[1][2] It has since been reprinted in the collections Come Along with Me (1968),[3] Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (edited by Sarah Weinman, 2013)[4] and Dark Tales (2016).
[5] Biographers believe this short story — along with "The Missing Girl" — is inspired by the seven people who disappeared in the woods around Bennington, Vermont between 1945 and 1950, near where Shirley Jackson lived from 1945 until her death.
[1] Set in the 1950s, 19-year-old Louisa Tether[6] leaves her Rockville family home the day before her sister Carol's wedding.
She travels on a bus and a train before arriving at Chandler, one of the biggest cities in the state, where she blends in as an average girl, taking up the false identity of "Lois Taylor".
The story ends with Louisa mentioning that her mother still calls out for her on the radio every year on the anniversary of her running away.