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let my head fill with pictures.
    I would make believe, that’s all, and somehow things would seem less dark.
     
    February came. The weather turned. Gunther Kruger visited with my mother, told her that they were driving the length of St. Mary’s River to spend a day at Fernandina Beach.
    “We would very much like it if you would both accompany us,” he said, and my mother—barely glancing at me—explained to Mr. Kruger that she was most grateful, but unfortunately would not be able to come.
    “Joseph, however, would be thrilled,” she said. “I have promised Mrs. Amundsen that I would do the butter-churning with her, and if we miss it today the milk will turn—”
    Mr. Kruger, ever the gentleman, raised his hand and smiled widely. He saved my mother the embarrassment of explaining her refusal. “Perhaps next time,” he said, and then told me that they would be leaving from the Kruger house at six in the morning.
    “Do not send any food,” Mr. Kruger told my mother. “Mrs. Kruger will make enough to feed the five thousand and most of their relatives.”
    The following morning it was raining, lightly at first, and then heavier. Nevertheless, we drove along the edge of St. Mary’s River all the way to Fernandina Beach, and by the time we arrived the sun had broken forth and the sky was clear.
    It was a rare day. I watched the Kruger family and they seemed to represent some ideal, some standard against which all families should have been judged. They did not fight or argue, instead they laughed frequently, and with no clear reason to laugh. They appeared as some symbol of perfection in an indiscriminately imperfect world.
    By the time we left the sun had softened its temper and was considering retirement. The haze of late afternoon hung like a ghost of warmth around us, its arms wide and embracing, and when we carried the baskets and blankets to the car Mr. Kruger walked beside me and asked if I had enjoyed the day.
    “Yes, sir, very much,” I said.
    “Good,” he said quietly. “Even you, Joseph Vaughan . . . even you must have some memories to cherish for when you grow older.”
    I did not understand what he meant, and I did not ask.
    “And Elena,” he said.
    I turned and looked up at him.
    He smiled. “I want to thank you for your patience with her. She is a delicate child, and I know you spend time with her when perhaps you would rather be roughhousing with Hans and Walter.”
    I felt awkward and embarrassed. “I-it’s okay, Mr. Kruger, no trouble at all.”
    “You mean a great deal to her,” he went on. “She speaks of you often, Joseph. She has found it difficult to make friends, and I thank you for being there for her.”
    “Yes, sir,” I replied, and set my eyes straight to the road ahead.
     
    For more than nine months I had watched the wound heal. I believed there would always be a scar, right there beneath my skin, invisible to anyone but myself, and the scar would remind me of what had happened to Alice, that winter of 1939—the things I’d overheard from the landing as Reilly and my mother spoke in the kitchen.
    For more than nine months Augusta Falls had made believe that what had happened was a dark and awkward dream. Something had happened somewhere else, not here in their own town, and they had heard rumor of this terrible thing and thanked God that it had not happened to them. They had dealt with this thing in such a way, and they had survived. They had made it through the shadows and come out the other side.
     
    For nine months they told themselves everything was going to be okay.
    But it was not.
    Laverna Stowell was found murdered in the late summer of 1940. She was nine years old, would have been ten on August twelfth, three days after the discovery of her body in a field near the outskirts of Silco, Camden County. She was found on a Friday, just like Alice Ruth Van Horne. She was naked, nothing but her socks and a single shoe on her right foot. I knew this because I read a