it’s not something annie has ever experienced before. wherever the treehouse goes: it takes her and jack home. they press their fingers to the page of a book, they go somewhere, they do whatever they are meant to do and they go home.
but she could tell, this time. it’s the way the tree house seems to rot from the inside out. she’s never seen it do that. it stays put but it seems to rot. everything blackens and turns bad. she and jack scrambled down - and they haven’t been back.
any answers to what happened are going to have to come from elsewhere. annie simply refuses to go back up - and she’s not usually scared of anything. they’ve been here a week now. living in the woods isn’t exactly fun, but they’ve been getting by. if anyone is prepared to live in the woods, it’s two kids who’ve been anywhere and everywhere.
berries don’t always cut it though, and water is becoming harder to find. that’s what’s sent the eleven year old out into the edges of town. she’s on a hunt. she’s taken jack’s notebook and she’s hunting through someone’s backyard when she hears movement.
shit. she freezes by the shed she had one hand on.
“hi,” she says, hesitantly. “i was just cutting through your backyard to go to mine.”