The house is open, and I go from room to room still shouting for him. Nothing.

The basement is dark, and there’s no sign he’s been down here in ages—the junk is undisturbed, and impassable.

Then I remember: the toolshed.

I sprint up the stairs again. Before I’m even out the door, I spot him—not at the toolshed, but a dozen yards away, lying motionless on the grass.

“Dad!” I rocket off the porch. Dropping to my knees, I put my hands on his chest. His eyes flutter. “Dad! Can you hear me? Dad.”

He opens his eyes. His face is sunburned. His lips are peeling. He must have been out here for hours.

“Abby?” He blinks once, twice, and finally his eyes find focus.

“How long have you been out here?” I’m scared to touch him, to move him—I remember that you aren’t supposed to move people who have fallen. Or maybe that’s people who have been in an accident. I can’t think straight. A dumb animal panic is grinding my thoughts into uselessness. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

His eyes drift past me and land again. “I—I think I fell.”

“You think?”

“I don’t remember.” He frowns. “It’s the squirrels. There are squirrels in the attic again. I thought I’d patch the roof…”

“There’s no attic, Dad,” I tell him. “That was in the old house, remember?” We moved when I was five from the other side of Plantation Road because of problems with the neighbor: my dad became convinced he was spying on us, then accused him of doing hell’s work, then became the one spying so that he could prove it. I haven’t thought of the squirrels in years.

“I can hear them moving around.”

“That was the old house, remember? Back when Mom was alive.”

He closes his eyes. The skin of his eyelids is so thin it shows the movement beneath them. “I remember,” he says. Barely audible. Then, a little louder: “It’s my back. That’s why I couldn’t get up. I must have thrown it.”

I hook him beneath the shoulders but hardly manage to lift him before he seizes up in pain, crying out so loudly I nearly drop him.

“Dad, please.” My voice sounds frail. Desperate. Young. Not more than a week back in this place and the old Abby is emerging from the dark shadows like a skeleton. “I’m trying to help!”

The second time I try to lift him he only seems heavier. Sweat slicks my underarms. Pain has turned his skin waxy, and when I say his name again he barely shakes his head.

I stand up and the ground swings beneath me, like it wants to buck me off. A shadow circles high overhead. An owl, maybe, or a hawk. Bad omens. My legs feel strangely wooden, like a puppet’s, pulled by phantom strings.

In the kitchen I find my purse where I dropped it and rifle through it for my phone, shaking so hard I mistype the code twice before I manage it.