Prologue

Prologue

I can still picture him perfectly, the way he looked on the day he kidnapped me. The memory is like a delicate, winged creature, trapped for eternity in a mantle of amber.

He was standing in the parking lot of the visitors' center, with a dark band of towering sequoias at his back. It was already early evening, and his dark eyes shimmered in the light of the setting sun. Sparks danced within them like tiny will-o'-the-wisps from an enchanted world, seeming to promise secrets, maybe even adventures. Back then, I wanted both.

How else could I have been so deaf and blind to all the warning signals? The glances over his shoulder to check whether the backpackers had gone inside yet. The way the keys jangled anxiously in his fingers, the laughter that echoed through the silence a shade too loudly. I didn't notice, or didn't want to. All I heard were the silent questions behind that shimmer in his eyes.

Do you want this?

It could have meant anything.

Do you want to come with me?

Do you want to sleep with me?

Do you want me to kidnap you?