She went in through the back door, and as soon as she entered the kitchen and its familiar smells—the low smoke of the wall heater; the stench of stewed cabbage, fleetingly reminiscent of the horror Emily had left back in the woods—her mother tossed her dishrag on the stovetop, took a shaky breath, and said, “Where on earth have you been?” She stopped, looking over Emily from head to toe, frowning. “You’re filthy. What happened?” Her hands were on Emily’s face now, warm against Emily’s cold skin. She put a palm to Emily’s forehead, considering, and then switched to the back of her hand, and then she was turning Emily in place as though she were trying to see if her shirt and pants fit right, the way she did when Emily tried on school clothes at Sears and Roebuck. “What happened?” Hands running up and down her legs, as though she were being checked by the police for a gun. “What happened?”