I was putting it off; but sooner or later I would have to cross the hall. When I had summoned all my courage, I ran as fast as I could, like a mouse, for the great door, praying to Herr Woodenkopf that it was not locked—and found it open—and sped through—and through the courtyard, and the gateway, and down the road like the very wind.

Oh! It was cold! The dress I’d selected from those mothy bundles blew out clumsily and got in my way, but I blessed its thickness. I fell three times and rolled over and over and got up straight away and ran on. There had been no fall of snow in the last few hours, so I was able to keep to the tracks that had already been made. A little more than halfway down toward the village, I stopped to catch my breath.

And saw, further down the slope but moving unmistakably up toward me, a Man!

I plunged off the road instantly and concealed myself until he had passed. I did not know him, and although it was difficult to see clearly, I thought he looked friendly. But if he was going to the castle, I wanted nothing to do with him. I hardly dared breathe until he was out of sight; and when I moved on I walked and did not run. I did a great deal of shivering and my teeth chattered so much that I put a piece of my bread between them to stop them making so much noise. But they ate it without thinking. They ate the next piece too, and the one after that.

If any of my readers have been Fugitives (and I hope they have not), they will know the way in which every bush, tree, rock, cave, and shadow seems to conceal an enemy eager to pounce. And how a thousand evil spirits perch among the twigs like wicked birds, their little glassy eyes all staring, staring. And how that small black shape ahead of them, so still, so sinister, so intent upon unspeakable evil, mesmerizes them and drains all the strength out of them; how the hood over its head conceals a face of such Horrid Ugliness and Inhuman Malevolence that words cannot describe it; how, when it moves toward you, with a ghoulish enjoyment of the fear it’s causing you, and raises its thin arms (is it a Skeleton?) and breaks into a run, uttering little cries of triumph—how, when that happens, you can’t help but run yourself, uttering cries of quite another sort.

But when that Ghastly Phantom calls your name, and cries “Stop!” and has the voice of your sister Lucy…

I turned, hardly daring to believe it. And yet it was true.

“Lucy!”

“Charlotte!”

“It isn’t you—it’s a spirit—”

“What happened? Where’ve you been?”

“Hush, hush! The woods are full of evil spirits—”

“But where—”

“What—”

“How—”

“When—”