Every muscle in my body tensed and my pulse took off. Holding my breath, I lifted my legs to the seat. I tried to peer through the spaces in the stall into the bathroom.

"Brooklyn," sang the little girl voice again. Something scratched the stall door - a tiny sound that tore through the air.

A pen - I had a pen in my bag. It was the closest thing to a weapon I had on me. As quietly as possible, I stuck my hand in my bag to dig around for it or anything sharp.

The scratching paused. "All roads lead to...Brook...lyn," it said.

I had the pen. I drew it out slowly and held it angled downwards to better slash with.

"Take my hand?" the voice asked. Then it began to giggle - high and giddy.

Oh, god, I've got to get out of here! I was getting sick and my head spun from too little oxygen.

The giggling paused, mid-laugh.

The bathroom door to the hallway opened a crack.

"Brooklyn?" a human voice asked. "Are you in here?"

"Alicia!" I gasped.

Alicia was in the hallway. Still clutching my pen as if it could save my life from something that wasn't there, I listened for the voice again. Alicia came in the bathroom; I traced her path from the sound until I could see her feet at the stall door. She must have touched it, because it shivered on the hinges. I set my feet back on the floor to stand, rubbing my stomach hard to work out the knots. I kept the pen, though. I was about to open the door when she moved into the stall next to mine and started to cry softly.

"I'm so sorry, Brooklyn! I shouldn't have said those things."

"Hey, it's O.K.," I said. Our fight in the cafeteria was nothing compared to hearing that voice. "Really."

"No, it's not O.K. I shouldn't have told him about what you see, it's none of his business. And I know it's not your fault - none of this is your fault. It's mine. I'm the one who agreed to go in the woods. You're my only friend, the only person I have in this whole world and I shouldn't blame you if things are hard for me." Alicia sniffed and I could hear cloth rustling as she wiped her face. "I'm so sorry."

With my free hand, I reached under the stall. She took my fingers, and I squeezed.

"I'm always going to be here for you," I promised. I sat down, waiting for her to stop crying.

The tardy bell rang, jarring us both. Even if we ran to class, we'd be in trouble.

"Do you wanna just hang out here this hour?" Alicia asked. "Like we used to do as freshmen?"

What I wanted to do was go home and hide under my comforter. That was the only thing that sounded good. I was so tired. Tired of the weird crap that might or might not exist, and if it did exist then it shouldn't and I shouldn't be able to witness it. My body begged me to go home and sleep. Instead, I lied. "Yeah, let's do that. Beats going to class." Well, that wasn't really a lie. I pulled her hand slightly towards me so I could check if her nails had returned to normal. They had.

My mother surely had a name for my condition. I could go through her text books when she was at work and diagnose myself. People's minds were deeper and stranger than the unexplored depths of the ocean, and had more otherworldly creatures swimming through them. There was something wrong with me and there was almost certainly a name for it.

"Will you still come with me tonight after you're done at the Walters'?" Alicia asked. Her voice was small and timid, so unlike her.

"Maybe we shouldn't go tonight," I said. I dreaded the trip we took on the anniversary date every year. There was something dark and macabre about our little ritual, but I never dared to refuse and hurt her feelings.

"We have to go tonight. It has to be today, you know it." Alicia tugged her hand free of mine.

"No, I don't know it. Going today or tomorrow doesn't change anything. It doesn't change anything for Levi or Sean. They don't know what day we go." I wanted to tell her to leave me alone for a change. To give this all a rest.

"You are the only person I can ask to help me," she said. "You were their friend, too. It was the four of us, and if we don't go...."

Her words trailed off to let me imagine what it meant if we didn't go the Federman Farmstead on this particular day. I wasn't convinced. I thought of the news article that Aaron had showed me on his phone.

"Did you hear that they are reopening the case? They say there is some evidence that surfaced from storage or something," I said.

"Yeah, my dad told me."

"Did he say what it was? Are they going to want to talk to you again?"

She scoffed. "Doubt it. I can't remember anything more than when it first happened even if they do ask me to come in. My dad had a discussion with the investigator, but he doesn't know what they found."

"What if the guy who did it is still around these parts? What if this links him, but the police can't find him fast enough? Alicia, it's just not smart to go running around in the woods at night."

"It will be the evening, and we'll have the car like last year."

"He could slash the tires, sneak up on us. Listen, I have a bad feeling," I said. That was an understatement, but I didn't want to refuse outright. I wanted her to agree with me.

"He won't sneak up on us."

This was the Alicia I knew. She was so sure of herself despite the absurdity of her words. Of course he would sneak up if he tried to grab us. The noise of the Arkansas bugs alone would cover anyone walking around.

"Besides," she continued, "he's known since it happened that I survived, but I don't remember. He could grab me whenever he wants. But trust me, he won't come sneaking up behind us."

Was this supposed to reassure me? All the self-defense classes we've been taking since the kidnapping made more and more sense. Alicia's father paying for mine when I couldn't afford it, her parents always checking that we walked around together in safe, lighted areas. Obviously, they didn't know about our annual trek through the woods to the farmstead.

"This is such a bad idea," I whispered.

She sighed, but didn't speak for a while. Finally she said, "Meet me at Cuppa Joe, 8:00, in the parking lot, and have my favorite ready for me? I'll get your favorite and we can talk about it then."

Meeting at Cuppa Joe was my code for Levi when we were young and would ride our bikes into town. Alicia had picked up the habit after she got out of the health center. It still fit her uncomfortably. It was a borrowed phrase, an assumed privilege, but I let her use it since it was a white flag of truce.

"All right, we'll talk about it later."

She reached under the stall and I took her fingers again. One small question about her and that evening still bothered me. I hadn't thought about it for a long time, but there was something I wanted to ask over the years, but never had.

"Alicia, when you guys were in the woods, near the old farmstead, did you play the game?"

Silence for several heartbeats. "What game?"

She knew perfectly well what game. I swallowed and pressed on. "The rhyme you taught us, holding hands in a backwards circle with our eyes closed. Remember? You said to make it real, a drop of blood would have to be spilt, but we chickened out every time and never did it. Did you guys play the game?"

Silence again. In my mind, I imagined the giggling from the sing-song little girl. "Alicia?" I squeezed her fingers. "I won't be mad, I just want to know. Did you?"

"I don't think so," she said, "but there are so many things I can't remember."

I knew then that she was lying about something. She had told me countless times that she remembered everything up to the moment when Sean had seen branches coming out of the lake and they decided to go home.

********* A big thank you to everyone reading! It's a pleasure to share this story with you and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Let me know what you think by voting or leaving a comment! Have a great day (or night ;-)) **********