The red brick buildings of old Shaftesbury huddled along the Pawtomack River like a ghost town. The river had been the support, the lifeblood of the town; it sprang from the snow-laden White Mountains in the north and ran to the sea in the southeast. As the river coursed past the town, its smooth flow was interrupted by a crumbling dam and a large waterwheel that no longer turned. Lining the riverbanks were block after block of empty factories, reminders of a more prosperous age when New England mills were the center of the textile industry. At the extreme southern end of town, at the foot of Main Street, the last brick mill building was occupied by a chemical operation called Recycle, Ltd., a rubber, plastic, and vinyl recycling plant. A wisp of acrid, gray smoke rose from a large phallic smokestack and merged with the clouds. Over the whole area hung a foul, choking odor of burnt rubber and plastic. Surrounding the building were enormous piles of discarded rubber tires, like the droppings of a gigantic monster.

South of the town the river ran through rolling, wooded hills, interspersed by snow-covered meadows and bordered by fieldstone fences erected by settlers three hundred years before. Six miles south of the town the river took a lazy curve to the east and formed an idyllic six-acre peninsula of land. In the center was a shallow pond connected to the river by an inlet. Behind the pond rose a hill capped by a white-framed Victorian farmhouse with gabled roofs and gingerbread trim. A long winding driveway bordered with oaks and sugar maples led down to the Interstate 301 heading south toward Massachusetts. Twenty-five yards north of the house was a weather-beaten barn nestled in a copse of evergreens. Built on piles at the edge of the pond was a miniature copy of the main house; it was a shed turned playhouse.