Even as a grown man, there is no name that sends the needles of dread traversing up my spine more than “Sylvia.” I’ve never seen her, but I am painfully aware of her — I know people who have claimed to have seen her, but never for myself. I consider myself fortunate to that degree.
To those who know of Sylvia, you know exactly where I mean when I say “Janesville Mountain.” To those unfamiliar with the cluster of sleepy mountain villages that I called home, picture a secluded road along a mountain pass obscured in shadow — it’s one hundred miles through pine trees and thin air from Pittsburgh, more than two hundred from the Philadelphia direction. It’s the kind of road that you hold your breath when you drive on it, that you turn up your radio when the sun is setting, and you opt for the extra length of the Interstate when night falls.
