Once Upon a River

Summer begins with a lot of rain. Owen Albright marries his housekeeper on the summer solstice and hires Daunt to take the photographs. The wedding party arrives at the Swan to celebrate, where talk eventually returns to The Child. Albright ties himself into her story. After the wedding, everyone travels to the fair, where there is entertainment and goods for sale. The Vaughans take The Child to the fair as well, though both are in poor moods because The Child hasn’t spoken yet. Vaughan is also at odds because he still doesn’t believe The Child is Amelia, a secret he keeps from his wife.

They reach the fair and people pay a lot of attention to The Child, thinking her capable of miracles. Helena and The Child go to watch the boat races, but Vaughan is waylaid by a farmer. He is then pulled into a fortune teller’s tent. When the woman reads his palm, he is angry because he thinks she is reciting rumors, but she claims that The Child “is not [his] child” (289). Vaughan realizes that the fortune teller is a man in disguise. The man makes it clear he intends to blackmail Vaughan and he leaves the tent.