If only there were something about Stevie's condition that could evoke the same community response that Zap's had brought forth, thought DeAnne. If only they could rally around Stevie, and fast and pray for him.

Maybe they should tell people about what Stevie was going through, and give them a chance to help him. But no. There was too great a chance that in the case of a mental illness and not a physical one they'd shy away, they'd shun the boy and make his isolation even worse, his descent into madness steeper and faster than ever.

And could we really blame them? thought DeAnne. If I were a mother of a normal child and I heard that a little boy of his age was seeing hallucinations of imaginary friends, would I really be willing to let them play together? Would I feel so much compassion for someone else's child that I would put my own child at risk of being hurt in some outburst of madness? No, the hurts of the mind were too strange, too invisible, too magical to hope for the same kind of tolerance and help from even the best of people.

It frightens me, thought DeAnne. Why should I expect others to be better than I am?

So Stevie's problem remained a matter for their family alone. Until a newspaper article forced them to see things another way.

12: Friends

This is the headline on the front page of the Steuben Times-Journal on the morning of Sunday, 21 August

1983: SERIAL KILLER IN STEUBEH? The headline brought fear to the hearts of parents all over the city, for this was not a tabloid, and the story was not irresponsible shock journalism. The chief of police had formed a task force that included the county sheriffs office and had close liaison with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. They were also bringing in outside experts on serial killers, especially those who specialized in the kidnapping and murder of young boys.

For several months, the police had been deeply concerned about the number of unexplained disappearances of young boys in the Steuben area, cases in which no body was ever found and no motive could be guessed at for the child to have run away, even after the most heartless questioning of the distraught parents. And there was also a rhythm to the disappearances. Not a definite pattern, not a disappearance on a certain day of each month or anything showy like that. Just a space of a couple of months or maybe three between disappearances.

And for the first time anywhere, the names of all the boys believed to be possible victims of the supposed serial killer were listed together. Their pictures appeared above the fold on the front page. There were seven of them; all of them had disappeared since May of 1982; and the disappearances were becoming steadily more frequent, with less and less time between them.

This was the lead article; in fact, there were no other article s on the front page except a sidebar on the head of the investigation in Steuben, a detective named Doug Douglas, who had been a rather colorful figure during the civil rights disturbances of the sixties, when he vowed that anyone violating city ordinances would be arrested and taken to the Steuben city jail, but that by God everyone who went into that jail would come out in exactly the same condition they were in when they entered it. Some in those days said that this would let the niggers think they had free reign to do what they wanted in Steuben, but in fact the most important result was that the racial disturbances ended very quickly and were replaced by talk and compromise. Douglas had been chief of police then, the youngest one in Steuben's history. Years later, the mayor who was elected in the Reagan sweep of 1980 demoted him to chief of detectives, and some said it was a long-awaited payback for Douglas's racial evenhandedness in the sixties. But instead of resigning or even complaining, Douglas just kept right on doing his job. The story was designed to reassure the city that one of Steuben's finest was on the case. It was also designed to reassure the black community that even though all the victims were white boys, the investigation would not take on racial overtones, and blacks would not be singled out for harassment.

But the Fletchers didn't see this article on Sunday morning, because they didn't have time even to glance at the paper in the hurry of getting ready for church. This was the last Sund ay before school started, and yesterday they had been so busy buying school clothes for Stevie and Robbie, who was starting kindergarten this year, that neither Step nor DeAnne had remembered to do a laundry and therefore the morning was spent fishing wearable clothing out of the laundry baskets and pressing them so they'd look presentable at church.

The boys were dressed; DeAnne was taking snarls out of Betsy's hair; and Step had the assignment of changing Zap's dia per and getting him dressed for church.

About the only time Zap was any trouble was when he was being changed. He slept a lot, and even when he was awake, he didn't interfere with the process of dressing or feeding. Step almost wished he would, to show some vigor, some real awareness of the world. He rarely even cried. And as for moving his body, well, he seemed to have no muscle tone, no firmness to him. Now and then he'd move in a jerky kind of way, but most of the time his arms and legs were fairly loose and springy. As if he didn't much care where his limbs went.

Zap's legs, though, always seemed to move back into a frog-like position, the knees widespread, the feet tucked up right under his buttocks. This meant that when his dia per was getting changed, his heels kept springing right into the midst of whatever was in his diaper. It made changing him a real challenge. Step would stretch Zap's legs out long and straight, and massage his thighs and calves, saying, "That's my long boy, see how tall you are when I stretch you out? Stretch out those legs, long boy." But it did little good. When the diaper came off, the heels moved right back up into place, and it seemed as though it took three hands to change him. Three hands or an extra couple of baby wipes to clean his feet.

Still, Step was becoming rather adroit at the challenges of dia pering a baby who thought he was a frog, and he soon emerged from the bedroom with Zap lying prone on his forearm, his head cradled in Step's hand, his little legs dangling- froglike-as they straddled Step's biceps. It was Step's favorite way to carry the babies when they were very small. DeAnne had been horrified at first, since it looked like a football carry, but they both soon realized that when Step held a fussy baby in that position, the fussiness usually subsided, at least for a while.

Step could hear, from the screeching in the kitchen, that Betsy was still getting her hair combed. So he stood wordlessly in the door of the family room, watching Robbie crash his Matchbox cars together and Stevie play a computer game.

Not that it looked as though Stevie was actually playing anything. From where he was, Step couldn't see the screen, but he could see Stevie's hands on the controller, and he just wasn't moving it. Oh, now and then a sort of lean to the left or to the right, but most of the time he was just watching the screen, his face transfixed. "Do it, Sandy" he whispered. "Come on, now, now, now. That's it!" And then, "No, Van, no, not like that, he's going to get you, do you want him to get you? You're too quick for him, if you just run." As usual, Stevie was naming the characters in the computer game after his imaginary friends. But what kind of game was this, where apparently some thing engrossing was happening on the screen and yet the player of the game had hardly anything to do? It couldn't be much fun, for the player to have so little control that he hardly had to move the joystick from minute to minute. Yet Stevie was completely involved in it. Step had to see the screen.