The Trap by Joan Lowery Nixon

directing my life without giving me a chance to make up my own mind.
    Two of my friends wrote “How I’m spending my summer vacation” letters, but since they were mostly about guys they had met, I just gritted my teeth and sent short answers that sounded as if I were having just as good a time. Who would be interested in the elderly people I was meeting? Nobody.
    I jumped as a snap like a twig breaking came from just outside the window. I stared at the open shutters and saw nothing but the deep blackness outside. Something or someone was out there. I could feel it. My hands grew clammy, and it was hard to breathe as I listened intently for another sound of movement, but the night was silent.
    It’s only a cow, I told myself. Calm down. Don’t be so ready to be scared.
    I turned back to my laptop and the e-mail I’d received from Ellie, one of my friends on the swim team. I clicked on Reply and began typing:
    Let me know the scores you make at each of the meets. I wish I could
    I jumped again as just under the window came a dull thump, as if someone had bumped the outside wall. I stiffened, not daring to look up. Was someone outside the window, looking in? Although my legs were trembling, I knew I had to investigate. I couldn’t just sit there and allow myself to be watched, not even by a cow.
    I shut off my laptop, then stood up slowly and stretched. Forcing myself to remain calm, I slowly sauntered out of the study. When I was in the hallway, out of the window’s range of vision, I ran to the kitchen door and silently opened it.
    Slipping through, I made my way around to the back of the house. Golden strips of light beamed through the open shutters onto the ground under the study window.
    No one was there.
    I glanced to each side and saw only the empty clearing with the tangled vines and trees of the forest massing beyond. There was no sign that cattle had been there, so I couldn’t blame a cow for making the noises that had frightened me.
    I didn’t like being alone in the darkness, so I hurried to the kitchen door and reached for the handle. I tugged, expecting it to open, and was shocked when it didn’t budge. The door was locked.
    I hadn’t locked it. I knew I hadn’t. It was the kind of knob with a center button you had to push in and turn. They were so easy for intruders to open with a credit card that everyone in Santa Monica had installed dead bolts for better protection. If I just had a credit card to push the lock back … but I didn’t.
    Behind me, I heard the rustle of bushes. Whirling, I pressed my back against the door. Opposite me, at the edge of the clearing, I could sense movement. Shadowy movement I was barely able to make out. Whatever was there was well hidden by the dark night.
    But I was out here with it.
    Turning, I pounded on the door, yelling in panic, “Aunt Glenda! Help me! Let me in!”

I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMEONE COMING CLOSER AND CLOSER. I could feel eyes boring into my back. I yelled and pounded all the harder, and when the door suddenly swung open, I stumbled and fell into the kitchen. “Shut the door! Hurry!” I shouted.
    Glenda tugged on my arm, pulling me to my feet. “Julie!” she cried. “What happened? What’s the matter?”
    “Somebody locked me out of the house,” I said. “Then he came after me.”
    I turned and saw that the door was still open. Glenda had stepped to the sill and was peering outside. “No one is there,” she said.
    “He was,” I said, leaning against her and trying to make out shapes in the darkness. “I’m sure of it.”
    A deer stepped from the shadows of the trees into the clearing, his eyes reflecting the kitchen’s light, and Glenda gave a relieved sigh. “There you are,” she said. “What you saw and heard was only a deer. You accidentally locked the door and didn’t realize it.”
    Glenda shut the door and turned the button in the knob. “It’s a good thing Gabe took those pills the doctor gave him,” she said. “He’s