“I would have loved to do that,” she admitted.

“I would have kicked him.”

Teresa ruffled the boy’s hair.

“It’s not necessary that we stay away from those we love in order to protect them,” she said, looking at Mathias. “But we do have to let people help us so that we can fend off those who want to harm us.”

She waited in silence for the boy to react. Mathias was biting his lower lip, as if to hold his words in.

“Can Markus come home to just me and Mom?” he finally said, his eyes shining with tears. He was asking for her protection—for himself, for his brother, for his mother.

“Yes, I promise.”

Mathias looked at his friends. Teresa could clearly sense the silent communication taking place among them; these kids were each other’s family, and that was why they were guarding their secret. Loyalty was so important to children their age and so surprisingly fragile in adults. They had learned how to protect themselves without losing the enchantment of childhood. They had remained pure even when the world around them was anything but.

Amid that awesome landscape, those silent, fairy-tale peaks, the insides of people’s homes in Travenì harbored unspeakable secrets. Teresa was disturbed by how many she’d already encountered. It was a startling disjunction.

Like looking for God and finding Satan and his horns, she thought.

But more than the sins themselves, what upset her most was the effort the community put into covering up for the sinners, leaving their victims at the mercy of their tormentors, and all for the sake of preserving the unity of the village against the outside world. She thought bitterly of the pamphlets strewn around town, calling for a popular uprising against the new ski slope. There was so much activism against the “invasion,” yet nobody had lifted a finger to help these kids.

Lucia pulled at Teresa’s trousers to draw her attention.

“We’re not scared because we’re together. We meet in the forest almost every day,” she said, glad to be able to talk to her new friend. “You should try, too, if you’re scared.”

Teresa smiled.

“I should talk to a friend about it?”

“Yes.”

“Like you all do?”

The girl nodded.

“We talk about bad things that scare us,” said Oliver. “Then they become less scarible.”

“That’s not a real word,” Lucia told him.

“Yes, it is!”

“Do you talk about bad things, too, Mathias?” Teresa asked the boy.

He nodded.

“But I’m not afraid for myself,” he said.

“You only talk about your fears for your brother, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Teresa told him. “The strong must always look out for the weak.”

He smiled, feeling gratified by her praise. He looked at Lucia and nodded.

“We have a secret spot, down in the gorge, just past the cave. It’s near the waterfall,” the girl revealed.