The Gift

(Contest Entry for Say it in 6) (six sentences)

She was seven years old the night of the accident.

The police who found her said she must have walked ten miles in the winter night, wearing only a white dress with dirt streaked across and a ribbon in her hair. The report found at the station said the little girl escaped from her captures and hid out under an old concrete bridge, waiting till day break. Now, over ten years later, anyone who asks the girl what she remembers from that night will get the same reply as others: “I can’t recall much.” Psychologists will say its suppressed memories to protect her from trauma, while neighbors will say it was an adolescent’s imagination. One thing is for certain though, the pink bear found with young Josephine Natty the night of her escape, was a gift of an unknown kidnapper.