Of course, by its very definition, an idyll can’t last, and the first crack in the facade came the week before Halloween. Everyone was in a state of high excitement, from Bobby Eggers, their resident third grader, to the teenagers and the adults, especially Tim, the eldest among them and always the most enthusiastic no matter the program, whether it was a group session or a birthday party or a game of touch football on the lawn. This would be their first holiday together, a pagan holiday—and what could be better, more appropriate, more trippy, than that? Tim was planning a party for a hundred guests or more, Peggy and her set coming up from the city, along with Maynard and Flo Ferguson and Tommy and Billy and some of their friends too. She threw herself into the preparations, putting up decorations, sewing costumes, carving jack-o’-lanterns, running to the grocery and liquor store in the station wagon with Fanchon, Paulette, Alice and Susannah while the men split wood or sequestered themselves in their rooms with their books and papers and eternally clacking typewriters. She was distracted, that was it, living her own life in her own way for a change, and in retrospect she realized she could have—should have—paid a little more attention to Corey.

She went into his room one night on some trivial errand—underwear, did he have clean underwear for school?—only to find his bed empty. The sheets and blankets were mussed, but that didn’t mean anything, since he never made his bed anyway and there was no maid service here, unlike at the Hotel Catalina. She checked her watch. It was past one in the morning—and on a school night, no less. Where could he be? Her first thought was that he must have fallen asleep in one of the other boys’ rooms, most likely Richard’s, because Richard was the one he was closest to. She went out into the hallway, then down the stairs to the first floor and along the corridor to the back of the south wing of the house, where the Robertses had their rooms, but no one was stirring, so she decided to try Tommy Eggers on the off chance Corey was there.

Royce and Susannah were also on the first floor but on the other side of the house, and they’d taken three rooms together, one for themselves, one for Nancy and another for Tommy and Bobby. Everybody shared and shared alike and they were all one, yes, of course, but there were privacy concerns too, especially with regard to the children’s rooms, and she didn’t really want to intrude, but after backing up to make a quick search of the public rooms (Dick and Alice were sitting before the fire in the library playing chess, and when she asked they said they hadn’t seen Corey since dinner), she felt she had no choice.