The Disappearance of Samantha Mourey

ONE

November 12, 1994. Wollaston, NH

"I am aware that I have wandered too far off the trails, but the day is just so beautiful. The first day of April vacation, a welcome break from the 3rd grade classroom that produced so much anxiety, and the forest, as always, my escape. It's one of the first days where the crispness of the New England winter has left, and in its place, a hug of air that was neutral and still and beckons me to keep exploring. Air that matched body temperature - no wind, streams of sun shining through trees, creates extra layer of warmth on everything it touches, feeding the forest and the creatures in it, including me.

Curiosity and a lack of anything better to do continues to drive me further away from my house. Trees just starting to bud rustle only when a squirrel jumped from one branch to another. Tiny gray birds chase one another, weaving between branches and tree trunks, eventually resting on one together. None seem to pay any attention to me.

One large pine tree, downed years before and rotting along the ground looks like a good spot for me to sit, so I do. I plop down and pull off my backpack and out of it a plastic bag of Kix cereal that I had packed myself, my white sketchbook and pencils. Not just any pencils, special pencils – blue ones with black tips in place of erasers, each marked by a different number. "This is how you can tell how soft the graphite is," my art teacher Mrs. Burke had explained, as she pointed to each numbered pencil. "The higher the number, the softer the graphite, and therefore, the darker the mark it will make." I begged my parents for these special, grown up art pencils, and when I received them, carried them carefully in my backpack, walking through the woods, pretending I was a travelling artist.

I take my pencils, one by one, running a line along the top of the page with each one, reminding myself which did what, and then with complete disregard for the numbers, I'm sketching a squirrel, switching to a new pencil each time I move to a new body part. After about 15 minutes of drawing, I stare at my disfigured squirrel, feeling annoyed, and crumple it into my backpack. Plopping Kix into my mouth, one by one, I listen, perfectly still, taking in the sounds of the forest. Birch leaves shiver, while tiny plop plop plops on the ground signal squirrels finding acorns above. I throw my tiny circle cereal balls into the clearings to attract the little birds closer, or the squirrels hopping through the trees.

A crunch louder than a squirrel catches my attention and I sit frozen. I am not scared, just full of naïve wonder at what magical creature might appear to break the doldrums of squirrels and birds. The crunching becomes louder – a low shuffling until out of the brush a raccoon wobbles out, and to my delight, grabs one of the Kix I had thrown on the ground, using it's tiny little hands to eat this special treat. My hands move carefully to my sides to hold myself steady on the pine, but it's enough movement his eyes dart over to me and he quickly waddles away. I grab the biggest handful I can get, and throw them all his way, but he still leaves.

For awhile I'm waiting for the raccoon to come back and watching the other animals who don't mind my company. A couple birds carefully come closer and closer until they can grab a piece of cereal and jet away. My sketchbook back on my lap and pencils in hand, I start trying to sketch my new raccoon friend. The number 9 pencil, darkest in the pack in my grip as I make big round black eyes, being so careful to leave a white spot in the middle of each one, the reflection, my super artist trick that I thought only I had realized. As I move onto the nose... snap. A branch in the distance. I wait, hoping my friend is returning for his snack.

Another snap and a crunch, that even at 8 I know means something heavier than a raccoon. I freeze again, this time more fearful. The sound is far away, but as I listen it's quickly becoming closer, louder, more snapping, crunching. People, I realize. More than one. I have never seen anyone other than my parents in the woods behind our house, and I can tell this isn't them. They would say my name, give some sort of warning. They wouldn't be so clumsy. I'm running through scenarios in my 8 year old head of what is happening, and how I should respond, and so I freeze still, and they grow closer. As silently as possible, I move my notebook out of my lap and slip it into my backpack followed by my pencils and zip it shut, as I slip down behind the log to hide. The footsteps seem to be spreading out. Now they are coming from all around me, growing louder and louder, and then a loud POP.