Bessie looks over at the tall youth sitting with her in the window seat of her aunt and uncle’s farmhouse. His eyes are almost an iridescent green; they seem to glow as he gazes at her with gentle kindness against a backdrop of thick driving snow in a dark sky outside the glass. She reaches up to touch the delicate Swedish wildflower pendant around her neck he gave her for her birthday last June.
Around the living room, two toddlers chase each other with shrieks of laughter, unaware of the nightmare unfolding around the missing Leila. “Silver, I’ll get you!” Paddy cries.
“No, you won’t!” Silver shouts back.
“John, settle those two down, would you?” Maureen Dodd calls out from the kitchen.
Her lanky Irish husband catches a child in each arm while they run around him. They all collapse b
