Coleman, the twenty-year-old, came out of the back, slowly but not shyly. Deliberateness was part of his manner.

“Cole, it’s Agent Solomon.”

“Yessir.”

“Here to see Vernon. I brought along a specialist.”

Cole looked at Hugo Blackwood. He did not ask what kind of specialist Blackwood was. Nor did he appear to be very optimistic.

“He’s been quiet,” said Cole.

“Everything all right, Cole?” asked Solomon.

“No, sir,” said Cole, turning without further explanation, walking ahead of them to the rear pantry. He stepped inside there rather than the closed door next to it, pulling on a chain to illuminate a bare bulb, and removing a key from a high shelf. He handed it to Solomon rather than unlocking the door himself.

“Thank you,” said Solomon, but the young man was already walking away.

Solomon listened at the door, expecting to hear the boy call Blackwood’s name again. There was no sound. Solomon inserted the key, turning it, pulling the door open.

Inside was the same bed with the same thin, bare mattress stained with blood.

But no young boy. The chains lay on the floor, manacles open.

Solomon, alarm rising, hurried back down the hallway of loose floorboards, calling Cole’s name. The young man stood near the front entrance.

“Who took him?” asked Solomon.

Cole shook his head, confused. “Took him?”

“Vernon. He’s gone.”

Cole started past Solomon, needing to see for himself. Solomon saw the young girl sitting in a metal folding chair inside an adjoining room, watching him, scared.

Blackwood gripped Solomon’s elbow suddenly, pushing him toward the front door. Solomon allowed himself to be maneuvered outside.

“What?” said Solomon.

Blackwood said, “I think I know where he is.”

Solomon’s senses were on high alert as he followed Blackwood back into the dreaded woods. There was just enough light through the overhead canopy to allow them safely through the trees and the grabbing branches without use of the flashlight gripped in his left hand.

Blackwood strode ahead with an uncanny sense of direction, having only visited here once. They arrived at the hanging tree, but Blackwood’s pace never slowed. He continued toward the first marked trunk he had seen, moving symbol-to-symbol toward the forgotten slave burial ground. Through the trees ahead, harsh orange light through fitful shadows. A campfire, thought Solomon, the young agent rationalizing everything he encountered with some real-world explanation.

As they came upon the clearing, Solomon’s mind was unable to take in everything at once. The images appeared to him in sequence, like a series of smaller explosions culminating in a total demolition.

A ring of fire burned in the scrub grass, five feet in diameter, black smoke rising into the night.

Inside the fire ring knelt the boy, Vernon, all of six years old, before the row of grave markers, wearing only a pair of dirty cotton pants. He held his arms high, hands open, as though summoning something from the sky.