CHAPTER 2

Arawn - September 1937

I don't know what will come of this visit to my oldest friend Robert and his wife Hazel, but I must assume it isn't going to be a warm reception when done, I do not have good things to tell them.

The Robert has been a friend since we were children and I had never seen a man happier than when he married his wife, well except for the days each of the 5 children were born. We have stayed in touch through the years, and I know it broke his heart when his eldest daughter Maribeth left, no reason or explanation she just left.

As I knock on the door, my body tenses and I'm for the first time in a very long time unsure of my decision. I am greeted by who I know from descriptions from Robert to be Patricia, as I look around I see that she is unsure of who I am and what I'm doing at the back door. I am lead I to the kitchen and see Hazel, her eyes light up once she sees me.

Hazel instantly tells me I'm staying for supper and sends Patricia to fetch Robert, Connell, and Jakob.

I sit at the table and notice for the first time Eveline, she's looking at me, and my breath catches, an in familiar feeling comes over me as I take her in. Eveline is the youngest but from what I've seen the most beautiful of the girls. She's got her strawberry blond hair secured in a loose bun at the back of her neck, her 5'5 frame is trim and kind of athletic, by no means starved like so many people, just fit enough to notice she doesn't mind a hard day's work. Then I notice her eyes they are the same blue as the sky on a cloudless day. An exact complement to my green, mine the earth hers the sky. I see her looking at me,and I attempt a smile, and I know it doesn't fullyconvince her.

Once Robert and the boys get to the house,and everyone washes we sit for supper, and Robert asked me the question I've been dreading "What brings you to the farm?"

I begin to tell him about life in the city, how life in the city has changed. I say to him about the daily struggles of all of us that are the exact same as Robert and his family. It's the last part of my story that catches their full attention.

I tell him that the several of the people who can find work have taken night jobs, others assumed that these people are pale and keep odd sleep schedules is because of the work. How in the beginning these night-shifters were thought to be ill,and people avoided them. I then tell the family about the shouting every day about missing people and how the total keeps growing. I had assumed in the beginning that it was to sell papers,but every day it seems more and more like anepidemic, it's not just the rich that are going missing it's the poor and downtrodden people. These people are well and truly missing, just gone without a trace.