Towering

it’s done for now, at least.”
    She wiped out the clean bowl. “The shovel is in the garage. I’ll show you.” She gestured for me to follow her.
    I said, “Um, so does anyone live around here?”
    She turned back, surprised. “Oh, there’s a farmhouse about half a mile away. Josh, the boy who picked you up. Nice family. They own the hardware store in town.”
    “Nothing closer?”
    “Oh, no. The McNeills were on the other side, but they left years ago.”
    “I thought I heard . . .” I stopped. Obviously, I was wrong.
    “What is it, dear?”
    “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if I’d be able to use my cell phone. And internet.”
    “Oh, yes, your mother hired a man to hook up the . . . um . . .”
    “Wi-Fi?”
    “Yes. So you can take your classes on the computer. But I’m afraid you’ll need to go to town to use your telephone. Of course, I have that phone.” She pointed to a yellow phone with one of those old dials. “We’re quite isolated here in the mountains, so I have it, for emergencies.”
    “Quite isolated here” sounded like something a man in a horror movie would say—right before he started swinging the machete. But Mrs. Greenwood was opening the oven. The room filled with heat and even more cinnamon. She removed a straw from a little broom to test her cake for doneness.
    “Some people like it, though,” she continued. “They think they’re getting away from it all.”
    Or it just gives them more time to think about their problems.
    “In any case, you can take my car to town sometimes, to do the shopping.”
    I let out a breath and realized I’d been holding it. I’d been worrying that she didn’t even have a car or that the crazy lady who’d locked Danielle in the house wouldn’t let me out either, and it would be like this movie I saw on TV once, Misery , where a woman holds a guy hostage in her house all winter long, and hobbles his feet so he can’t walk, and no one even knows he’s missing.
    But, then again, maybe the diary didn’t exist either. I hadn’t looked at it today, after all. If everything else last night was a dream, maybe that was too.
    But when I finished the walk and went up to my room, I found it right where I’d dreamed I’d hidden it.
    The first pages said just what I remembered too. Since I had nothing else to do and was more than a little curious, I turned to the next entry.

Danielle’s Diary
    Today, I talked Mom into letting me walk to Old Lady McNeill’s house a mile down the road for milk and eggs. Mom was baking a cake and she ran out. Big fun. But you’ll see what happened . . .
    This is the first sunny day in a week, and I feel like a flower that has been kept in a closet, starving for light. I promised I wouldn’t be gone long, and I took Ginger our lab, who can’t walk far because she’s old and puffy. Still, as we started down the hill, I broke into a run. Free of Mom!! I was free of Mom!
    And then, I tripped over a root and fell to the ground, scraping my hands and knees. I lay there, struggling, in pain, smelling the wet dirt around me and thinking how stupid I was. I’ve lived here my whole life, know every rock and root, including the one I’d tripped on. How could I fall?
    Thinking back, I wonder if it was MEANT to happen.
    When I tried to pull myself up on the trunk of that same malevolent old tree, I found that not only had I scraped my leg—I’d also twisted it somehow. In my paranoid mind, it felt broken. I couldn’t walk at all. I contemplated my situation—could I send Ginger back to tell Mom somehow? Considering she wasn’t actually like dogs in movies who did that, probably not. As I thought about this, Ginger began to bark. I looked up to see what she was barking at.
    It was a man. Or, really, a guy around my own age, the very same guy I’d seen outside our house a week ago. The one Mom had seen fit to imprison me for looking at. He was about ten feet away, but he walked closer.
    I tried to push myself up. Competing instincts warred with each other. A stranger on a deserted road could be a rapist or a serial killer or both. Yet, I knew I couldn’t run and, what’s more, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Not only has it been weeks since I’ve seen anyone but my mother—it may have been YEARS since I’ve seen anyone new. No one new comes to Slakkill. Why would they? Everyone has been here forever. And don’t they say you’re most likely to get murdered by someone you know?
    Of course, it