Nathan has spent so much time, lately, among the dead Kennicutts, he feels almost at home here among their chattel. But he finds not even a single gravestone to read; he finds no sign of graves here at all. He stares down at the grass as if waiting for a hand to reach upward, or for a voice to call out from the ground. He wonders how they marked the graves, if they did. Maybe with wooden crosses, as in Western movies. Maybe the evidence is here, unseen, beneath the grass. He waits. The others are watching, holding their breath.

Retreating carefully, he joins them. He is acutely aware of his feet. He has a feeling the graves are crowded together and one must be careful. Though he is aware of no fear, he is relieved when he clears the fence and stands with the others again. They are gaping at him as if he has done something extraordinary. "There's nothing in there, you can't tell where the graves are."

"They were slaves," Roy says.

"But there's a fence. Why would they put up a fence if they wouldn't even mark the graves?"

"This is creepy." Randy looks around the dark grove of trees as if waiting for one of the shadows to begin to move.

"It's getting pretty dark." Burke reaches for his flask again. It is almost too dark to watch him drink.

"A ghost will haunt you in the day time just like it will at night," Randy says, "that's what my Aunt Ida told me one time. She says it's a superstition that a ghost will only get you at night. A ghost will get you in the daytime just as quick. If it's a real ghost." He pauses. "But I still don't want to stand around here."

They study their whereabouts carefully, for any signs of suspicious movement. But the graves are still, and the air is still, and the leaves on the branches of the trees are still. The evening weighs down on them. They move reverently away, and no one says anything at all until they reach the stone bam.

"I bet this place is haunted too," Burke says. No one asks why he thinks so. He sips from the narrow bottle again, this time offering to no one.

Dusk passes to twilight. The ruin of the farmyard looks different now. Vast as the shadow of a mountain, the mansion exudes an air of vigilance, as if there are eyes at every window, peering through the shutters. To reach their campsite they will have to dare a walk through inky darkness close to the house, through high grass where they cannot be certain where they are stepping. Amid the wild cries of cicadas, bats, distant owls, they drift forward uncertainly.

"I wish we had a flashlight," Randy says.

"I brought one but I left it in my pack," Roy answers.

"You guys ain't scared, are you?"

"No, I just wish I could see what I'm stepping on." But a slight tremor in Randy's voice betrays him.

They fall silent. The night's harsh chorus rises. Nathan steps toward the shadow. It is safe, in the darkness, to pause near Roy, to inhale his familiar smells. They are close, for a moment, in the overgrown yard; they are almost touching, and no one can see.

"Let me know if you get scared, Nathan." Burke's voice is full of scorn.

Nathan steps past Roy, into the shadow of the big house. He refuses to turn. The others can follow, or not. He vanishes into the blackest shadow of his life.

The cool darkness lends his motion a feeling of gliding. He is a fish slipping through water, he remains very calm. Soon he can hear the others following, and he smiles to think he has gone first, even ahead of Roy. Breathtaking, to walk so close the house, to slide through air as if it were water, headed toward vague light that is more and more like mist or cloud. To step past tangled branches, to lift them aside. Who knows how many eyes are there, watching from the black space around him? He listens, and it seems to him the silence of the house engulfs the sound of the others; now he can only hear the ringing emptiness of the house beside him. The emptiness beckons him, as clearly as if it is calling his name. Again comes the sensation that the passage of time has been slowed or stopped. That he will never leave this darkness.

He is hardly aware of walking anymore. The house breathes beside him. His heart is pounding.

When he bursts into the twilight of the yard and can see again, he finds himself surprised, as if he had expected to be blind like that for a much longer time. He is gasping; he has been holding his breath. He moves forward, taking gulps of air. Overhead, stars slash and burn in a fiery sky, early night. The other boys emerge behind him. They are breathless, too, as they rush toward the creek. The bulk of the house waits, silent and cold beneath a crown of stars.

The three close on Nathan, and there is something brotherly in their buffets of affection. "That was great," Randy says. "Jesus."

"I could swear something was touching me," Roy says.

"Me too."

"It was like there was something in the house looking at us. I could feel it."

