Shiver the Whole Night Through

I walked on, and after a few minutes saw police tape around a tree, marking the area off: Do Not Enter. The tree was a monstrous thing, gnarled, ancient-looking. Unlike most of the plants in Shook, this wasn't evergreen but deciduous, possibly oak - I never could tell the difference.

It stood off the path, ten yards in. I tossed my cigarette, put down my bag and hiked over. There was no indication that something terrible had happened here - except for the tape, you'd never suspect. The body hadn't made a shape in the ground. The leaves and dirt weren't scuffed up.

It was just... a tree. A place. A boring spot of ground. Except... a place where the worst thing in the world had happened to one girl.

I sent up another prayer for Sláine, then turned around to go home - and my bag was gone. I literally jumped in fright. What...? I glanced around: nobody, nothing to be seen, only those impenetrable rows of trees. But my bag, I'd left it right there, directly opposite, a few steps away. Someone had moved it.

I made to walk back to the dirt path, hesitated, started again. I reached the path and looked left and right and nothing. My heart rate clicked up a notch. I gulped and felt something without a name tickle the back of my neck. I looked right once more, towards the main road, and finally spotted it resting against a tree trunk, hard to see in the gathering dusk.

I flung the bag over my shoulder and thought it through. I was sure I'd left it closer to where Sláine was found, but clearly I was mistaken. I'd left it here all along. But man, I was so sure of where I'd put that bag...

I looked around and around, knowing I wouldn't see anyone. There was nowhere for them to hide, and no one else here. I shrugged it off and hit for home, leaving the forest a little faster than I'd arrived.