The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

An hour along the old road, Trisha finds a rusted-out truck with broken windows. Although there is a storm building in the distance, she decides against sleeping in the cab because the dust worsens her cough. Settling on the forest floor with her pack as a pillow, she falls asleep feeling contented, but is awoken several hours later by the full force of a thunderstorm. As she stumbles toward the truck’s cab for shelter, she suddenly freezes, sensing that the God of the Lost is close by. Lightning flashes, illuminating the outline of a black-eyed, hunched figure at the edge of the road. The figure has large ears or horns, and it looks neither human nor animal-like. Screaming, Trisha jumps into the truck’s cab and hides her head. She is still in this position when she falls asleep.

In the morning, Trisha manages to convince herself that she only imagined the dark figure from the night before—that is, until she steps out of the truck and sees a perfect circle drawn in the ground around the cab. It’s as if the God of the Lost has drawn the circle to say, “she is mine…she is my property” (264).