Fiona paced and could not stop this exhausting movement back and forth across the room, not even to reassure Charlie. After the fourth hour there was nothing anyone could say that would reassure her. Where was Natasha? Where was she? With so many people screaming for her, why could she not hear them? Why had she not yet been found?

Occasionally a grown-up would come in and say something to Al. At one point Hiram Pennypacker had shown up in blue jeans to help search and gave Al a hard stare as if to say, this is all your fault. You were supposed to be watching them. But no one could voice blame at such a time with such terrible thoughts of what still might be.

It was ten-thirty at night and pitch dark when Fiona, who had been stiff-lipped until then, began to cry. Al had sobered up by then and wanted to join the search but Search and Rescue said they wanted the girls’ guardian in the house with the girls just in case. It was this “just in case” that triggered Fiona. And once she started crying she couldn’t stop. Marlin looked terrified by Fiona’s tears and Charlie was stiff as a board, hardly breathing, sitting in a corner of the living room, speaking to no one, not even the kind women who came and tried to distract her with a storybook. Finally, as the realization sank in that the search might go on all night and crews would be heading further into the woods and the hardware store owner had just volunteered to go for more outdoor lanterns and powerful flashlights from his stock, Mr. Pettinger came down off the mountain with Natasha’s shaking and soaked-to-the-bone body in his arms.

“NAT!” cried Fiona, running out of the house, slipping in the meadow and getting coated in mud but not even noticing as she sprang up again and ran forward.

After that the volunteer fire department called the fire hall and had the siren turned on, the Search and Rescue signal to everyone that Natasha had been found. People started coming slowly back out of the woods, wet and chilled and anxious to hear if she was unharmed.

“I found her halfway up the other side of the mountain shivering under a tree,” said Mr. Pettinger, whose arms were shaking with the fatigue of carrying her.

The paramedics who had been on hand checked her over and declared she wasn’t hypothermic, just cold and wet and exhausted, and she should have a hot bath, a hot drink, and bed. Miss Webster oversaw this while people slowly drifted away, taking their empty casserole dishes and plates and the coffee urn with them. No one quizzed the girls. Everyone seemed to understand that what they needed was quiet. Even the police and Search and Rescue packed up quietly with no further ado. Finally Miss Webster, who was helping Marlin do the dishes, asked the girls if they wanted her to stay the night. She did this without thinking because Mr. Pennypacker was standing right by and a light seemed to go on behind his eyes.