In general, there is a lot of discussion about the rape of slaves by their masters. One character, an adult woman, initiates a sexual affair with a teenager whom she employs to do yard work. This relationship continues until the woman dies decades later. The person with whom she is having an affair abducts three little girls and takes them into the woods. There is no evidence in the plot that there was child sexual abuse, but it is in general a very ambiguous situation because the abduction and the subsequent events are framed in terms of magical realism.