Her journey always took her to the end of Washington Lane, which her mother called “the dead-end street” with such formality that Emily had thought this was its name until she’d learned to read. Where the road stopped she had to navigate a small runner of space between two chain-link fences, the one to her right penning in the Calahans’ mutt, a big, bad-tempered dog that looked like some kind of pit bull mix and always charged her as soon as he caught her scent. Today as always, the dog followed the length of the fence, snarling until his mouth foamed, docked tail pulled down tightly and whipping back and forth with a deceptive cheeriness. Emily hated the animal. But the dead-end street was her closest path to the woods, and circumventing the dog struck her as an important part of the ritual, as though she were required to prove her worth each time she passed from the world she knew into the world she’d created for herself.