I tore my tights off hours ago, the thick white pair that my mother made me wear for the family picture, the pair that snagged on every branch I lunged past, the pair that clung to so many leaves and thistles that I looked like a mangy animal instead of a girl.

 

I ripped them off and threw them to the ground. I may have even stomped on them as I continued through the woods.

 

I wished I had them now, though, for warmth if not for comfort. The sun was setting and the forest grew darker by the second, jumping out at me in right angles. Soon, I wouldn't be able to see at all.

 

Being lost in the woods was one thing but being lost in the woods in the dead of night was another.

 

Turning around, I tried to pinpoint exactly where the sun was setting. I thought it might help me figure out which direction I was heading, even though I had no idea which direction I was supposed to be heading.

The mistake I made was continuing to walk backwards as I did this.

 

I tripped over something that felt like a log, and I landed in dark water so deep that it stretched up my torso to where my breasts had just that year begun to sprout against my chest.

 

The water was too cold for me to sit in, but I stayed there anyway, too upset at this miserable day, too frightened of being lost in the woods, too sad to move right away.

 

Overwhelming emotions lapped at my insides the same way the pond water lapped at my outsides, rapidly at first, after my fated splash, but slowly receding until they were both just mild vibrations of consciousness.

 

I tried to wipe the tears from my cheeks, but my fingers were too wet.

 

The last bit of sunlight winked at me from behind the trees and then disappeared forever. I stood up in the melancholy haze of twilight and trudged out of the pond, yanking wet leaves and pond scum from my once white button-down as I walked.

 

I tried to wipe a thick black leaf from my arm, but it didn't slide away as easily as the rest. I brushed it again. This time, it moved on its own. I looked closer and realized that it wasn't a leaf at all. It was a leech. The fat sucker flexed its slimy body against my skin.

 

I couldn't control the scream that overtook my lungs as I ripped at the leech. It slipped against my fingers as I peeled it off of my arm and flung it to the ground.

 

That's when I saw a second one clinging to the soft flesh of my calf. And another above my knee.

 

I ripped at them as fast as I could. One near my ankle. One nestling against the rim of my panties. One on my forearm.

 

As I ripped at them, blood sprouted from my skin like buds in spring. Tears attacked my eyes just as quickly as I attacked the leeches.

 

"Don't pull anymore out."

 

A voice floated to me like a birdcall through the trees. It came from behind me, from a small girl.

 

"There're things here that can smell the blood," she said.

 

It wasn't her words that stopped me. It was the fact that she was there, standing just next to the pond. I'd been wandering the woods alone for hours and now here this girl was, just standing there.

 

"Come with me," she said.

 

She walked to a small cottage behind the pond. I looked down at the leeches. The thought of walking the twenty yards to the cottage without pulling them off of me made me sick to my stomach, but what else could I do? I didn't want to encounter whatever she was talking about that could smell the blood. Head down, I stiff-legged it to the cottage.

 

There was a doorway without a door and a small window without any covering. The girl stood next to a wooden table flanked by two small chairs.     

 

"Here," she said. She held out a porcelain figurine. It was a chubby blonde girl with perfect curls, wearing a green dirndl. She looked like a character from The Sound of Music.

 

The girl grabbed my arm with a hand that was surprisingly warm. She tilted the porcelain girl over the leech writhing against my skin. Salt sprinkled out. The leech curled up and fell off my skin. No blood.

 

She handed me the saltshaker and made a gesture that I took to mean that I should use it to remove the rest of the leeches.

 

"Thank you." I said.

 

She poked at a thin fire while I salted the rest of the leeches. They piled onto the floor like leaves in the fall. I took off a wet shoe and brushed them out of the door.

 

"Sit by the fire," she said.

 

She wore a skirt long enough to brush the floor and a swatch of fabric in her hair as a bandanna.

 

"How old are you?" I asked.

 

"Ten," she said. "You?"

 

"Twelve. My name's Christine."

 

"I'm Lily," she said. "Lily Porter."

 

Instead of feeling good against my skin, the warmth from the fire made me notice the chill in my bones a little more.

 

"Do you live here?" I asked.

 

"Sometimes," she said. She placed the blonde saltshaker on the table beside a boy counter-part, another blonde with a deep part, probably filled with pepper. Taking her time, she arranged them so that they faced each other, like lovers.

 

"What are you doing out here?" she asked.

 

"Lost," I said. "I was in a field off of Highway 13 taking pictures with my family."

 

"The field by the stone church?"

 

"Yeah," I said. "Do you know it?"

 

She nodded. "That's not too far from here."

 

"Would you be able to take me there?" My voice rose as high as the stars in the sky.

 

She looked at the door, which had lost the competition with the firelight. She looked back at the wooden table with the salt and peppershakers sitting on it. Her hesitation hung in the air like a hat on a hook.

 

The door's gaping hole wasn't really a great invitation for either of us, I guess, but I didn't think I could do it without her help. Not just find my way back, but leave in general. I wasn't brave enough to face the forest again.

 

"Please,"

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