She used the master key and freed Mira’s door. The lights were all on but the girl was nowhere to be seen. She breathed again—and thanked Jesus—and was about to leave when the clutter on the nightstand caught her eye. All of Mira’s little religious icons had been glued together to form one monster amalgam, the chemical sealant still pungent, and this thing stood in the shoebox framed with walls of prayer cards. In its own clear plastic frame overlooking this pantheistic mess was a five-by-seven photo of Mr. Park in his pastor outfit, filched from the family album. It was the same, sacred photo that had sat on his coffin at the funeral.

She snatched it out of the frame. On the back, Mira had written in her wobbly cursive:

Dear patron and assistant of the Pure and the Soaked.

With this prayer I request Your assistance,

And with the aid of the Holy Spirit may You always protect me

During sickness or in health.

St. Bath, Give me the strength to overcome

All the rage that lives in my heart

And the horrors that live in my head.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,

Protect my Sister and me from you-know-who.

Amen.

Mrs. Park always had enough English in her to make out insults. For the next minutes, she moved as if in a trance. She carefully put the shoebox shrine back as she had found it and headed to Rosemary’s door. Without knocking, she unlocked it and entered. Compared to Mira’s, the room was a haven of order. But there was a draught—the window had been left wide open. Drifting in from the street were jubilant carolers: When it snows, ain’t it thrilling./ Though your nose gets a chilling.

She shut the window and the curtains. On Rosemary’s neatly made bed sat a red backpack, not one she’d seen. She lifted it. It was fat and heavy, and placed atop the bed with great significance. Was she running away? With Mira? Her pulse quickened.

Its stainless-steel zippers held an infuriating family of padlocks. Nothing budged. The bag itself was made of some heavy-duty polymer, almost metallic, and its back was padded with even tougher fabric, making it impossible to rip. She groped its sides and shook it. Things clanged. Bottles? They sounded like bottles. Certainly glass or china. Her antique vases, maybe taken from one of the shipping boxes? Was Rosie planning to sell them? So she could run away . . . with a boy?