Shaw is talking again and that too-controlled thing in her voice is stronger now, which makes it worse, so much goddamn worse because hidden somewhere between the control in Mrs. Shaw’s voice and the actual words she’s speaking is a cold spot that catches the wind and flies toward Lucy, shrouding her, and within that cold spot is a rift, and behind that rift is a demon, one of Unspoken Things, hunch-backed, long-clawed, and chortling sulfur, imparting to Lucy the knowledge that she’s never going to see Sarah again, but she does her best to ignore it and soon it’s gone and there is only the search, the people, the police and volunteers, her reaching into her wallet for a recent picture of Sarah and thanking God that she’d decided to stop at that tacky photographer’s booth at Sears and have a Halloween photo taken of her daughter, and as she’s handing the photo over to the police officer who will have leaflets made within the hour she is suddenly struck dumb by the suspicion that perhaps every parent keeps a recent photo of their child with them not so much to preserve a moment of childhood but because there is the quiet, constant, gnawing fear in their gut that someday the pit will widen and something like this will happen and their child’s life might depend on whether or not they have a memory recently preserved and what in hell are you supposed to do if this is the final memory of your child and soon the leaflets are being distributed and more police are coming in and someone says something about the Ohio branch of the FBI having been called but all Lucy can hear is the sound of her own voice, so tiny and weak and ineffectual and useless as she walks through the crowd and hands out the leaflets and asks stranger after stranger, “Have you seen my daughter? Have you seen her? Have you?” and all of the people, they’re so concerned, like Sarah is their daughter, not Someone Else’s Kid—one young man even runs up to Lucy and grabs her by the shoulders and says, “Is there any word? Have they found her yet?” and when Lucy says no the young man looks like he’s going to start crying, but he doesn’t, only pulls Lucy into a quick embrace and whispers, “I’m sorry,” before dashing off to join in the search, and as helpful and concerned as everyone is being, Lucy tries not to notice the pity in their eyes or the way they’re suddenly clutching their own children much, much closer...

...and somewhere around eleven-thirty they find the small wooden rocking-horse—its tail snapped off and a few heavy, dark streaks covering its snout—in some bushes just outside the carnival grounds...

...along with one of Sarah’s shoes and both of her socks, all three torn and covered in mud...

...and just when Lucy thinks it can’t possibly become any more nightmarish, one of the volunteers shines her flashlight into a patch of foliage a few feet beyond the bushes and finds Sarah’s other shoe...