She remembered the animals. The way her mother had incorporated their unpredictable disappearances and sometimes terrifying reappearances into children’s stories designed to make her feel that this was normal and not something of which she should be afraid.

She remembered her parents’ deaths.

She’d been playing with Dawn, not in the woods, where Dawn wanted to play, but in the barn, which was also supposed to be off-limits. They were practicing their marriage ceremony, Dawn as usual taking the role of both minister and groom. For rings, they had Coke can pull-tabs and were wearing wreaths they’d woven from weeds. Laurie pretended to be enjoying the game, but there was something unsettling about it all, about Dawn’s solemnity and almost ferocious dedication to strict marriage tradition.

Dawn had just pronounced them husband and wife and had given herself permission to kiss the bride when they heard a softly muttered “Shit!” from the yard outside.

“Hide!” Dawn ordered.

Laurie hurriedly ducked into the tool closet, closing the door. It was her father, and she knew he’d take the strap to her if he caught her in the barn after he’d specifically told her she was never to go near it.

She expected Dawn to follow her or to find a hiding place of her own, but her friend stood her ground as the big door opened and her father entered.

“Hello, Ralph,” Dawn said.

Ralph! She dared to call him by his first name?

Against all odds, her father didn’t seem to mind. Didn’t seem to even notice. To Laurie’s shock and surprise, her father chuckled, and in a voice more tender than any she’d ever heard him use with her mother or herself, he said, “Dawn.”

There was whispering then, whispering and low murmuring, and what sounded like her father’s belt buckle being unfastened.

Was Dawn going to get the strap?

Laurie knew it was dangerous, knew she should remain still and quiet, but she could not resist, she had to know what was going on, and she pushed open the door a fraction of an inch and peeked through the crack.

She didn’t know what she’d expected to see, but it was definitely not this.

This was something she could not have thought up in her wildest imaginings.

Her father stood there, in the center of the barn, and his pants were pulled down. Dawn was kneeling before him and his hands were on her head and his peepee was in her mouth.

Laurie grimaced with distaste, not crying out in disgust only because of the fear that now filled her completely. She did not know what was going on out there, she did not understand what was happening, but it made her sick inside and she felt like throwing up. Holding her fingers against the door, she slowly let it close.