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caught the lean, sharp face and the wide razor-slash of a grin. She wondered how he could possibly find pleasure in this. |
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But the moment passed and she cut into the woods, leaving Calvin behind to keep back the others. |
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A few feet in, and the place was dense with nightfall. She could barely see the trees in front of her, having to keep her arms up to prevent impaling her face on branches. |
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She had no sense of direction and found no path through the underbrush. In the distance she could hear others who had gone after Matty. She called Matty's name. No responsenothing but the cicadas. |
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Several times she felt a rush of panic that she would stumble around until daybreak without finding him. Or that others would find him first. |
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He should be put away . . . |
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Or, that he would come out the other side and not stop . . . until he got to a highway to Boston or New York and become just another street kid. |
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She was not certain how long she had groped around in the woods. Maybe ten minutes, maybe thirty. The place had no timespace continuum. And she could not read the face of her watch. She was also not sure if she were cutting a path through the woods or stumbling around in circles. She was without direction until she heard a crythe kind she imagined an animal would make when wounded and treed by baying hounds. Not a sound like any animal from these woods. But it was a beacon to her in the dark and she followed it with just enough ambient light to spare her from crashing into trees. |
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After some time she came to a clearingor what she sensed was an opening in the canopy of oaktops. In the filtered moonlight her eyes took in something that nearly stopped her heart. Some huge creature was rearing up before her. Massive and round like a cave bear. Before the scream could dislodge from her throat, the creature took the familiar form of the granite outcroppingDruid Rock. |
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The next moment she was running past it, her feet now moving as if guided by radar. She knew the way. |
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Calvin had built it thirty feet from the ground in a four-pronged |
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