Ed sets Buddy down and he and the dog climb down the steep stairs to the apron that runs around the building to the millpond and the steps that lead to the old path. Immediately, the dog sets about squirrel hunting. “You already scared them off.” He pats his thigh and the dog comes bounding back. “Stick close. It can be dangerous here.”

The millpond is low, a good foot beneath the lip of the dam, as the dry summer has depleted the dammed river of its volume. It halfheartedly escapes through one open sluice gate. Today’s rain has given the usually placid surface a little motion, and leaves float like little empty boats, ganging up where the unseen force of the thwarted river pushes them against the stones.

Ed hasn’t been here for seven years.

Ed stares down into the bronze-colored water of the millpond. The power of the moving water to make the shaft work is in the flowing of it into the waterwheel, long since gone. Only the real old-timers remember when it was there, and even then just a broken vestige of industry.

Five feet deep. A mere five feet of accumulated river water, and all the power of strategically released water moves the wheel. Five feet. Deep enough to swim in. Deep enough to keep the trout alive. Deep enough if your pockets are full of rocks.

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Moodyville doesn’t have a police force. When emergencies happen, car crashes and the like, the resident state trooper does what is necessary. A 911 call will get the volunteer fire department out, and the EMTs. Neighbors. Colleagues. When a fisherman who was hoping only to catch a fish on opening day snagged his line and discovered the drowned body of a young girl, it was left to the resident trooper, arriving after the fire department and the EMTs, to make the unhappy connection between the girl in the pond and the parents who had made the missing-person call two days earlier. The fire department lieutenant and the driver of the town ambulance looked each other in the eye and were glad that they, who know the Parmalees well, wouldn’t have to make that visit. No one wants to bring that kind of news into a neighbor’s house.

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