Dee realized two things: first, they hadn’t noticed how long she had been gone; and second, Lulu wasn’t there. She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear. The cramps were really bad now. She felt a stir of feeling. Lulu was being dramatic again. Now no one would comfort Dee and take the story of the snakes away.

As the long, hot afternoon wore on, more people came, and the real police. “Laura Walters, Lulu for short,” everyone kept saying into radios, and then they started saying it to everyone on the shore, through the big speaker on the pole by the hot-dog stand. “Laura Walters, six years old, brown hair, hazel eyes. Wearing a bathing suit, denim shorts and a red tank top.” It was only in the dusk, as the park emptied, that Dee began to understand that they weren’t going to find Lulu that day. It took her much longer to understand that they would never find her. She had gone who knew where, with who knew whom, and she didn’t come back.

Some weeks later, many miles away, a family from Connecticut found a white flip-flop mixed up in their beach stuff. No one could say how it got there, or even if it was Lulu’s. It had been through the laundry with their clothes.

Lulu would be seventeen, now. Is, Dee corrects herself. Lulu is seventeen.

The last thing Lulu said to Dee was, I found a pretty pebble. Some days all Dee can think about is that pebble. What did it look like? Was it smooth or rough, gray or black? Was it sharp and angular or did it fill Lulu’s small palm with its round weight? Dee will never know, because she got up and walked away without a glance.

The Walters family stayed in Washington for a month, hoping for news. But there was nothing for them to do and her father’s boss was losing patience. So they went back to Portland. The house was strange without Lulu. Dee could never remember to lay three places for dinner, not four, and it always made her mother cry.

Her mother left soon after. Dee knew she couldn’t stand the sight of Dee, the pale copy of her lost daughter. She emptied the checking account and was gone. Dee couldn’t blame her, although her father felt differently. Then the other thing happened.

The night before, snow fell like ash from the quiet sky. Her father was building a model airplane below in the living room. Dee could smell the epoxy drifting up the stairs. He would sit there for hours, until his eyes were red-rimmed with fumes. He would not come up to bed until the night was almost worn out. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, Dee thought. I have to.