She snagged the strap of her pack in one hand and hur-ried on with it banging against her leg, casting mistrustful looks back at the fallen tree and the leafy spaces between the standing ones, afraid of seeing the snake, even more afraid that she might see a whole battalion of them, like snakes in a horror movie, Invasion of the Killer Snakes, star-ring Patricia McFarland, the riveting tale of a little girl lost in the woods and - "I am not l - " Trisha began, and then, because she was looking back over her shoulder, she tripped on a rock stick-ing out of the mulchy earth, staggered, waved the arm not holding her pack in a doomed effort to keep her balance, and then fell heavily on her side. This sent up a flare of pain from her lower back, where the stump of branch had jabbed her.
She lay on her side in the leaves (damp, but not all nasty-squelchy like the ones in the hollow beneath the fallen tree), breathing fast, feeling a pulse throb between her eyes. She was suddenly, dismally aware that she didn't know if she was going in the right direction anymore or not. She had kept looking back over her shoulder, and she might not be.
Go back to the tree, then. The fallen tree. Stand where you came out from underneath and look straight ahead and that's the direc-tion you want to go in, the direction of the main trail.
But was it? If so, how come she hadn't come to the main trail already?
Tears prickled the corners of her eyes. Trisha blinked them back savagely. If she started to cry, she wouldn't be able to tell herself she wasn't frightened. If she started to cry, anything might happen.
She walked slowly back to the fallen, moss-plated tree, hating to go in the wrong direction even for a few seconds, hating to go back to where she had seen the snake (poison-ous or not, she loathed them), knowing she had to. She spotted the divot in the leaves where she'd been when she saw (and - oh God - felt) the snake, a girl-length smutch on the floor of the forest. It was already filling up with water.
Looking at it, she rubbed a hand dispiritedly down the front of her shirt again - all damp and muddy. That her shirt should be damp and muddy from crawling under a tree was somehow the most alarming thing so far. It suggested that there had been a change of plan... and when the new plan included crawling through soggy hollows under fallen trees, the change was not for the better.
Why had she left the path in the first place? Why had she left sight of the path? Just to pee? To pee when she didn't even need to that badly? If so, she must have been crazy.
And then some further craziness had possessed her, making her think she could walk through the uncharted woods (this was the phrase which occurred to her now) in safety. Well, she had learned something today, indeed she had. She had learned to stay on the path. No matter what you had to do or how bad you had to do it, no matter how much yatata-yatata you had to listen to, it was better to stay on the path.
When you were on the path your Red Sox shirt stayed clean and dry. On the path there was no disturbing little minnow swimming in the hollow place between your chest and your stomach. On the path you were safe.
Safe.
Trisha reached around to the small of her back and felt a ragged hole in her shirt. The stub of branch had punched through, then. She had been hoping it hadn't. And when she brought her fingers back, there were little smears of blood on the tips. Trisha made a sighing, sobbing sound and wiped her fingers on her jeans.
"Relax, at least it wasn't a rusty nail," she said. "Count your blessings." That was one of her mother's sayings, and it didn't help. Trisha had never felt less blessed in her life.
She looked along the length of the tree, even scuffed one sneakered foot through the leaves, but there was no sign of the snake. It probably hadn't been one of the biting kind, anyway, but God, they were so horrible. All legless and slith-31 ery, flipping their nasty tongues in and out. She could hardly stand to think of it, even now - how it had pulsed under her palm like a cold muscle.
Why didn't I wear boots? Trisha thought, looking at her low-topped Reeboks. Why am I out here in a pair of damned sneakers?
The answer, of course, was because sneakers were fine for the path... and the plan had been to stay on the path.
Trisha closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm okay, though,"
she said. "All I have to do is keep my head and not go bazonka. I'll hear people over there in a minute or two, any-way."
This time her voice convinced her a little and she felt bet-ter.
She turned around, placed her feet on either side of the black divot where she had lain, and put her butt against the mossy trunk of the tree. There. Straight ahead. The main trail. Had to be.
Maybe. And maybe I better wait here. Wait for voices. Make sure I'm going the right way.