Chapter 1

Tina walked through the summer's forest. She had been bored for too long and no one wanted to entertain her, so she had gone to the forest. At least no one tried to get her to do something on the farm when she was here.

She had been forced to be with her grandparents on their farm the whole summer. Maybe it would even become longer because her parents were working outside of town. As you can imagine, there wasn't much to do in the countryside when you were a 13-year-old girl who only knew the city and the fun of it.

She had kicked and screamed, then begged her parents not to do it. She didn't want to spend the summer with her grandparents. It was ok for a week, but not for several months. She didn't want to go there, she would be bored to death, no one would want her and all her friends in the city would have forgotten about her by the time she would be back.

But her parents hadn't listened. They had to work, they said. They had to bring in the money, and right now, as the economy looked, they just had to go wherever the money was. Which meant that Tina would have to spend some time with her grandparents.

And she wouldn't die, they said. It wasn't so long, and anyway, she used to love to spend time with her grandparents. But Tina had protested and said that was when she was 5 years old. Not now, when she was almost an adult. What was there to do on the farm? Milk cows? No way!

But they had refused to listen, and nothing more could be done. They had dropped her off by the farm on their way to work, wished her good luck and said that, of course she would find something to do. She just had to stop sulking. Which made Tina vow that she would sulk until they came back, just to make sure they knew how horrible time she'd had there.

That had been two months ago. By now she had stopped counting the days and weeks and just given up any hope of ever returning to the city. She was doomed. Her friends would have forgotten about her, and no one would ever love her again. This was her fate.

She kicked a stone as she walked. The sun shone through the trees and it reminded her of her summers here as a little girl. She'd loved the forest, and she still secretly did. Not that she would have told anyone, but that was the truth deep inside. The stone hit another stone and shot off into the forest. It landed with a... crunch. Tina stopped. Why had there been a crunch? There was nothing in this forest that would give a crunchy sound? She stepped into the forest toward where the stone had fallen. There was something shimmering on the ground, and she leaned forward to take a closer look.

She remembered nothing after that. The people on the farm would start looking for her in a couple of hours, but she wouldn't be anywhere to be found. She had disappeared from the surface of the earth, it seemed like...