Closer by the second, the old women stalked her.

She felt their invisible presence in the darkness surrounding her. They had yet to show themselves since she'd dashed from the house with the baby in her arms, but she knew they were close behind. She heard the intermittent scuttle of their feet out there in the dark.

My name is Rosalee, she'd told the old woman, and the old woman had nodded and said, We know who you are, dear child.

She could have hidden from them in the woods, if not for the boy. It would be impossible to keep him quiet. His cries were much louder than they had any right to be, considering his size.

He was premature. Purple and slimy and fresh from the womb, his wriggling limbs so small and frail. She held him away from her body, as if in offering to a nameless god watching from the darkness.

Up ahead the county road sign, a single 8 in a white shield, rose out of the dark like a glimmering beacon.

From there the road forked three ways. One road gave way to gravel and eventually plain dirt the further west you traveled. The other widened as it led east toward town. Both weaved through pine and spruce and cuts of sheer granite on either side, pitch black under the starless sky.

Eventually, both led to the ocean, as did most roads on the island.

County Road 8 continued its northbound trek until it reached the ferry docks. The last ferry was her only chance to escape. If she could just flag down a passing car. She didn't know how late it was, if the ferry was even still running. But she had to try.

A knife-wound throb between her legs doubled her over. She caught her breath, focusing on her breathing.

Not on the pain.

Not the old women gaining on her every moment she wasted standing still.

She knew they would tear little Stephen from her arms. She couldn't let them.

Everyone knew what happened when a young girl got pregnant in Barrows Bay. Hadn't they all heard the rumors? Hadn't they witnessed firsthand how much Yolanda Macken changed when she returned from her birthing? Yo was a cheerleader before Kenny Simms knocked her up in the bed of his Chevy during the Hallowe'en dance two years back. After the birthing, she no longer had any use for cheers, for the school or herself.

The baby girl was being raised by her grandmother in Narragansett while Yolanda finished school, though there didn't seem to be any point in it. She was depressive, lethargic, her beautiful blonde hair, often compared to Farrah Fawcett, now stringy and falling out in clumps. She barely scraped by with a D average. And the parents of Barrows Bay did not ascribe to "the cult of pharmaceuticals and psychiatry the rest of the country does," at least according to Rosalee's father.

Rosalee's right foot painted the yellow line red. As Stephen continued his plaintive wail, she pulled him close to her small breasts and shook him lightly in her arms.