• A little boy, wearing new red rubber boots, squatted at the water's edge, fascinated by this strange phenomenon that had suddenly come into his life, and staring at it with the mesmerized unblinking gaze of some old seafarer. It was all bigger and brighter and wetter than anything he had ever before encountered in his short life, and there were, as well, the added diversions of the little choppy waves, so sunlit and cheerful, the screaming of the sea birds wheeling in the cold air over his head, and the occasional passing boat. Every now and then he dug up a handful of gritty sand and threw it into the sea.

    Behind him, a few yards off, Kayleigh sat on the shingly beach and watched him. She wore thick, corduroy pants and three sweaters, two of them her own and one borrowed from a kind man she had met on the steamship, and she sat huddled on a step that was large and ugly and constructed of some strange stone the color of liver. From the quiet darkness beyond her came the sounds of water and the creak of the boats tied up at the jetty, and there had come a distrust of perfect content. Surely, she told herself, it could not go on. Surely something would happen that would spoil it all.

    But her apprehension was unfounded. Nothing happened. The next day was even better, with the sun coming out as they crossed to the midwest. By the afternoon, the great peaks of the Rocky Mountains lay ahead of them, iced in snow, and at the foot of the Ozark Plateau, she walked over to the dining car, where a comfortable woman in a mauve dress served her a boiled egg and slices of apple.

    Today, Iowa. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, Clauden. Kayleigh had lost all sense of time. She had lost all sense of anything. Watching the countryside sweep past her out of the train window, she hugged herself more tightly and rested her chin on her knees. Happiness, she decided, could be tangible. A thing you could take and put somewhere safe, like a box with a lid or a bottle with a stopper. And then, later, sometime when you're miserable, you could take it out and look at it and feel it and smell it, and you could be happy again.

    And on the third day...

    Scraps of snow began to appear, like the white spots of a piebald horse, and lay where it had been trapped in ditches. Soon it was all about them, a blanket of white six inches deeper or more. It was like finding oneself on the Arctic, or the moon. Kayleigh became excited. We're nearly there. She turned and took from one of her bags the map that she had bought. The sun, obligingly, came out from behind a cloud; they turned a final corner, and ahead, glinting and silvery, lay Clauden. The clock on the church tower was pointing ten minutes to twelve on the chilly January morning. Otherwise it was very quiet, and there seemed to be scarcely anybody about.

    The dark blue train came to a halt in front of the town. She suddenly felt overwhelmed, by Clauden, by a physical tiredness that made her ache, by the uncomfortable feeling that she had mislaid her own identity. Who am I? What am I doing in this outlandish place? How did I ever get here? "Kayleigh." She had not heard him approaching, and his voice startled her. "Kayleigh, it's time to get off." But he was smiling at her, his blue eyes warm with friendliness. Before them, Kayleigh's depression, her first fearful impressions of Clauden, abated a little. "I'm afraid Clauden isn't at its best today. It's too cloudy."

    Kayleigh smiled. Again, it was nothing like what she had imagined. "I think it's perfect," she said as she stepped off of the train.