Chapter One:

The Car

Siobhan was restless. She bounced around the house, hyper and fidgety, touching whatever could be touched and playing with things she shouldn't. Her mother was near the breaking point. Mrs. Kendall chased the child around the house, irritated beyond reason, scolding the little girl constantly and groaning about how she should be a good child and quiet down for a little. But Siobhan didn't want to quiet down. She had been stuck inside all day, and she was sick of it. It looked so welcoming outside the two-story brick home; the dying winter grass, yellow and brittle, seemed to be calling her, as did the slate-gray sky that was spread with silvery rain clouds.

Siobhan had always liked the cold weather. She liked how the bitter cold, frosty air would fill her lungs in its sharp glory, and she liked watching her breath hang in front of her, something almost always invisible to the naked eye looming right in front her. It was almost magical. It wasn't as if it were snowing outside; oh no, snow was not anywhere near arrival, not even making a miniscule appearance in the weather forecast. But Siobhan wasn't too fond of snow, anyways. She liked empty air, not air filled with wafting snowflakes.

"Siobhan!" scolded Mrs. Kendall suddenly.

Siobhan looked up at her mother and then she pulled her scrawny hand away from the ceramic bowl of smooth, opaque pebbles. "What?" she asked sulkily, jamming her fists into the stretchy pockets of her bright red corduroy jeans.

"Don't touch the pebbles," said Mrs. Kendall. "They're for show, not for play. You should know that."

Siobhan stuck out her bottom lip and turned her head away. "Mommy," she said crossly, "I'm bored."

Mrs. Kendall sighed, brushing a wisp of starch-blonde hair out of her daughter's perfectly round face. "I know, Siobhan," she replied.

"Then why can't I go somewhere?" Siobhan then pulled one hand out of her pocket and placed it slickly back into the bowl of pebbles, much to her mother's exasperation.

"Siobhan!" yelled Mrs. Kendall. "I told you not to do that!" She then placed her own hand over her forehead and rubbed her temples, as if contemplating what to do with her bothersome daughter.

Siobhan was silent as her mother thought, and she stood there with her hand still in the bowl of pebbles. They were smooth and sleek under her sweaty palm, and when she picked one up it felt cold and nice. Siobhan pulled her other hand out of her pocket and then began to toss the pebble from palm to palm, each hand not so far away from each other really, but far enough to anger Mrs. Kendall even more.

"Siobhan Marie Kendall!" she screamed, her voice almost in a wheezy gasp. "How many times have I told you not to touch them?"

"But I wasn't touching them," Siobhan said. "I was throwing them."

"Throwing is still touching, Siobhan," reminded Mrs. Kendall. "Now the put the pebble down."

Siobhan scowled and let the pebble slide into the bowl, landing with a clank. "But I'm bored, Mommy. It's not fair! I wanna go outside and I don't wanna be inside!" the girl whined.

Mrs. Kendall sighed loudly and dramatically. "But it's cold out, Siobhan, and the cold is not the best time to be outside playing."

Siobhan scrunched up her nose and started to grind her bare foot into the old, shaggy, blue carpeting that covered the floor in the living room. This is so unfair, thought the child. She crossed her arms firmly at her stomach and said, "Mommy, please!"

Mrs. Kendall smoothed out her cherry-colored, long-sleeved shirt but did not say anything to her pleading daughter. Siobhan stared up at the woman with big, begging eyes, her lips bunched tightly together, looking as if she was about to cry.

"Mommy, please!" the girl repeated.

Mrs. Kendall couldn't stand it anymore. It was nearly 6'o'clock in the evening, and this had been going on since her youngest daughter woke up 12 hours prior. She had constantly been touching things, and she wouldn't stop begging to go outside.

Mrs. Kendall was only trying to be a respectable mother, and most respectable mothers did not let their 5-year-old daughters go out to play in the biting cold. Not around here at least, in this middle-upper class neighborhood. In their old neighborhood, perhaps, but definitely not here. The proof was in the deserted sidewalk, in the pulled shades, in the bare streets where not even an animal dare run. Everything was so different here, so much more protected than it had been back in the old neighborhood. But, Mrs. Kendall reminded herself, we're not in the old neighborhood!

"Mommy," Siobhan said, "let me go outside. Then I'll be a good girl forever." Siobhan then let an awkward, mixed-emotion grin crawl across her lips. When Mrs. Kendall didn't reply, the girl added, "Please?"

"Fine," said Mrs. Kendall after a while. "Go get some boots and a coat on and I'll get Cassie to take you on a walk around the neighborhood. Okay?"

Siobhan nodded, gleeful. "Thank you, Mommy!" she cried, throwing her arms around Mrs. Kendall's waist in a dramatic, adoring hug.

