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The crowds had backed away froirl with the backpack as kneeling before it, her hands on the glass, and the four bear faces crowded against it

Lacey cliirl’s head was boater still raining from her drenched hair onto her knees Lacey saw that her lips were irl’s talking to the bears!" a voice cried, and a buzz of wonder went up froan to click Lacey crouched beside Airl’s hair away from her face Her cheeks were streaked with tears, mixed in with all the water from the tank

"Tell me, child"

"They know," Alass

"What do the bears know?"

The girl raised her face Lacey was stunned; never had she seen such sadness in a child’s expression, such knowing grief And yet, as she searched Amy’s eyes, she saw no fear Whatever Amy had learned, she had accepted it

"What I a in the kitchen of the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, had decided to do so

It was 9:00, it was 9:30, it was 10:00; Lacey and the girl, Aone Eventually Sister Claire had surrendered the story: that Lacey had skipped Mass, and that the two of theirl with her backpack; Claire had heard them leave and then watched froate, to the park

Lacey was up to soirl didn’t wash, she’d known that right away; or, if not known exactly, then certainly she had felt it, a kernel of suspicion that had grown overnight into the certainty that soht Like Miss Clavel, in the Madeline books, Sister Arnette knew

And now, just like in the story: one of the little girls was gone

None of the other sisters knew the truth about Lacey Even Arnette hadn’t learned the full story until the office of the superior general had forwarded the psychiatric report Arnette re about it on the news, all those years ago, but wasn’t so somewhere, especially in Africa? Those awful little countries where life seeest and , but the mind could take in only so otten all about it; and now here was Lacey, under her care, no one else knowing the truth; Lacey, who, she had to admit, was in nearly every way a model sister, if a little self-contained, perhaps a little too mystical in her devotions Lacey said, and no doubt believed, too, that her father andto palace balls and riding their polo ponies; since the day she’d been found hiding in a field by the UN peacekeepers who had turned her over to the sisters, Lacey had never said otherwise It was aLacey from the memory of what had happened Because after the soldiers had killed her faone away; they’d stayed with Lacey in the field, for hours and hours, and the little girl they’d left for dead ht just as well have been dead, if God hadn’t protected her by washing her mind of these events That He had chosen not to take her at that instant was si for Arnette to question It was a burden, this knowledge, and the worry that came with it, for Arnette to bear in silence

But now there was the girl This Ahost, but wasn’t there so with the whole situation? Soht about it, Lacey’s explanation made less than no sense She was friends with her mother? Impossible Except for daily Mass, Lacey barely set foot outside the house; how she would have come into contact with such a wohter, Arnette could not explain Because there was no explanation; the story was a lie And now the two of the in the kitchen at 10:30, Sister Arnette knehat she had to do

But ould she say? Where would she start? With Airl had arrived when Lacey was alone in the house, as she often was; Arnette had tried many times to coax her out, for their days at the Pantry and also on small trips, to the store and what-have-you, but always Lacey declined, her face at such instances radiating a kind of cheerful blankness that put the question instantly to rest No thank you, Sister Perhaps another day Three, four years of this, and now the girl had appeared out of nowhere, Lacey clai to know her So if she called the police, the story would have to start there, she understood, with Lacey, and the story of the field

Arnette picked up the phone

"Sister?"

She turned: Sister Claire Claire, who had just come into the kitchen, still in her sweat suit, when she should have changed for the day by now; Claire, who had sold real estate, who’d been not only h-heeled shoes and a black cocktail dress hanging in her closet But that was an altogether different proble about now

"Sister," Claire said, her voice concerned, "there’s a car in the driveway"

Arnette hung up the phone "Who is it?"

Claire hesitated "They looklike police"

Arnette reached the front door just as the bell was ringing She drew back the curtain of the sideto look Two men, one maybe in his twenties, the other older but still so like funeral directors in dark suits and ties Police, but not exactly So in the sunshine at the bottom of the steps, away from the door The older one saw her and s He was nice-looking but unremarkable, with a triray fanned away at the temples, which shimmered faintly with perspiration in the sun

"Should we open it?" Claire asked, standing behind her Sister Louise had heard the bell and come downstairs as well

Arnette took a deep breath to calm herself "Of course, Sisters"

She opened the door but left the screen closed and latched The two entlemen?"

The older one reached into his breast pocket and produced a small billfold He opened it and in a flash she saw the initials: FBI

"Ma’aent Doyle" Just like that, the billfold was gone, returned to the insides of his suit coat She saw a scrape on his chin; he had cut hi "Sorry to disturb you like this on a Saturday -"

"It’s about Amy," Arnette said She couldn’t explain it: she’d just blurted it out, like he’d somehow made her do this When he didn’t reply, she continued, "It is, isn’t it? It’s about Alanced past Arnette at Sister Louise, sending her a quick, reassuring s his eyes to Arnette

"Yes, ma’aht if we came in? To ask you and the other ladies a couple of questions?"

Which was how they ca rooepresence seee the room, make it smaller Except for the occasional repairan from the rectory, no other men ever came into the house