"The windows?" Burke asks. "I bet it knocked some loose."

"Looks like it could have."

"You want to try up there?"

Roy considers. His face lost in the shadows of the tree. "Not yet. We can come back if we don't find something better."

Beyond the tree, they enter a fenced garden that runs the length of the house, adjoining the place where the house swells out and the porches stop.

Through the shadows of the trees they can see the stone barn and some of the outbuildings. The trees thin near that part of the house and the moonlight falls through in showers of whiteness, clear and clean. The whole farmyard is etched, as if a portrait of itself, a study of wreckage of what was once inhabited. They pick their way through the garden, where the night carries a thousand smells. Nathan is mindful of snakes underfoot, though not quite sure what to do if he steps on one. Roy keeps them to a path that he seems to know, at the same time scanning the house carefully.

"We can't get to these windows, they're too high," he says. "Too bad. Half of them are broke."

"This is weird," Randy says. "Look at this place. What kind of garden was this?"

"You still want to go inside?"

"Oh yeah." But he studies the shadowy garden nevertheless.

"Do you?" Burke asks Roy.

"You bet." By now they are crossing the back of the house, in full moonlight, through waist high grass.

The stark outline of the house leaves Nathan breathless. The upper floor swims out of darkness into stark clarity, so well illuminated he can count the cracks in the outer boards. A porch encircles the kitchen building and then crosses by means of a short gallery to the main house. Roy tests the porch, finds it will hold them. They follow him.

Now they are close to the house, sliding along the walls, near the shuttered windows. Roy still leads, though now Burke has claimed the place beside him. Randy and Nathan follow. It occurs to Nathan that with the windows shuttered the fact of moonlight will make no difference inside, the house will be very dark. But he says nothing. They cross the gallery to what must have been a door for kitchen servants.

"This is the door me and Uncle Heben tried." Roy's tone is quite soft, though not a whisper. "Now it's boarded up."

They follow along the porch, their footsteps ringing. They walk more quietly, each without prompting. They find stairs and Roy tests them. One is broken but the next is sound. They climb to the second story porch now, and with each step they sink into the quiet shroud of the house.

The porch is solid in most places, and they move with confidence. They cross the front of the house again, then along the side gallery, where the windows are also shuttered. At places the porch protests their weight and they space themselves by the sounding of the floorboards. The floor holds despite its protests. Roy has brought a flashlight but uses it sparingly.

They pause to study the darkness in the direction of their camp. Not even ghost embers of their campfire can be seen.

On the other side of the house, where the tree has fallen, they find a window with shutters that have been partially loosened. It takes both Burke and Roy to pry the shutter open. Roy makes the first attempt, alone, and then Burke tries, alone. They are watching each other, each hoping the other will not succeed. Nathan is near enough to admire the moonlight along Roy's straining arms, the snake play of muscle along Burke's back. Their separate efforts fail, and they position themselves to work together. Roy, affecting that he will dirty his tee shirt, takes it off. But instead of looping it through his belt, he hands it to Nathan.

Nathan takes the shirt. Roy stretches his shoulders a little. The moment is small and passes easily beneath the awareness of the others. Burke and Roy pry the shutter free of its remaining nails and swing it slowly on its hinges. The wooden frame is still solid and the shutter soon lies flat against the house as it used to do.

Roy shines the flashlight and carefully brushes away the remains of old glass from the windowsill. His bare back drains a streak of moon down the spine. Burke, near him, drinks from the flask again, offers to Randy, offers to Roy. Roy straightens from the windowsill, takes the bottle and flashes a warm grin to Nathan. He lifts the bottle. He is beautiful to Nathan, he is clearly aware of the fact. The swallow of liquor becomes a performance. He wipes his mouth and hands the bottle to Burke. Then he leaps through the window.

Burke follows him the next moment, with a look of reckless bravery; but he is still only the second one to enter, he has been diminished by Roy. Randy clambers over. Because he is thickwaisted, to get inside takes effort, and he breathes heavily; though maybe this is as much from fear as from exertion. Nathan slides over the windowsill, careful of the glass. His heart is pounding. They are inside the house.

