LITMIR.BIZ

      When they got to the house, Emaline couldn’t find her mother—the house was so crowded with neighbors and friends. “What are all these people doing here?” Emaline asked Lydie. “Look at all the food they brought, like for a funeral.” She looked around for Jack, but he didn’t seem to be here. Maybe he was out looking for Daisy.

      “Why is everyone staring—?” Emaline said. She stopped mid-question, her legs suddenly wobbling, her head light.

      Lydie helped her onto the sofa. “Let me get you some water,” she said, lifting Emaline’s feet onto the coffee table. “Or some juice. You need something—I’ll fix you a plate.”

      “No, I’d gag on it.” She leaned her head against the sofa and closed her eyes. “I’m fine, I just need a minute. Just one minute.”

      “Miss Durham?” came a deep voice overhead. “Emaline Durham?”

      Emaline looked up to see her Aunt Clarisse and a uniformed man hovering on the opposite side of the coffee table.

      “Emaline,” said the big man with the brick-red mustache. “I’m Victor Brown, state trooper, and I want you to know—”

      “I’ve seen the trooper. He’s older than you. And a lot shorter.”

      “That was Billy Moore.” He said the old trooper’s last name like it was MOO-wah, like it had no ‘r’ in it, like he wasn’t from around here. “He left a few weeks ago. I’m your trooper now. I’m in charge of this case.”

      “Case?

      “Case. Your aunt wants me to tell you—”

      “Where’s my mother?” Emaline took her feet off the table and started to stand, but Lydie pulled her back down.

      “In the kitchen, dear,” Clarisse said, taking a seat on the sofa and squeezing Emaline’s hand with her pudgy one. “She really wants to see you.”

      “Well, what the heck does he want?”

      “I just—your aunt wants you to know we got a lotta men searching for your sister,” the trooper said, twisting one end of his mustache between his fingers. “Upwards of a hundred, by my last count, including the whole fire squad. Won’t be long now till we get her home, I think. Anyways, you should call it a night, miss. It’s getting dark. No time for a young lady to be out.”

      “You’re right,” she said. “It’s no time at all for a young lady to be out. So we’d best get Daisy in, hadn’t we? Now if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’m going to go find my sister.”

      “I’m gonna insist now, miss,” he said. “We don’t need two girls going missing on us tonight.”

      Emaline shot him an acid glare, then stood up and headed for the kitchen. As she went, she glanced at the mantelpiece clock. It was past six. Daisy had been missing since lunchtime—six hours!—and there still wasn’t a sign of her. She’d vanished, and no one knew where or how.

      Mrs. Durham sat at the kitchen table, her chin on her hand. She was surrounded by a flock of women who stepped aside as soon as Emaline came in. The choir teacher and Sister Frances were there. So were most of Mrs. Durham’s quilting bee ladies, all of them with grim, pressed lips and narrow eyes.

      “The poor dear,” one of the women whispered. “First her father and now this.” Did she really think Emaline couldn’t hear her?

      “Ma?” she said, stepping closer.

      When Mrs. Durham raised her chin, Emaline let out a small gasp. Her mother looked just like one of the mannequins at Pool’s Dry Goods—so stiff and pale, staring at nothing.

      “Emaline, thank heavens you’re all right,” she said. “I was getting worried about you too.”

      “I couldn’t find her, Ma. But I will. I’m going to find her.”

      “No, stay inside. I don’t want you wandering those woods at night.”

      The other women murmured their agreement.

      “I have to, Ma.”

      “But…,” She squeezed Emaline’s hands. “Just be careful then, do you hear me? Be careful. Promise.”

      “I promise. I’ll be back as soon as I can, honest.” She glanced at the women, then back at her mother. Then she left the kitchen without saying good-bye or thank you or any other thing to anybody.

      Lydie was waiting for her by the coffee table. “How’s your mother?” she asked.

      “She looks just like she did the day Daddy died. Like a shell, like a broken shell.”

      “I’m sorry, Em.”

      “Yeah.” She scanned the room again and cleared her throat. “What’s going on out here?”

      “Nothing but bull. Spud McMann is beating his gums about hungry bears walking down the middle of the street over in Potsdam. Mae Petru is yammering about the maximum-security prison in Dannemora, how it’s only an hour away, how she wonders if they ever escape. I blocked out the rest.”

      Emaline’s eyes started to glisten.

      “Come on, Em, they’re all just a bunch of saps, gossiping instead of doing something useful. Look, I found a flashlight in the other room. Let’s head back out.” She took her cousin’s hand and gave it a tug.

      Emaline took a shaky breath, then the two of them hurried out the door where the first stars were twinkling in the evening sky.

      Pool’s Dry Goods was closed for the night at half past six, but Jack, Mr. Pool and Roscoe were still there. Roscoe and Jack had been in the backroom all day unloading the winter clothes shipment and listening to the Yankees-White Sox game on the Canton radio station. Now Jack was sweeping the front walk and rolling up the window awnings while Roscoe collapsed shipping boxes for the rubbish.

      “Jack,” Mr. Pool called out the open door, “that’s all for one day. Here, take this and eat at the diner, save your mother from cooking another meal.”

      “Okay.” He took the dollar from his father. “I’ll have change for you.”

      “Keep it. For your birthday.”

      “Thanks, Pa. You coming home soon?”

      “After a while.”

      ’Night, Roscoe. Who’s going to win tomorrow?”

      Roscoe clicked his tongue. “Indians.”

      “Not a chance, not against the Yankees. See you next week.”

      The Sit Down Diner was busier than usual tonight. Old Man Claghorn had dropped in for a slice of pie on his way home from the aluminum works. Bucky Sanborn, the traveling paper salesman, was there, and so was Frenchie LaRoux, who didn’t order anything but was chatting with his table neighbors—Dr. McCarthy on one side and the Lorado brothers

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