Summary

The novel begins on the day a child disappears from home. Elias van Rooyen calls to his wife Barta that he is done working for the day. She asks him if their son, Lukas, is with him. Elias says no but is unworried. Barta sends their oldest son, Willem, to tell Elias that Lukas is not in the house either. The entire town is searching for Lukas half an hour later and Elias refuses to believe that he is missing. Elias finally accepts that his son is missing, and Barta is distraught. The time passes since Lukas has been seen, and by the eighth day people begin to give up hope of finding him alive.

In the single page of Chapter 2, readers learn about a boy named Benjamin who has always felt like his parents’ “hand-child,” meaning that he was not breastfed by...