Her father stands and frowns at her for a long moment, taking in the redness of her eyes, the holes in the knees of her jeans. He wants to fight this. She can see it in every inch of him. He wants to ride out like a pillar of fire and burn everything that has dared to touch his daughter, his baby, his precious little girl. But he also wants her to love him as much as he loves her, and he is smart enough in the ways of parenthood to know that if he disregards her wishes in this matter, she will trust him a little less, come to him a little less often, and that the erosion of her childhood hero worship — inevitable as it is — will progress a little further. He would rather be her hero than her savior.

"These girls deserve to be punished for what they`ve done."
They do, they do, there`s no question that they do. Esther wants to agree with him, to agree that it`s time to rain down fire and brimstone, and yet... "They`ll take it out on us when nobody`s looking. You know they will."
"I didn`t raise you to run away from a fight."
She wants to tell him that he did exactly that. That when he chose to run rather than stand and deal with the aftermath of her mother`s death, he taught her that anything can be escaped, if you`re just willing to run far enough. She doesn`t.

"Come on!" Jennifer steps off the sidewalk, sliding on the sides of her feet down the short incline to the cemetery fence.
Esther freezes, girl made of stone, as she watches her new friend squirm through a gap in the wall meant to separate the living from the dead. She has a choice here. She knows that. She can turn around, walk back to school, and start the trip home anew, following a path she`s already walked, safe and secure and free from any adventure. Also free from the risk of making a friend. Jennifer will see her as a chicken if she runs, and Jennifer won`t be wrong.
Or she can slide down the side of the hill — can already almost feel the dirt moving under her feet, the familiar shift in the soil, carrying her onward, toward the consequences of her choices — and let Jennifer lead the way. She has the feeling that if she does that, Jennifer will be leading the way for a long, long time. Maybe for their entire lives.
She doesn`t think she`d really mind. She`s so tired of walking alone.
Esther slides down the side of the hill and follows Jennifer through the fence, into the graveyard where she waits. Jennifer smiles as she approaches.
"What took you so long?" she asks, and that`s that: the compact is sealed. The story is begun.

The wood is dark and the wood is deep and trees claw at the sky with branches like bones, ripping holes in the canopy of clouds, revelaing glimpses of a distant, rotting moon the color of dead flesh. The light it casts turns everything cold and cruel, like something better buried and forgotten. It would almost be better without the moon. They would be running blind without the moon, yes, but at least if they were running blind, they wouldn`t have to see.
They run through the skeleton trees hand-in-hand, two girls separated by a handful of years that seemed like an eternity only a few short hours ago (a few short hours ago, before they were alone in the world; before they were orphans, before they knew the taste of their mother`s blood, the glittering trails of their father`s tears; before they were everything either of them has left). Those years don`t seem to matter anymore. They hold each other tight. They keep running. They keep running.
They have to keep running.