The old woman in the rocking chair sucked on her top teeth while she spoke. It made a wet,sloshy-sticky noise that turned Bernadine’s stomach. Why had she come here? Why had she gone this way, why had she come into the woods at all and how did she get so lost so all sudden?

I mean really…she barely stepped in…well, hardly at all. Maybe ten steps, maybe even only five and then suddenly, she couldn’t find her way back out again. She had turned around and tried so hard to come back the way she came but…the way she came seemed to be gone. There were no footsteps to follow in the spongy green mossy floor of the forest. She could barely see the blue of the sky, the trees were so tall. She did not remember the trees looking this tall to her from the other side of the road. She did not remember the forest looking so thick and dark and mad.

“Good Golly Miss Molly, it was getting dark” she had thought. Her mom used to say that. “Good Golly Miss Molly, you better put your mittens on!” “Good Golly Miss Molly but it is cold out there!” Good Golly Miss Molly aren’t you gonna eat your supper?”

“Good Golly Miss Molly do I ever miss you”

Well. Her mother didn’t say the last one for sure but Bernadine would bet all of her marbles, even the prettiest bonkers, that her mom would say that and that her mom did miss her dreadfully.