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wrong, and he’d go over and check on him. Carolyn broke out in a cold sweat while he was gone. He came back and said the mail had piled up by his door, too. He couldn’t see anything through the windows. The drapes had been pulled. He made a phone call. Mommy told her to go outside and play when the police came.
    Carolyn wanted to run away, but didn’t know where to go. She climbed the walnut tree and watched when her father and the other police officer opened the front door of Lee Dockery’s house. They came out without him.
    Mommy and Daddy talked about Lee Dockery in the living room that evening, after Charlie and Carolyn had been sent to bed. Carolyn got up and sat by the open door, listening.
    “We talked with neighbors. No one’s seen him in weeks. His truck’s gone. So are the beehives. It’s like he packed up and took off in a hurry. No one has any idea where he’d go or if he’s coming back. They all said he’s a strange old bird.”
    “No one would just walk away from a house and property. Maybe he went to visit relatives.”
    “No relatives that anyone knows about. I never saw anyone visit. Did you?”
    “Charlie and Carolyn went over a few times, but I told them to stay away from him.”
    “Why?”
    “Something about him. I don’t know. He gave me the creeps. Trip, you don’t suppose . . .” Mommy sounded worried.
    “What?”
    “Oh, I’m probably overreacting. I just wondered if Carolyn’s behavior could have anything to do with him. I did tell her to stay away from him, but what if she didn’t?”
    Carolyn held her breath. Had they figured out her secret? Would Daddy go after Dock and shoot him, like Dock had said he would?
    “Carolyn?” Daddy laughed. “She’s much too timid to go visit a strange neighbor without one of us dragging her over there.”
    Mommy was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “I guess you’re right. I just wish I knew what was wrong with her. Trip, she hardly says two words to me. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”
    Then Mommy was crying. Carolyn crept back to bed before she could get into any more trouble than she was already in.
* * *
    1953
    Carolyn’s nightmares continued through the winter months but began to lessen as daylight lasted longer. She didn’t see as many shadows at night, didn’t hear footsteps outside the bedroom window, and didn’t have to hide in the closet anymore. She could slip into Charlie’s bed. He slept so deeply, he didn’t notice until morning.
    Dad took time off from building the house to put up a swing. “Might give her something to do. . . .” Carolyn spent hours sitting in the tire seat, turning the ropes until they grew taut, and then lifting her feet off the ground so she’d spin until she felt light-headed and dizzy. Her mother pushed her sometimes. Once, she even sat on the swing herself and showed Carolyn how to pump her legs so she could go higher.
    Every few months, Carolyn and Charlie had to go to a hospital for “skin tests.” Mom checked their arms every day for a week before taking them back for the doctor to see. When the doctor said, “Negative,” Mom smiled and relaxed.
    Carolyn made a friend in first grade. New to Paxtown and new to school, Suzie clung to her mother like a limpet and had to be pried off by their teacher, Miss Davenport. Miss Davenport called Carolyn over and asked her to sit with Suzie and “make her feel at home” while she went to greet other children. Carolyn understood Suzie. They became inseparable at school. Every recess, they played hopscotch or climbed the monkey bars or took turns pushing each other on the swings. They ate together in the cafeteria. Suzie told Carolyn she lived in Kottinger Village and her daddy was a soldier in the Army. She had two younger brothers and her mother was “expecting.” Carolyn asked what she was expecting, and Suzie said a baby brother or sister.
    At the end of the year, Suzie said her father had received a “transfer,” and