet away at the edge of the trees, standing in the purple shadows under an Indian laurel. He wore black slacks, a black shirt, and seemed out of place in this summer day.
    Curious, perplexed, wondering if somehow this man was connected, with her guardian angel, Laura started forward. She closed to within two steps of the new stranger before she realized that the disharmony between him and the bright, warm summer day was not solely a result of his black clothing; wintry darkness was an integral part of the man himself; a coldness seemed to come from within him, as if he had been born to dwell in polar regions or in the high caves of ice-bound mountains.
    She stopped less than five feet from him.
    He said no more but stared at her intently, with a look that seemed as much puzzlement as anything.
    She saw a scar on his left cheek.
    "Why you?" the wintry man asked, and he took a step forward, reaching for her.
    Laura stumbled backward, suddenly too scared to cry out.
    From the middle of the copse of trees, Cora Lance called, "Laura? Are you all right, Laura?"
    The stranger reacted to the nearness of Cora's voice, turned, and moved away through the laurels, his black-clad body disappearing quickly in the shadows, as if he had not been a real man at