“It’s the end of the road for you,” said Drew.
With numb, icy fingers, Gray unhooked her seat belt buckle. Drew hunched over, shoving himself and the seat forward so that Gray could climb out of the car. “But where am I?” she gasped as she stood in the highway. Her breath was convulsing, tearing through her.
“Figure it out yourself, Gray Rosenfeld. I’ve had enough of dealing with you!” She had to jump out of the way to avoid Drew slamming the car door shut on her.
Outside, stunned, she blinked at her own reflection in the window glass.
There I am same old me.
“Gray!” Katrina yelled. She had unrolled her window and was leaning up and out of it. The wind spiked up the hair around her head like an angry cat. “Get back in the car, Gray! It’s too dangerous! Please!” Saying Gray’s name out loud seemed to have jolted Katrina from her usual dream state.
Now Katrina held out her hand. “We’ll take you to a gas station. It’s not safe to be out on the side of the road.”
Not safe in the car, not safe on the road. It was a choice between bad ideas. Gray’s feet chose for her. Stumbling, she backed off, then turned away from the car and ran headlong into the night.
Behind her, Katrina was yelling Gray’s name, on and on, like a siren.
Gray did not turn around. She listened to the sound of her name but still she did not turn. Not even once. She ran until she knew she was far away enough that even if she had looked, she would not be able to see Drew and Katrina again.
Cars whizzed past her and she kept running. Nobody slowed down. Maybe nobody saw her. Her arms and legs chopped and swung, her lungs were fiery with pain, and she could not feel her face from cold. But she trusted herself, and from out of nowhere a wild joy burst through her. Health joy and life joy and escaping joy and running joy and rescuing herself joy.
“Little girl! Little girl! What are you doing?” The car had come out of nowhere to slow down next to her, its automatic window rolling down in one smooth swipe to reveal an older man, maybe around the same age as her dad, who was leaning halfway across the front passenger seat to talk to her. She glanced at him without breaking pace.
“Kid, are you crazy? Do you want to get yourself killed?”
He looks nice too but I don’t know this man he might be Safe or not I don’t know.
She looked away, waved him on. Too dangerous.
The man muttered something, and then sped ahead of her. She kept running. She could feel herself smile from deep inside, although her face was sore and hurt from crying, although she was freezing, and she wondered if this was her chip-scrap of hope, of bravery, the place inside her that knew maybe things were not going to turn out as bad as they had started.
What was Safety anyhow, but trust in the road she was running on? What was Safety anyhow, but trust in herself? She would run until she saw an exit for a gas station. She would not stop until it was okay to stop.
I know where I am even if I don’t right this second I know where I am I’m right here.
On the other side of the guardrail, the woods lay thick and deep. If she had to, she could always jump over the rail, off the road, away from cars, if cars meant danger. She listened to her breath and the slap of her sneakers. She listened to the Safety that had come alive inside her, doing its best to figure things out.
Everything was going to turn out okay. She was making sure of it, she was watching out for herself, she was under her own protection. Even before the noise of the police siren grew deafening and the blunt blue light parted her from the darkness. Even before the squad car pulled close and stopped when she stopped and opened its door to fish her out of the night. Even before, Gray knew that the worst horror of the night was over, the worst of the night lived only in her memory now. And she had escaped it, she had survived it, she was on her way home.
A Personal History by Adele Griffin
I was born in 1970 in my mother’s hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was the oldest of three children, and spent my early childhood as a “military brat,” moving between bases in North Carolina, California, Panama, and Rhode Island. I returned to Pennsylvania for high school, and then attended college at the University of Pennsylvania. After earning a bachelor of arts and sciences degree in 1993, I eagerly answered a “help wanted” ad in the New York Times and an “apartment rentals” ad in the Village Voice. That same week, I secured both my first job and my first apartment. I began working for Macmillan Children’s Books as an editorial assistant; living two blocks away from the office ensured that I didn’t get lost on my commute.
While balancing days working in the editorial department with nights writing fiction, I discovered my abiding love of New York City, and knew that I would want to live there for the long haul. At Macmillan, and later Hyperion Books for Children, I read old favorites and new favorite fiction for younger readers, and in doing so rediscovered classic stories that had been so riveting in my youth. I was particularly enthralled to connect with Robert Cormier, an author whose work I idolized when I was a child—years later, I got to spend a day with him at Simmons College. It wasn’t long before I completed my first novel, Rainy Season (1996), which was accepted by Houghton Mifflin & Co. A semi-autobiographical account of family life on an army base in Panama, the book was recommended by Publishers Weekly as a “Flying Start” notable debut. My second book, Split Just Right (1997), told the story of a bohemian single mother raising her daughter. My third book, Sons of Liberty, a drama set in New England that addressed child abuse, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1997. I followed this novel with a contemporary supernatural story, The Other Shepards (1998), and then Dive (1999), a novel that grappled with the real-life unexpected death of my stepbrother, Jason.
