The tiny branches, like long claws, scraped and cut at her as she ran. Her blue dress was ripped and muddy. She'd skinned her knee and could feel its sting as a cool breeze blew over the abraded skin, shiny and red. Her forearm was beginning to bruise, freckled skin darkening where he'd grabbed at her.<br/><br/>Daddy was angry again. Trouble at work. The factory had cut down his hours. He'd responded, not by negotiating for more with his boss, but by going to the general store and picking up a bottle of whiskey. He'd already been drunk when he'd walked in the door. Anna had tried to sneak out the back door but he'd caught up with her. He'd tracked mud in and he was somehow blaming her for it. There was no reasoning with him but luckily, he was plastered enough that once she'd wrenched her arm from his grip, he stumbled, allowing her to slip out the screen door and run, barefoot, into the woods.<br/><br/>It was best to wait it out when this happened. Ever since Momma died, he did this about once a week, for one reason or another. She'd gotten very well acquainted with the woods behind the house ever since it started and her calloused feet didn't mind the sharp twigs or rough earth beneath them as she ran.<br/><br/>She'd heard him shouting and stumbling through the trees after her for a while but he'd likely given up by now, returning to the house to wait for her return. She would wait until he was asleep before going back. Or maybe she would just spend the night out here. She'd done it before.<br/><br/>Her father's weekly breakdowns had happened enough times that she'd become largely desensitized to it. But today was different. The reduced hours made him feel like even more of a failure than he already was. He hated himself and she knew that some part of him hated her too. But today it had been so... bright in his eyes, glazed over with inebriation. He was really losing himself to his demons. It made her keep running even though she no longer heard him following. It made her wish she could run across the world, leave altogether... as if she had any refuge but the dark woods.<br/><br/>She wiped blond hair out of her face, breathing heavily, freckled, tanned skin shining with sweat. She was standing in a clearing in a part of the woods she didn't recognize. Judging by how tired she was, she could guess how far she'd come and it was much further than usual. She'd made herself a canvas shelter using a low hanging tree branch when Daddy's "episodes" had begun but she'd passed it long ago. She wasn't even sure where her little hideout was from here.<br/><br/>The light was slanting through the canopy at a rather extreme angle and it had that sort of silvery hue that meant sunset was coming. She didn't want to be wandering around in the dark so she turned back the direction she thought her little canvas tent might be. She had to stop when a sharp rock cut her foot, cursing under her breath in a way that would have made her grandmother beat her with a switch were she still alive.<br/><br/>She limped a little as she continued on, not realizing that she'd shifted her direction. An hour later, it became obvious she was lost. She knew she should stop and wait until morning to continue on but she didn't recognize this part of the woods and every tree in the waning light looked like some sort of forest predator, a monster from those science fiction rags Charlie, a kid she looked after sometimes when his mother was... working, read all the time.<br/><br/>Her pace quickened as her desperation to find somewhere familiar grew and the darkness deepened. She couldn't help the tears stinging the corners of her eyes, feeling her breath hitch as she started cursing again. She didn't care that Nanna was probably turning in her grave. She was angry, dammit. Angry at her life, at her father, at the tiny, ignorant, hateful little town where she felt like a prisoner. That was it. She decided something as she shoved through some bushes, tearing her dress. She was leaving. All she owned would fit in a suitcase. She had some money saved she could use to buy a bus ticket. As soon as she found her way home... Daddy would have to make his own breakfast tomorrow, get ice for his headache himself. She was finished taking care of that drunk.<br/><br/>The darkness deepened. It closed in on her. It felt... solid, like a great blanket settling over the trees, curling around her, tightening. She felt confined and it made her panic. Anna no longer noticed the dull pain in her foot or her skinned knee. She wanted to be out of the woods, out of this darkness, look up and see the stars.<br/><br/>She kept moving, desperately searching as the last bits of light from the passing day disappeared and she was left stumbling in the dark. She looked up, finding a gap in the canopy but... where was the moon? Where were the stars? All she could see was darkness.<br/><br/>And then there was light. A lamp light. It was made of paper, hanging from a tree, a soft orange glow coming from it. It was as if it had just appeared out of nowhere.<br/><br/>She blinked as she saw another lantern wink into existence upon a further tree, and another beyond that one, like a path leading her onward. She hesitated, not quite understanding how this could be. Where were they leading? Why? And how?<br/><br/>But outside the pools of orange light from the lantern, she could see nothing at all. It was as if the path of light was all there was in the whole world and to venture away from it would mean being lost forever. She moved forward and found that there was a set of wide stone steps leading upward.<br/><br/>The path lead up a small hill, a final lantern coming to life and illuminating the facade of a strange building. It was like nothing she had ever seen, the enormous structure looming out of the darkness, colored streamers tied to tree branches on either side of it, waving softly in the breeze she hadn't felt until now. The wind picked up and she found herself shivering. It was the middle of summer! How could be it this cold? She held her arms close to her body, regretting that she was only in a thin blue sun dress.<br/><br/>Anna Sullen reached out, hesitating a moment before she knocked timidly on the enormous door.