She watched through the haze of dust and tears as the tail lights of the car grew smaller and smaller in the distance until they merged into nothing more than one tiny red speck. The red speck eventually disappeared into the night.
The ten year old girl was terrified. She often watched the news with her grandparents and knew very well what could happen to a girl alone at night in a deserted area. Her heart felt as though it would beat right through her chest. She peered wildly around in all directions.
“Calm down!”, she shouted impatiently at herself. Slowly she regained her composure. Her heart still beat uncontrollably fast, but she managed to shift her mind from despair into survival mode. She had no idea how to get home, but she remembered the last two turns they had made to get here and that, at least, was a start. Maybe she’d find a pay phone along the way. She would call her grandmother collect. She could always count on her grandmother, maybe she’d move in with her again. She hoped so.
Her plan in place, the girl began walking in the direction of the red speck. As she took the first steps on her journey home, headlights turned onto the dirt road that led to the clearing. She froze in her tracks and tried desperately to make out details of the car. Though as yet undiagnosed, the girl’s vision was horrible. Maybe her father had come back for her, or maybe it was one of those bad men she’d seen on the news that rape and murder little girls and leave their dead bodies in ditches on the side of the road.
While the girl was distracted by the unfolding of events, a storm had begun rolling in from offshore. As she stood there, helplessly trying to discern any distinguishing characteristics of the car, the entire sky above her seemed to split open with a loud crack and rain down huge droplets of cold water, further obscuring her view.
She reasoned with herself that it must be her father. What were the odds of another car turning down the same dirt road to nowhere in such a short period of time? ...and at night, in this weather?
She was unsure, and stuck in the mud between the car and the woods. As she stood there freezing, heart racing, she remembered something she once heard about choosing between the devil you know and the devil you don’t. In the time it took the next flash of lightning to illuminate the sky, she chose her devil. The girl ran toward the woods. She ran from the lightning, from the rain, and from the bad men, but mostly, she ran from her father.
The car continued toward her, but the girl was fast, very fast, the fastest of all the girls and boys in her class. Her long, thin body flew over the white mud and leapt over quickly forming puddles. She hadn’t counted on how slippery the vegetation would be when she made the transition from mud to leaves, and didn’t adjust her gait. She slid forward and hit her head on a fallen branch. It hurt, but she knew the car was still very close. She got up and took off running again. She ran for what seemed like forever. The girl was deep in the woods when she finally slowed to a walk. The rain was still coming down hard. She knew she’d been bleeding for some time as she tasted the blood mixed with rainwater that ran from her forehead to her lips and beyond.
A few feet in front of her was a huge banyan tree. Some of its roots were as tall as she was. The girl carefully nestled herself into a spot between two enormous roots, leaning her back against one of them. She sat, panting, in the shelter of the banyan, mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. She was protected from the rain by the massive canopy of the tree. She was safe at last.
The young girl closed her eyes and imagined herself as part of the ancient banyan. Roots sprouted from the soles of her feet; they reached deep into the earth. The soil warmed her. She was comforted by the vibrations of the natural world rising up through her feet. She was filled with a sense of calm.
She smelled the ocean air and felt the breeze flow gently through her hair just as it moved through the leaves of the mighty tree. The girl felt strong and proud of herself for coming this far on her own, she was responsible for her survival. She could take care of herself. She wondered for a moment if she would ever find her way home. Then she wondered if that was what she really wanted.
Just as she drifted off to sleep she felt a strange sensation, as if she were floating. She heard a woman’s voice speaking softly in a foreign language, Spanish maybe. The girl could smell the woman’s breath, it was sweet, like honey.
Excerpt Two from Chapter One of The Red Speck.
The full book is available here.
If you missed it, you can read Excerpt One below.