“After that, I tried going to different parks and trails. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that little girl. I felt like I failed her, like I had one chance to intervene and I blew it. So one day, maybe two months after the argument, I went back to the lake. It was a Saturday morning, and there was an incredible hot-air balloon festival. They do it every September, thousands of people show up, and the sky is filled with all these big bright colorful shapes. The perfect thing for a child’s imagination, you know? And Margit is painting one of the balloons but little Flora is just staring at a phone. She’s down on the blanket getting sunburn all over her arms and shoulders.
“And as I stood there, getting madder and madder, I notice something. I see this rabbit wriggling out of the ground. It must have been burrowed nearby. It popped out of the grass and shook itself off and Flora saw it. She called, ‘Anya, anya!’ and she pointed to the rabbit, laughing, but Margit didn’t turn around. She was too caught up in her artwork. She didn’t realize that her little girl had stood up and walked away, that Flora was crossing a field and heading down into a valley. Toward a creek, Mallory. So I had to do something, right? I couldn’t ignore what was happening. I followed Flora into the valley, and by the time I reached her, she was completely lost. She was bawling, hysterical. I knelt beside her and I told her everything was fine. I said I knew how to find her mommy, and I offered to bring her back. And I really meant to, Mallory. I really meant to bring Flora back.”
I almost lose the thread of the story because I am remembering the spirit board and its cryptic message and realizing I put too much faith in Google Translate. The message wasn’t HELP FLOWER—it was HELP FLORA, help her daughter.
“I just wanted to spend a little time with her,” Caroline continues. “Take a short walk and give her some attention. I figured her mother wouldn’t mind. She wouldn’t even know the girl was missing. There was a little trail nearby, heading into a forest, so that’s where we went. Into the woods. Only Margit did notice Flora missing. She was looking all over for her. And somehow she found us. She followed us into the woods. And once she recognized me, she was furious. She started screaming and waving her arms like she was ready to hit me. And I always walk with my Viper, I carry it for personal safety, so I used it to defend myself. I only hit her once, just to make her back off. But I guess she had some kind of neurological disorder because she went down and couldn’t get up. She started having a seizure. She wet her dress, her muscles were shaking. Poor Flora was terrified. And I knew I should call 911 but I also knew how bad this was going to look. I knew if Margit told her version of things, people would misunderstand.
“So I took Flora and I led her behind a tree. I told her to sit down and close her eyes. So she wouldn’t see what happened next. And I don’t actually remember the rest, if you want to know the truth. But that’s the beauty of the human mind. It blocks out all the bad stuff. You know what I’m talking about, right?”
She waits for me to answer—and when I don’t, she keeps talking: “Anyway. I covered her body with leaves. I brought Flora home in my car. I told Ted what had happened and he wanted to call the police, but I convinced him we could make everything right. We were upstate in the middle of nowhere. The woman was an immigrant, she couldn’t speak English, I figured she was probably someone’s cleaning lady. I figured if we hid her body and kept the child, no one would notice her missing. Or people would just think that she’d run off with her daughter. Women do it all the time. So I sent Ted out to the park. He gathered the easel and the blanket and all of Flora’s toys, and he buried everything in the woods. With the body, I mean. He was gone all night. It took him forever. He didn’t get back until the sun was up.
“Now it should have ended right there—except Margit’s brother is actually a really big deal on Seneca Lake. He owns this stupid goat farm that all the summer people love, and he’s sponsored Margit and her husband, József, to move from Hungary to the United States and work for him. And worse, it never occurs to me that Margit must have driven to the lake in a vehicle—a Chevy Tahoe with a child safety seat, it turns out. The police found it in a parking lot and brought out their K9 unit. Within two hours, they’d found her body.
“Suddenly the whole community is looking for a missing two-year-old—the girl I’ve got screaming and crying in my cabin. So I run out to the Target, I buy her a bunch of boy clothes. Sports jerseys. Shirts with football players. Then I get some clippers and give Flora a buzz cut. And I swear it was like flipping a switch—all I did was change her hair, but you’d swear she was a boy.”