"We should go in there," Burke says. "We should go in the house."

Silence.

"We should." He sets his jaw and looks at Roy. They cannot meet each other's eyes. Burke is breathing hard.

"What's the matter? You don't think there's a real ghost in there."

"I ain't scared even if there is a ghost." Roy speaks calmly.

"How about you?"

"I'm not scared, I just don't want to go in there," says Randy.

"Chicken shit."

"You damn right I'm chicken shit." But he stares at the house, fascinated. He licks his Up. "You think it would be all right? You think we can get in?"

Burke laughs. He eyes Nathan up and down. "What about you?"

Nathan faces the house, tracing its shadow against the sky. "Going inside is fine with me."

Roy faces Burke belligerently. "See, asshole? Nobody's scared. The only thing I'm thinking about is we'd have to be careful. That house is liable to come down around your head if you step in the wrong place. It's dark and we won't be able to see. It's dangerous."

"Oh yeah? Well, I say you're scared. That's what it looks like to me."

They glare at each other. Roy holds his place, quiet and determined. He is a match for Burke, Nathan thinks. But Burke carries himself more aggressively, his chin juts toward Roy and trembles. His face flushes with emotion.

Nathan still faces the house. "It's a full moon. If we wait a little bit, there'll be plenty of light."

Roy is watching him, Nathan can feel it. But Nathan holds fast to the house, faces that direction, and breathes the scent of late blooming jasmine.

Roy studies the sky. He leans close, a warm presence. "You really want to do this?"

"That's what he said."

"I'm asking him." Waiting then.

"Why does he get to decide?"

But still Roy is silent. The moment is rich. Nathan can taste each fluttering of Roy's pulse, each rise of scent from his body. "It would be fun."

Roy scratches behind one ear. When he begins to smile, the tension eases. "Well, I know I don’t want to go in that front door. We'll never get it open."

Burke and Randy laugh. "All right," Burke says, "we won't go in that way."

Randy, generously, adds, "You know the house, Roy. How do we get inside?"

Secure in his leadership, Roy studies the problem. The rising moon brings soft light to the lawn, marinating the overgrown azaleas along the sweep of what was once a front yard. Eerie white glaze obscures the windows and washes the facade. "There's a door at the side. And there's broken windows. And there's doors at the back, too. Me and Uncle Heben tried a door back there. But we couldn't open it"

"Did you get in?"

"We could of climbed in a window. But Uncle Heben changed his mind."

"He probably got scared, too," Randy says.

"Maybe. It was a long time ago. I don’t remember."

They all stare at the house somberly. Burke walks toward it a few steps. This time he passes the flask to the others, and everyone drinks but Nathan. The moment has come. Roy finds his flashlight. "Just in case we need it," he explains. They trot across the yard in the moonlight, Roy leading. They are all following in no order, but Nathan runs close to Roy.

Beyond the layers of trees, white as anything, a full moon blazes. The ivory face threatens to make day, even glimpsed in pieces through branches. Nathan sees a woman in the glittering, the face of a woman staring into a high wind of whiteness, and soon she will be clearing the trees and rising into a sky filled with stars.

They travel in the shadow of the house. The size of the place surprises Nathan again as they approach. How could people need so much room? In the darkness the shuttered windows are like lidded eyes. It is a different feeling, to approach with the knowledge that they are going inside. The darkness seems darker, the sense of invisible presences more acute. They halt a moment at the foot of the stone steps leading to the main porch. Roy checks the windows nearby, slipping fearlessly up the steps and along the porch, sliding his hands along the shutters. Nathan's heart is pounding, but he keeps his eyes on Roy. From shadow to shadow he moves, and the others move parallel to him along the side of the house. He returns further along and whispers, as if they are all concealing themselves from something inside, "Everything's nailed shut. Like I remembered."

They reach the place where the tree has fallen against the house, and once there they climb onto the porch and review the wreckage. Roy clambers over the old tree trunk, peers at the splintered wood of the porch above their heads, the one that circles the second floor of the house. The bulk of the tree rests there. "The tree's leaning on the house," Roy whispers, "It didn't bust through."