Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

had come to light on the spatter of Ruth’s blood. I watched it drinking.
    The other children were still lined up along the road. Quiet.
    Henry and James came to stand with me. Henry, who never did what I told him, said, “What should we do?”
    Without Mrs. Taylor, we were all children now. Even the older boys, clustered behind the rest, looked small. I didn’t see Andy. I didn’t see Betty. At the time, I was glad they weren’t around.
    That’s all I thought about them at the time.
    I said, “Henry, run home and get someone.”
    Ours was not the nearest house, but it was the one where my mother was.
    When Henry took off, James followed, and I didn’t call him back, which would have done me no good in any event.
    Then I fetched a pail of water at the well, poured it over the blood in the road, and went inside to wait.
    Some of the other children came along. Most collected their things and went home. The littlest ones sat at their desks with their hands folded until someone came to fetch them. I sat at my desk, which was so much bigger without Ruth, put my head down, and cried.

    I was waiting on the schoolhouse steps when my parents trundled down the road in our old truck and pulled up alongside the gully by the schoolhouse.
    They took me close to them for a moment before my mother went to be with the other children.
    My father bent to look me in the eye. “What happened, Annabelle?”
    I’d stopped crying long before I ran out of tears, so they threatened now to start again.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “I was standing just there”—I turned to point—“talking to Mr. Ansel. Ruth was a little behind me, scared of the grays. And then a rock hit her right here.” I tapped my left eyelid. “And she fell down. Mrs. Taylor took Ruth away in her car.”
    My father straightened to look past me and the truck, at the road and the hill that rose up behind it. “Show me,” he said.
    So I walked around the truck and into the road. There was still a wet spot where I’d washed away Ruth’s blood.
    â€œHere,” I said. “This is where Ruth was standing.”
    â€œFacing the hill? Mr. Ansel was headed down the hollow?”
    â€œYes, to market. See, the apples there, from how fast he went to tell Ruth’s mother. Yes, she was standing there. And I was here,” I said, moving to where I’d been, “and the horses right in front of me, and the wagon and Mr. Ansel here.” I sketched a box with my hand.
    â€œSo the rock came from the hillside there?”
    I looked up at the facing hill. It was steep, trees and bushes rooted everywhere they could root, ledges of slate all over the place, the gully below littered with fallen bits.
    â€œIt must have, I guess, since that’s where Ruth was facing.”
    My father stood with his hands on his hips, considering the hillside. “So the wagon and the horses and you were all in between Ruth and the hill,” he said.
    I nodded. “That’s right.”
    â€œWhich means the rock couldn’t have just fallen loose and bounced out of the gully or it would have hit the horses or the wagon before it hit Ruth,” he said thoughtfully. “It had to have come down from higher up to clear all of you and hit her.”
    It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer it.
    Far as I knew, no one had climbed that hill at recess, though the boys sometimes played King of the Mountain when school was over, grabbing hold of branches as they climbed, gaining footholds on the ledges and along the trunks of the trees. Rabbits and deer and boys had made zigzag paths that showed the easiest ways up and down.
    â€œAnd you didn’t see anyone up there when this happened?”
    I shook my head. “I was looking at the horses and Mr. Ansel. And then I was looking at Ruth.” And that was when my lips began to tremble.
    â€œOkay, Annabelle,”