Turning to more lighthearted fare, I created a middle-grade series, Witch Twins, about identical twins living in Philadelphia (based on my nieces) who work to become “five-star” witches—with some help from their eccentric, spell-casting grandmother. The four-book series includes Witch Twins, Witch Twins at Camp Bliss, Witch Twins and Melody Malady, and Witch Twins and the Ghost of Glenn Bly. I also completed Amandine (2001), a novel loosely based on Lillian Hellman’s chilling play The Children’s Hour. Themes of friendship, deceit, and betrayal surfaced again in my next book, Overnight (2003), about a sleepover that goes horribly wrong.
In Hannah, Divided (2002), I tried my hand at historical fiction, crafting a story of a young math prodigy living in 1930s rural Pennsylvania, who then wins a scholarship to study in Philadelphia. In 2010, I returned to the genre with Picture the Dead, collaborating with my friend Lisa Brown, an author and illustrator, on an illustrated novel about Spiritualist photographers in the Civil War era.
In 2005, I received another National Book Award nomination for Where I Want to Be, a family-centered psychological drama with paranormal elements. The following year, I published a light, young adult romance titled My Almost Epic Summer. I also launched another middle grade series; this one, Vampire Island Stories, is about a family of vegan vampires living in New York City.
Family plays an important role in my fiction, and while I don’t consider myself a fantasy writer, I do enjoy adding a measure of the supernatural to otherwise realistic fiction. This blend runs through a number of my books, namely The Other Shepards, Where I Want to Be, Picture the Dead, and Tighter. I write stories that emphasize our lasting connections to those we have lost, and how our families—past and present—inform our everyday life in ways that can be both startling and steadfast.
In 2007, my husband, Erich, and I traded Manhattan for Brooklyn, where we live very happily with our two young children—a daughter, Priscilla, and a son, Hastings—as well as a ten-pound shih tzu named Edith. Parenthood has inspired me to write for a younger audience, and to that end, I teamed up with the author Courtney Sheinmel to create an early-reader series called Agnes and Clarabelle, forthcoming from Bloomsbury Press, about a pair of two differently anxious friends.
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sp; My husband and I both avidly support nonprofit organizations such as the MacDowell Colony, Prep for Prep, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, buildOn, and 826NYC, an after-school tutoring and creative writing center for high school youth, where I sit on the board of directors. I am also a member of the PEN American Center and the Writers Guild of America. Visit me at www.adelegriffin.com and on Twitter at @adelegriffin.
My brother Robert and me in Maine in 1976, when I was six years old. Our mother was born in Maine and our grandparents returned there, to the Rangeley Lakes, most summers.
Me in Rhode Island with my brother Geoff in 1981. I was eleven years old and in my Agatha Christie phase. I would read Christie or nothing.
My contribution to my high school arts magazine. I loved to make collages, considering them the highest form of art. I also emulated Victorian gothic romance, and loved historical costumes. Many of my illustrations were wacky, inadvertent mash-ups of period clothing spanning multiple centuries.
My two best friends and me at our high school graduation in 1989. From left to right: Holly, Stephanie, and me.
Even as an adult, I was interested in princess costumes. I made crowns to celebrate Princess Diana’s televised BBC interview in 1995, which my family watched after taking this photo. From left to right: me, my grandmother, my aunt Elena, my niece Kate, my mother, and my aunt Barbara.
A photograph of me with my soon-to-be husband, Erich, on the morning of our wedding, August 16, 1997.
Me with Robert Cormier in 1998. Cormier was my childhood idol, and his novel I Am the Cheese is one of my favorite books of all time.
My first author visit, for Rainy Season, in 1996 at my alma mater, the Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.
Me with my daughter, Priscilla, wearing our glasses at my parents’ home in Pennsylvania.
Me with my husband and our children, Priscilla and Hastings, on the ferry to Fire Island, where we go every summer. This photo was taken in summer 2012, when Hastings was just one month old.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Adele Griffin
cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4532-9737-7
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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