The room they have entered is small and oddly shaped. From inside one can hardly tell the fallen tree is there. The place would be pitch dark except for the flashlight, which Roy washes over the floor. Randy takes a step and the floorboards groan but hold steady. The boys walk carefully.

They go through a door and then down a hallway, and suddenly they are steeped in moonlight. They are standing at the top of the gallery overlooking a grand staircase. From a skylight overhead, partially broken, wind rattles through empty panes. Moonlight falls strong from there, and the vaulted space floods with light. The lower floor is dark.

Beyond the sound of the wind, is there something else? A thread of music suggests itself to Nathan, who follows the melody in his head. As if someone with a clear voice is singing softly in a distant room. He misses the words, but the sound is very pure.

Roy keeps the flashlight at his side, in spite of the darkness. They pick their way forward carefully. The floor is solid all the way to the top of the stairs, and the stairs seem solid too, but there is the hole in the skylight and a pool of water beneath it. One can see the water from the gallery, a patch of reflection in the deep darkness. The four of them stand at the top of the stairs looking at each other.

"We should explore up here first." Randy's tone makes it clear that he is reluctant to descend into that well of darkness.

"But after that, we have to go down there." Burke squares his shoulders.

The rooms on the second floor are small and plain, like the rooms in any farmhouse Nathan has ever seen. The floors have held up, though the boards sag in a few places and groan in many. The rooms have a desolate feeling, containing little beyond scraps of furniture, the chimney from an old gas lantern, a tin plate with a bit of candle. In one room, beside an unshuttered window, they find a nearly whole chair, casting its long moon shadow across dust and cobwebs. It has a delicate look, like something that might once have faced a woman's vanity table, with slender, curved legs and one thin, spidery arm. Beneath the cake of dust that shields the cushion is a dark stain. Roy uses the flashlight here for the first time, and they see the startling pink of the cushion, the patina of dust. The dark stain's resemblance to old blood is unnerving; even Burke, buffeted by his bravura, seems wary at the sight. "I wonder why they left this," he says. "They took everything else."

"That's blood, ain't it?" Randy asks.

"It looks like it might be." Roy's answer is bland.

"Maybe this is the room where the slave cut the master's head off," Nathan suggests, and they all look at him.

"Jesus."

"Or maybe not." Nathan looks around. "There would be a lot more blood than just this."

That is enough for the others. They head out of the room, all but Nathan. He goes on standing there. He finds a place in the wallpaper, another stain like a bloody hand outlined in a pane of moonlight thrown from the window. "There's another stain," he says. "Maybe this is the right room, after all."

Nor is he teasing them, entirely. He is seeing the room a different way. His hands glide along the back of the chair, and when he realizes where he is again, he is counting strands of spider web on the fireplace mantel.

Then without another thought he carries the chair to the fireplace and sets it at an angle to one side. He lifts it by the remaining arm. He studies the chair from behind, as if judging its placement. Then he backs away.

They stay perfectly still and take deep breaths.

"Why did you do that?" Roy asks.

Nathan blinks. The question strikes him as odd. "I think it looks better there."

"He's fucking with us." Burke stands with his fists clenched.

"I'm not fucking with anybody."

Roy laughs and then Randy follows his lead. His body tense, Burke glares at Nathan.

"Let's go." Roy leads them out of the room.

The rest of the rooms they visit are bare, and they find no other evidence of occupation, neither ghostly nor otherwise; except, near the door of one room, Nathan discovers a doll's foot made of thick porcelain and covered with dust. He cleans it, white and pink, on the tail of his shirt. Nathan turns the foot around and around in his hand. Then, without asking anybody, he replaces the porcelain foot in the dust, in the same position as before, but clean and shining.

They find narrow stairways leading to the attic, these at the back of the house, open to access; and they find service stairways leading down, also at the back of the house; but the entrances are boarded off beyond a couple of steps. They enter many rooms full of dirt and dust, spider webs and leaves, branches and dead birds, bits of broken glass.