Don't Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon

still had a curfew, he’d used it to sneak out a few times.
    This time, he was using it to leave for good. Peter took one final look at his room. Then he eased out onto the ledge and pulled the window shut behind him.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    N oa rarely dreamed, but when she did, it was always the same. Smoke and flames. Screaming. Leaves flickering red and orange and the smell of terrible things burning.
    She’d been asleep during the accident. The most important thing that had happened in her entire life, and Noa had only regained consciousness halfway through it. Back then she’d been an extraordinarily heavy sleeper. Her father used to tease her about it, called her his little bear because she went into hibernation every night.
    They’d been driving home late from vacation. A dark road in Vermont, windy and steep. The last thing she remembered was her mother singing along to the radio, some sappy ballad that had been popular at the time. Noa was snugged into a booster seat in the back, her head drifting back and forth as the car swayed around corners. The whole car danced along the road in time to the rhythm of her mother’s voice. Her father chimed in on the chorus, off-key. Her mother sang louder along with him, a laugh in her voice, her hand lightly brushing his shirtsleeve.
    It was winter, New Year’s Day. Noa had a dim memory of staying up late the night before. A slew of older kids running around, leaving her feeling slightly awestruck. She’d been too young to be included in their games, and too old to play with the babies. That was okay, though. As an only child, she was used to spending a lot of time alone.
    She’d overheard puzzling snippets of adult conversation, someone’s dad getting a little too loud before being gently ushered from the room. People counting down and cheering and kissing one another. A constant din of conversation rising and swelling around her. Noa sat there for hours, wide-eyed, tired but too exhausted to sleep, until someone noticed and her father lifted her in strong arms to carry her to bed. She let her head fall limp against his shoulder, felt her mother’s soft lips brush against her cheek as her eyes drifted shut. That final night she’d slept on a sagging air mattress in a room full of other kids, their breathing soft and irregular around her, the air uncommonly musty, the smell of stale alcohol and dog hair drifting up from the carpet.
    Brunch the next day, the adults’ voices set on mute, the roar diminished to a grumble. Kids yawned and whined and teased until someone snapped at them to quiet down. They ended up staying late, even though her mother wanted to get on the road. Her father said it was only a few hours’ drive, they’d be home in plenty of time, and besides, this way Noa would sleep in the car.
    The radio, the song. The sleep. Then the fire.
    In the dream, Noa’s eyes were fixed on the trees webbed through the shattered moonroof. They throbbed and pulsed, hot and red, in time to her heartbeat. There was a monster in the car, a loud angry one that roared as it devoured. She could hear her mother scream, fighting it. Her father never said a word; he’d already been overcome. Noa couldn’t see the monster; her head refused to move. But she listened as it consumed her parents, then came for her. She felt its hot fingers stroking her legs, reaching for her hair, trying to wrap her in a tight embrace. It was like that giant snake that coiled around its victims, then swallowed them whole. The minute she felt that heat reaching for her, she pictured scales and dryness and a massive mouth opening wide …
    At the last possible moment, Noa was torn from the monster’s grasp. She was suddenly thrust out into a sharp cold that was almost as bad as the heat. More shouting and then other hands were on her, frigid ones this time, and she still couldn’t see; her eyes were running too wet for her to focus.
    Sometimes she made it all the way through the dream, but more often