Prologue
“You need to take myhand, Elisa.”
“Why?”I asked.
“Because you can’t stay here.”
“Why can’t I stay here with my friends?”
“Because they’re not your friends,” he said, and it wasn’t a very nice thing to say.
“Yes, they are,” I told him.
He shook his head.“No, they’re not.If they were your friends, then they wouldn’t want to take you away.Now give me your hand.”
“They’re not trying to take me away.They just want me to play a little longer.”
“Then play right here,” he said.“Don’t go back there.”
“Back where?”
“Where it’s dark,” he said.“Where I can’t see you.”
“Why can’t you come with me?”I asked.I mean, he was always here with me, so why couldn’t he just go with me a little farther?
He shook his head again.“Because it’s not safe.”
I looked over at my other friends, and I wondered if it was because he didn’t look like them.Russ had brown hair and brown eyes, and he was very skinny.My other friends had dark hair and red eyes, and their teeth were weird, but they were nice to me.Maybe they didn’t like Russ because he never let me go play in the back with them, but they should like him because he was nice, too.
“They won’t hurt me,” I told him.“They just want to be my friends.”
“You can’t go with them,” he said as he grabbed my hand.“You’re needed here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said.“I just know that you can’t go with them.”
“What if we just play here?”I asked.“If we stay here, can we play a little longer?”
“Only if you promise not to go into the dark,” he said.“You have to stay where I can see you.”
“What do you think is back there?”I asked, looking over at my other friends.
“Something bad,” he said, and I didn’t know if that was true.
“Why do you think there’s something bad back there?”
“I just get a bad feeling when we’re here,” he said.
“Then why do you come with me?Why don’t you just go with your other friends?”
“Because I’m supposed to be here.”He squeezed my hand tighter.“I’m supposed to be wherever you are.”
“Because we’re best friends?”I asked, because I really wanted Russ to be my best friend.
“Yes,” he said.
“But why are you only my best friend here?Why can’t you be my best friend at school, too?”
