“I figure that’s the tenant house,” said Murphy.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

I looked around everywhere for Cass, but I didn’t see her. I wondered what she did all day, if they just sat around making music.

“Looking for your girlfriend?” said Murphy.

“Fuck off,” I said, and Murphy laughed.

We walked farther down the trail. I wanted to find the lake, the one from Mom’s memories, the one she had told me about at the beach. But when we got there, I realized it was really just a small pond, only a couple hundred feet across. Cypresses rippled up from the water, all knock-kneed and strange, Spanish moss dangling down like witches’ hair.

“Mom used to talk about this place,” I said. “She said she used to swim here.”

“I think I remember that,” said Murphy.

The sun was low now, and it made the water shimmer like liquid gold. I wanted to throw myself in, to strip down and leap, not worried about how deep it would be, not worried about what might be submerged beneath. I wanted to be in there, baptized into this new world and into my new life on the Farm. I wanted to hold myself under and rise up from the water brand-new, cleansed somehow, a better creation. I wanted it now.

I kicked off my shoes and walked to the water’s edge and stuck a toe in.

“It’s warm,” I said, unclipping my overalls.

“Wait,” said Murphy.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s every bit as perfect as Mom always said it was.”

She put a hand on me. “No, dude. Hold up a minute.”

And then I saw them. Gliding across the pond came three water moccasins. I’d never seen so many together like that, swimming in perfect formation. Moccasins were supposed to be solitary, lonely creatures. But there they all were, like some kind of evil miracle. I would have thought it was a vision if Murphy hadn’t seen them too. They wisped past us with that strange curlicuing gait they have, barely causing a ripple, a family of death slithering across the water.

We heard Grandma hollering far away, clanging some kind of bell.

“Guess that means dinner’s ready,” said Murphy.

I looked back toward the pond. Clouds drifted over the sun, and the water was gray now, cast in shadow, murky and mysterious, as if it were hiding something. The snakes were gone, disappeared back to wherever they came from.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess we should go.”

I clipped my overalls back on and stepped into my shoes, and Murphy and I walked back to the house.

That night when we sat down for dinner, Grandma grabbed our hands for the blessing, which was as long and strange as all the other ones. I started to ask her about the cop who hadn’t showed up, but she shushed me.

“We’ll save the conversation until after dinner, shall we?” she said. “I worked hard on this meal, and I won’t have it marred by unpleasantness.”