It was a Sunday—April 19, 1953—and Lucy Gallows’s sister was getting married on a sprawling property at the edge of the Briar Glen Woods. Little Lucy, age twelve, was the flower girl. But following an argument with her mother, she ran away into the woods in her crisp white dress with its blue ribbon around the waist. Everyone expected she’d be back in a minute or two, as soon as she calmed down, but ten minutes later she hadn’t returned—and then twenty minutes, and then half an hour.
Lucy’s brother, Billy, was sent to fetch his sister. He walked into the woods. The only way forward was a narrow track, a deer trail through the trees. He called her name—Lucy! Lucy!—but received no answer except the calling of crows.
And then he saw it: the road. There were roads here and there in the woods, the remnants of the original settlement of Briar Glen, which had burned down in 1863. These roads were now often nothing more than a stretch of trees planted in too straight a line to spring from nature, or one stone pressed up against another where all the rest had long since been knocked astray. At first this road was like that, a dimple in the underbrush and a few scattered stones marked with the tools of men. But as Billy chased it, the road widened, and the stones knocked up against each other, beginning to form a smooth path through the thick forest.
He was certain that Lucy had followed the road, though he couldn’t explain the strength of the conviction to anyone who had asked afterward. And yet for all that conviction, every step he took seemed to be more difficult than the one before. As the road grew easier, his way grew harder, as if he was laboring against an invisible force.
His feet got heavier and heavier. The air seemed to push against him. It became almost unbearable, and then—there was Lucy. He could see her ahead of him, around a slight bend in the road. She was talking to someone—a man in a patchy brown suit and a wide-brimmed hat. Billy called her name. She didn’t turn. The man bent slightly to talk to her, smiling. He put out his hand.
Billy screamed his sister’s name and thrashed toward her. But Lucy didn’t seem to hear him. She took the stranger’s hand, and together they walked down the road. They moved swiftly, not burdened as Billy was, and the road seemed to follow, vanishing beneath Billy’s feet. In moments the road and the man and little Lucy Gallows were gone.
Townspeople searched the woods for weeks, but no sign of Lucy was ever found. But every so often, someone stumbles across the road, winding through the woods, and sees a girl running down it, dressed in a white dress with a blue ribbon. You can never catch up with her, they say, and you will find yourself alone in the bewildering woods, with no sign of a road or a girl or a clear way home.
So be careful what roads you take, and be careful who you follow down them.