The book bag that Jordyn took with her to Cora Landry’s house for the overnight sits in the middle of the floor. Thomas bends over and pulls out the pair of sweatpants and a University of Grayling T-shirt that Jordyn wears as pajamas and adds them to the ever-growing pile of laundry to wash. His hand grazes something soft and Thomas finds Ella, the gray-and-pink stuffed elephant that Jordyn insists she has outgrown but that always seems to find its way into bed with her. He presses Ella to his nose and inhales Jordyn’s familiar scent. A combination of her shampoo and the Juicy Fruit gum that Jordyn chews incessantly.

He digs more deeply into the book bag and pulls out a pair of socks and underwear, a hairbrush, a toothbrush sealed inside a plastic baggie. His hand lands on a social studies textbook. It’s heavier than he expects and it tumbles from his fingers and hits the ground hard, thrusting a folded sheet of paper from its pages. Thomas reaches for the paper. It is difficult to pick up but after several tries he is able to snag it with his thick, arthritic fingers. The paper is onion-skin thin and the color of weak tea.

Thomas pushes aside a stack of books sitting on the foot of Jordyn’s bed and sits down to get a better look. Carefully he unfolds the paper and immediately recognizes Jordyn’s narrow feathery print. Pitch is written neatly across the top and below it is a remarkably detailed map of what looks like the train yard.

Below a diamond-shaped compass in the upper right-hand corner is the boarded-up depot, the crisscross hatch marks of the railroad tracks and a half-dozen rectangular-shaped boxcars.

Thomas wants to believe that the map is a geography assignment for Jordyn’s social studies class but the fact that his granddaughter and two friends snuck into the train yard the night before leads him to believe it’s no simple school assignment. Two girls, one with braids, the other with her hair in a high ponytail, are hiding behind one of the boxcars, mischievous grins slashed across their round faces. Jordyn and Violet. A third girl, smaller than the other two, is standing all alone in the middle of the tracks, her mouth opened in a round, black scream.

He examines the drawing more closely and among the wispy pencil strokes meant to represent the winter wheat next to the train yard is a shadowy spot, more of a smudge, really. Thomas takes the paper to the window and holds it up to the light. Yes. There among the grasses is a vague, faceless shape of a person that inexplicably fills him with trepidation.