Mrs. Kendall nodded and then softly pushed her daughter away. "You're welcome," she said. "Now, go get ready so I can tell Cassie to take you before I change my mind."

Siobhan smiled at her mother and then ran off to the coat-closet to get her boots and coat. Mrs. Kendall, still wondering why she had finally given in to the young child's antics, briskly walked off to find her 13-year-old daughter, Cassie.

Cassie was sitting at the desk in her bedroom, copying vocabulary words from the bright green list her language arts teacher, Mr. Samasoey, had given all of his classes on Friday. It was Sunday now, and it was due tomorrow. Twenty-six definitions of words from the novel all seventh graders at Johanson-Brie Academy were required to read.

It was a stupid novel, and it was long. Cassie had tested and she could fit both her pointer and middle finger in the place between the front and back covers. However, not only was the novel stupid and long, but there were so many vocabulary words assigned from it! Each pupil in Cassie's language arts class had to read three chapters a week, and from those three chapters, Mr. Samasoey would pluck 25 to 30 words and put them on a vocabulary list.

Grumbling to herself, Cassie wrote down the word 'vermilion' in messy, minute scrawl. She then looked over at the fat dictionary beside her and flipped from one of the h pages to the correct v page and copied down the definition of the said word. A vivid red to reddish orange. Such a dumb word and an even dumber definition.

Cassie could've screamed. This was the fourth week of doing vocabulary words, and each list grew more irritating and more desperate. Mr. Samasoey had reverted to using color words, and to using verbs. Saunter. Number 15 was saunter.

Groaning, Cassie leaned her old, cheaply made pine desk chair against the whitewashed wall of her bedroom. Saunter. Cassie had known that word since she was 10-years-old. And that just had to appear on the vocabulary list.

"Cassie?" a voice suddenly said as the door to Cassie's small, cramped bedroom was pushed softly open.

Cassie sharply turned her head to the voice, and saw her mother standing in the doorway.

"What?" Cassie asked, hunching back over her desk.

"I told Siobhan you'd take her on a walk around the neighborhood. She's been rather restless all day, and she needs some fresh air. I need to start dinner, so I can't do it, and Libby has a lot of homework, so she can't do it, so you're the only person currently in the house who's available."

"Mom, I have homework to do!" Cassie exclaimed tetchily.

"It'll only take ten or so minutes, Cassie. Just to Willhemson and back."

"Willhemson is about a twenty-five minute's walking distance from our house!" Willhemson was a street a while away, right near Johanson-Brie Academy, where all three Kendall children attended school, Siobhan in kindergarten, Cassie in seventh grade, and Libby in tenth. The academy was well known across the tri-city area, and it went from kindergarten to twelfth grade. It was a wonderful school, but many families could not afford its huge tuition.

"Cassie," said Mrs. Kendall sternly, "this is not optional. Now go put something warm on. You and Siobhan are leaving in five minutes."

Cassie let out a long, angered moan. She gingerly stood up from her chair and then muttered to Mrs. Kendall, "This is so unfair."

"It's not unfair, Cassie. Now go." She pointed out of the room, and presumably towards the coat-closet.

Cassie mumbled a complaint and pushed past her mother, who was blocking the doorway. And then she stomped down the stairs.

Siobhan was waiting for Cassie at the coat-closet, and she was being impatient as her older sister leisurely put on her coat and boots.

"Hurry up!" Siobhan exclaimed, tapping her foot continuously on the ground.

"I'm going as fast I can!" Cassie snapped back. Fumbling, she hooked the zipper of her puffy winter jacket and pulled it up, then clumsily shoved her left foot into one of her too-small boots.

"Let's go now!" her little sister urged, taking Cassie's hand into her own and attempting to tug her away from the closet.

"I only have one shoe on, Siobhan!" Cassie reminded.

Siobhan pouted and let go of Cassie's hand as the adolescent jammed her other foot into her other boot.

"Let's go now!" Siobhan said when she had done that.

"Hold on one second!" Cassie yelled, irritated.

"Why?" Siobhan inquired. "You have your boots on." She then pointed to Cassie's covered feet, as if to prove her obvious point.

"Because I said so!" Cassie replied. The girl then leaned over, adjusted the bottoms of her jeans so the cuffs weren't flipped inside-out, and then stood up again.

"Okay, we're ready now!" Siobhan said.

Cassie slammed the door of the coat-closet shut and grabbed one of Siobhan's scrawny hands. "Let's go," she murmured, annoyed as ever.

Excited, Siobhan rushed to the front door, dragging her older, unenthusiastic sister behind her. Cassie grabbed a house-key from the stained-glass table beside the thick wooden door and dropped it into her coat pocket.

