Magic Hour

“Get down here, Ellie. Out.”

“Sally’s making my mocha. I’ll be—”

“Now, Ellie. Out.”

Ellie glanced up at the woman in the coffee stand window. “Sorry, Sally. Emergency.” She put the car in drive and hit the gas. Two blocks later she turned onto Cates Avenue and almost slammed into a news van.

There were dozens parked along—and in the center of—the street. White satellite dishes stood out against the gray sky. Reporters were huddled in clusters along the sidewalk, their black umbrellas open. She hadn’t taken more than three steps when the reporters pounced on her.

“—comment on the report—”

“—no one is telling us where—”

“—the exact location—”

She pushed through the crowd and yanked the station door open. Slipping through, she slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it. “Shit.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Cal said. “They were camped out there at eight o’clock when I got to work. Now they’re waiting for your nine o’clock update.”

“What nine o’clock update?”

“The one I scheduled to get them the hell out of here. I couldn’t answer the phones with them yelling at me.”

Peanut came around the corner holding a plastic mug the size of a gallon of paint. She was back on the grapefruit juice diet. A rolled-up newspaper was tucked under her arm. “You’d better sit down,” she said.

Ellie immediately looked at Cal.

He nodded, mouthed, I would.

She went to her desk and sat down, then looked at her friends. Whatever they had to say couldn’t be good.

Peanut tossed the newspaper down on the desk. The whole top half was a photograph of the girl. Her eyes were wild and crazy-looking; her hair was a nimbus of black and studded with leaves. She looked stark-raving mad, as well as filthy. Like one of those kids from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The byline read: Mort Elzick.

Ellie felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. So this was what he’d meant by “or else” when he’d demanded the interview. “Shit.”

“The good news is he didn’t mention Julia,” Cal said. “He wouldn’t dare, without official confirmation.”

Ellie skimmed the article. Savage girl steps out of the forest and into the modern world, her only companion a wolf. She leaps from branch to branch and howls at the moon.

“They’re starting to think it’s a hoax,” Cal said quietly.

Ellie’s anger turned to fear. If the media decided it was a hoax, they’d pull out of town. Without publicity, the girl’s family might never be found. She reached into her canvas book bag and pulled out the photograph Julia had taken. “Circulate this.”

Peanut took the photo. “Wow. Your sister is a miracle worker.”

“We’re calling her Alice,” Ellie said. “Put that on the record. Maybe a name will make her seem more real.”

GIRL COMES AWAKE SLOWLY. THIS PLACE IS QUIET, PEACEFUL, EVEN though she cannot hear the river’s call or the leaves’ whispering. The sun is hidden from her. Still, the air is lighted and bright.

She is not afraid.

For a moment she cannot believe it. She touches her thoughts, pokes through the darkness of them.

It is true. She is not afraid. She cannot recall ever feeling like this. Usually her first thought is: hide. She has spent so long trying to make herself as small as possible.

She can breathe here, too; in this strange, squared world where light comes from a magical touch and the ground is hard and level, she can breathe. It does not hold on to the bad smells of Him.

She likes it here. If Wolf were with her, she would stay in this square forever, marking her territory in the swirling water and sleeping on the place she is told to, where it is soft and smells of flowers.