The Girl in the Woods

By Edith Depew

This story is a story about life and strife in a ten year old little girl ,who has advanced to the age of eighteen.Abbey Ketchum has had to live and endure things in her life no child should have to.Abby is what you would probably call an old soul. Circumstances in her life have robbed her or a chance to be so called normal. Abby is a very beautiful girl but doesn,t see herself that way. She has been blessed to have been befriended by and old marine and his dog. This story will have you feeling sad for her but you will also cheer at her tenasity.I hope you can't get enough of her. Because Abby will not disappear after this story. As I write this review I,m already telling more of Abby's life.I hope you enjoy reading her story as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669855217

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Copyright © 2022 by Edith Depew.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/08/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

The girl was hiding behind the moonlit tree branches, the wind was blowing, Her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her thundering chest! She felt like animals, or people could hear her heart pounding. She was acutely aware of who might be trying to find her. She had ran away from what had went on at her home last night. Last night in itself wasn,t so different than alot of nights. Except it was! Willis the town that Abby was was from seemed far away, but Abby would have been afraid to go there anyway!

The girls name was Abby Ketchun. Abby had two other siblings. Chrissy her six year old little sister and her little three year old brother Grady. Abby was only ten years old herself.

They lived with their mother Julia. She Was quite a beautiful woman, but she didn’t see it. Abbys [Asshole of a father made sure of that!] Julias husband, the father of her three children, Robert came and went as he pleased, he had been gone alot. But Robert Abbys dad pretty much came back if he pleased. Abbys mom had been trying to raise the kids, pretty much on her own.

Julia the mom had married the dad Robert when she was sixteen, and Robert was only eighteen years old. At the time Robert had been really sweet, and treated her like a princes. She was pregnant she was in the family way, thats the expression when the kid came along sooner than nine months. Later on if her dad Robert got mad at Abby, he would tell her things that were very hurtful, like your just like your mother. He didn’t know it but when he said that, it made her proud. Robert would say awful things just to be hateful, he probably hated hisself.

You are a little bastard, I don’t even know if I fathered you. Abby thought oh boy I hope you didn’t!Ha!"[If the mom tried to stop him from telling Abby those kind of things he would haul off and hit her mom on the side of the head, sometimes he would stomp on her if she fell down. As far as the kids went there was a pecking order, and Abby knew who got pecked at the most Ha!

Abby got the brunt of the abuse because she was older but Robert her dad would haul off and hit Chrissy or Grady to, if the did anything to make him mad. It didn’t take much to do that. Abby wanted so bad to make him hurt the way he did all of them.

Robert left off and on, they all dreaded when he would come back. but like a bad penny he always did. Julia always managed to get jobs of different sorts. That left Abby to try to take care of her siblings. There was no questions that was just the way it was. She should have resented that, but she knew it had to be that way. Abby knew her mother had an diminutive and very unhappy life, she felt inept to change her life.

The little shack was pretty run down, it only had one bedroom, the kids all slept on the floor in like a closet off of the main bedroom. The kitchen was really small, it had a two burner stove something like you might see in a R.V., the refridgerater was small also. The sink was cracked porcelain, there was a small window that faced to the east, it had a dirty scrap of a curtain hanging on it. The linolium on the floor was tore and couldn’t really be cleaned. Their was a small table across from the sink it wobbled when you sat down, there were three old chairs around it. The truth of the matter was, none of them sat down and ate as a family, Abby did her best to take care of Chrissy and Grady

There was an old plaid brown couch. A couple of old spools that had held wire at one time, It was was used for lamps a magazine or two, a radio, along the wall was some old laundry tubs that held clothes or shoes etc. This room was to the west of the kitchen. Then as you went into the bedroom there was a double bed in there, clothes piled around the room. Julia had put candles in most of the rooms, because lots of times there were no electricity due to non payment. Julia had gotten help in the past from the city to get it turned back on.

Julia did get some help from the state of Kentucky. She got foodstamps, which helped, Robert always seem to know when that was, he would tell her half of them was his. Julia never argued that point. She knew what he was capable of, so she always gave in. She got commodoties once a month, these were food items such as flour sugar, beans and rice. You had to get there early, if you wanted cheese or canned meat [that tasted worse than dog food] but they ate anything they could get. Dried milk that you mixed with water, It wasn’t to bad if the electricity was on, then you could make it cold, if not it was bad. Sometimes you could get peanut butter, but you better get there early. Once in