“Who are you two?” she said.

I just stared at her.

“I’m Murphy,” said my sister. “This is Lee. We’re her grandkids.”

“Grandkids, huh?” The girl smiled at me. Her left front tooth was a little crooked.

I liked that.

“I’m Cass,” she said.

“Cass,” I said.

She laughed a little. “Yep. That’s what I said.”

Grandma wrapped the heaping platter of food with tinfoil and held it out to Cass. “This should do y’all well,” she said. “Now skedaddle. These kids have been through a lot, and they need their rest.”

“Thank you so much,” said Cass, lugging the food in front of her. As she left the room, she looked back over her shoulder and smiled at us.

“Nice to meet y’all,” she said, and then she was gone.

Murphy kicked me under the table.

“Stop it,” I said.

“You got a crush,” she said.

“Ugh, can you please leave me alone?”

“Nope,” she said. “I promise you right now you’ll never hear the end of it.”

Grandma sat back down with us at the table.

“Who was that, Grandma?” said Murphy.

“Oh, just one of the tenants. They rent the house out back on the edge of the property.”

“There’s more?” I said, and Murphy laughed.

“In fact, there’s four,” said Grandma. “Some kind of music group. A couple of local kids, one or two from far off who decided to play hippie. Come here to play music as loud as they want, record their songs, all that. I wish I didn’t have to rent the house out, but money’s been tight the last few years, and it helps to pay the bills. Sometimes they work with me in the garden, do odd jobs here and there.” She paused a minute. “Hope they won’t be a nuisance to you.”

“Not a chance,” I said.

Murphy kicked me again.

After dinner, Grandma gave us a quick tour of the house. On the first floor was the foyer, the kitchen, a small living room, and a huge dining room that looked like nobody had been in it in years. The second floor had the library (all science books, biology, astronomy, religious books, and how-to manuals—no history or literature and certainly no poetry), Grandma’s own bedroom (spartan and empty, like how a monk’s would be, with one vase of yellow-blooming flowers on her mirrorless dresser), and a sort of storage room stacked to the ceiling with cardboard boxes, which she said contained nothing but junk. The third floor was off-limits, a rickety attic with holes in the floor. If you stepped wrong, Grandma told us, you could fall right through.

“You’ll be staying in your mother’s old room,” said Grandma. “I hope you don’t find that too upsetting.”

“No,” said Murphy. “I would love that.”

I agreed.

“Then it’s settled.” Grandma walked to a shut white-painted door and pushed it open.

The room was dusty, and one of the light bulbs was burnt out. A pair of bunk beds sat in one corner, a mason jar of long-wilted flowers, a row of paint bottles, and dried brushes on a desk. The walls were a marvel, covered with little murals: Blue-throated hummingbirds hovering over red blossoms bright as flames. A cricket balanced perfectly on a spear of grass. A spiderweb of rainbows and light, a slender yellow spider dangling down so real I wanted to pick up my shoe and smash it. I had only seen Mom paint once, that weird bewildering morning, and this was even better.