Behind the house stood the stables, but the horses had already been taken away. She guessed that her cousin Maggie had picked them up. Their dogs Hank and Merle, too. She remembered what the cop had said about Merle finding them. How he stayed at their side. Whimpering.

From the shoulder of the two-lane, she could just make out the crumbling plywood of her old playhouse in the magnolia tree. A knotted rope hung loose below.

She wished she could climb through its twisted branches, through the white, fragrant flowers, and into the safety of a world she’d created for herself. Up there, she never had any worries. True evil never existed. Only the sweet voice of her mother calling her to dinner, making her leave tins full of mud pies and discarded toys.

Her scarred knees and broad grins were all gone now.

She pulled the keys from the old F150’s ignition and took a deep breath. It was about 5:00 A.M.. Loose traffic blew past her on the way to Holly Springs and Memphis as she looked at herself in the rearview mirror. A weak, predawn light crept around her.

Dark circles rimmed her brown eyes. Her curly blond hair was limp and dirty and her face flat – washed of any color. Any life. Twenty-two years old and already tired of living.

Maybe it was that she was tired of being on the run. For the past two months, she’d existed in a hazy fog in roadside motels and truck stops. No one knew where she’d disappeared. She only wanted to be left alone and for the pain to stop. The days had passed with bottles of cheap wine and a blur of blacktop and scattered yellow median lines.

Being anonymous could be reassuring.