The two children then left the house.

Siobhan kept wanting to run. She didn't want to walk; her legs wouldn't carry her at a pace slower than a jog. And Cassie had to chase after her.

"Siobhan!" Cassie yelled, throwing her hands up into the frigid air.

For the sixth time during the walk, the hyper girl had bound across the street, quick as a bullet. If a car had been coming, she would've surely been hit.

Cassie was feeling pressured and nervous. If her sister was struck by a car, her mother would surely blame her, not Siobhan. Afterall, Cassie was supposed to be the responsible one, being older than her little sister by nearly eight and a half years. Cassie could imagine it now—sitting in the hospital waiting room, with her mother and her father and Libby. Her mother would be crying, surely, wondering about her little girl's fate. Her father would try to comfort her mother, but he wouldn't succeed. Cassie and Libby would sit in the corner, on the uncomfortable chairs the hospital provided waiting relatives and friends. Libby would be flipping through magazines, too scared to talk. Cassie would be too numb to do that even. She would stare ahead at her weeping mother and her frightened father, knowing that they blamed her for this. And then the doctor would come through the door…

"Siobhan!" Cassie yelled again.

Siobhan stared at Cassie, safely on the other side of the street and called back, "Come over here, Cassie! It's nicer over here!"

And Cassie did just that. Quickly looking to make sure no cars were coming, Cassie rushed over to her little sister, who was now skipping jollily ahead, towards the street-sign that read Parker Avenue.

Parker Avenue. They were only at Parker Avenue. Cassie couldn't believe it, nor could she stand it. Parker Avenue was merely two streets away from the street the Kendall family resided on. And Cassie and Siobhan had been walking for nearly 15 minutes. It's because she's been bolting back and forth, Cassie thought sourly, grabbing onto her sister's coat sleeve before she could prance even further away.

"Cas-sie!" whined Siobhan, struggling her way out of Cassie's grip. "Don't hold onto me like that!"

"Then don't run back and forth across the street," Cassie muttered. "It's dangerous."

Siobhan wrinkled up her nose and let out a dramatic grunt. "It's not dangerous! You sound just like Mommy!"

This comparison rubbed Cassie the wrong way. Suddenly infuriated, she brusquely grabbed onto Siobhan's shoulder and kneeled down to her level. "Shut up, Siobhan," she hissed.

"Don't be mean to me!" Siobhan whined in return.

"Oh, please, stop it! I was forced to go with you anyways, and I'm seriously about the snap your little neck!"

"I'm telling!" yelped Siobhan. "When we get home, I'm gonna tell Mommy you said that and you're gonna get in lots and lots of trouble!"

"Poor little Siobhan," Cassie mocked. "I feel so bad for you."

And then Cassie saw tears pool in Siobhan's pale green eyes. Soon they were trickling down her face, forming a thin, quick-moving stream on her freckled cheeks. But Cassie gave her little sister no pity. Cassie was not in the mood to give anybody pity, let alone Siobhan.

Suddenly Cassie heard a car slow down a fair distance away. She didn't expect it to be anything amazing, but she turned her head nevertheless. Afterall, they were standing beside the tall brick wall surrounding Greene Park, which was the huge, local park parents took their young children to for playtime and for picnics. Across the street was the old deserted building that looked tremendously out of place in such a wealthy neighborhood. Nobody dared venture into the boarded up building, and no parent would normally take their child to the park in such cold weather. So Cassie was curious as to why this car was stopping.

The car was an old, beaten station wagon with a dirty license plate and even dirtier windows. The paint was scratched up, and the left side of the car was heavily dented in, which made Cassie suspect the driver of the car had recently gotten into an automobile accident.

Standing on the sidewalk beside the car was a lone young girl. She was a neighborhood girl—she lived near by, and Cassie had seen her multiple times before. She was always alone, either taking a walk or sketching pictures with chalk on the sidewalk. But Cassie didn't give much thought to this, as she suspected she didn't have anybody to play with and her parents were either at work or busy.

When the car pulled over beside her, the young girl stopped walking and stared it, perhaps wondering why it had halted so close to her. The girl watched as the door facing her—the driver's side door—opened and out stepped a man clad in black. He had a scarf tied around the majority of his face. Cassie clutched Siobhan's sleeve nervously, watching as well.

Cassie watched as the man exchanged a few words with the girl. After those few words, the girl started backing away. A lump grew in Cassie's throat. What she thought was happening couldn't be happening. Oh, it couldn't!

But her fears were confirmed when the man put his hand into his pocket swiftly, and pulled out a butcher's knife with a fat, shining blade.