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Eva remembered chubby exuberance, platinum curls, an obvious contrast with the older sister, Hannah, who was shy and reclusive. But nothing more. Samantha had still been a baby, and Eva did not share the traditional womanly fascination with barely verbal people. The sadness, she realized as conflicting winds raised angled ripples on the lake below, lay in the fact that whatever Samantha Franer might have become was now an impossibility. In the face of that, Eva wondered if her own intellectual pursuits might not seem ludicrous.
    She had purchased the lodge for its proximity to areas of the Adirondacks in which sightings were reported. Paul Massieu and others who'd seen lights, saucer-shaped vehicles, and frail, shimmering humanoid figures while alone on some mountain escarpment spent as much time as possible at the compound, assessing their similar experiences. The expenses of utilities, food, and a kitchen staff from nearby Night Heron Village were shared on a monthly basis by everyone present. And in exchange for accommodations the Seekers willingly signed releases and underwent exhaustive interviews with Dr. Eva Blindhawk Broussard, who had never seen one of the silver people, but who took their stories seriously. Each Seeker provided a social and family history as well as medical and psychiatric records, and agreed to update all information twice yearly for the next decade. A comprehensive database. An intriguing longitudinal study that promised to provide clues to the psychosocial bedrock of an important shift in human awareness. A paradigm shift that as yet made no sense, although one day it would. The same could not be said of Samantha Franer, whose future had been canceled. Eva pondered a suprahuman ethic that permitted immortality for computerized data, but allowed an innocent life to be snuffed by another's depravity. The model brought her to her feet in rage at its cruelty.
    Skating barefoot across a lawn only faintly green with spring grass, Eva Broussard stopped beside the woody spill of Madagascar periwinkle, legacy of a woman whose death, like Samantha's, remained a mystery. Amid the million pale green leaves not a single bud had emerged. It was too early.
    It was, she admitted, gazing over the lake her own Iroquois ancestors had named, probably too early for many things. Too early to comprehend a human behavior that could result in the death of a child. Certainly too early to comprehend the human endeavor to find a link with the universe. The purpose for which she'd bought Night Heron Lodge, nestled beneath Shadow Mountain. The purpose for which a hundred people came there to stare into the sky and wait for visitors who might come again. Who might have answers to questions about life and death. Who might show the way out.
    That it was too early had been made clear by the unconscionable death of a little girl. That death might destroy the group. It would curtail the intent of Eva Broussard's carefully framed research. It would confuse the mystery that had by whatever means created an experience that several rational people interpreted as visitation by nonearthly beings.
    Now outsiders would come, asking questions for which there would be no solid answers. The Seekers on Shadow Mountain would be dragged into a very earthly, and very ugly, reality. They would be ridiculed, labeled. The bond of their common experience would be eroded. Worse, they would be accused of complicity in one of the most loathsome crimes possible—the sexual violation and murder of an innocent child. Beside that reality the hope of an end to cosmic loneliness seemed pitifully premature.
    Eva Broussard pulled a blade of grass and held it to the waxy, dimming sun. What possible set of facts, she thought, could explain the senseless horror of Samantha Franer's death? From the darkening lake a chill breeze wrapped her skirts about her legs. There was no answer.
     

Chapter 4
    According to a check run by police on the address given St. Mary's