“But Grandma . . .”

“Is that a complaint I hear, Lee?” said Grandma, her voice sharp again. “Because I do not suffer murmuring, not in this house. Not on this Farm.”

“No, ma’am,” I said.

“Very good. Dishes, then, and the police first thing in the morning.” Grandma smiled at us, her face gone gentle, serene, candlelight flickering in her eyes. “Sleep well, children, and good night.”

Grandma whisked herself out of the room, dress swishing around her ankles. Murphy dropped her head to the table and groaned.

“This is going to take hours, isn’t it?” said Murphy.

“Yep,” I said. “So let’s get to it already.”

We washed and scrubbed and dried, Grandma of course not having a dishwasher. It was late by the time we were finished, or at least Farm late—eleven fifteen. We were both exhausted and sore.

I climbed into my bunk bed, and in no time I was asleep.

That night I had a vision.

I was standing beside a campfire. There were three men gathered around it, dressed in rags. They looked sad and crumpled up as old paper sacks, and they sat listless, warming their hands. Above us were the vast and glowing stars, the sky as big as forever.

“Where am I?” I said.

One of the men raised his face to me. His eyes were a searing blue, and they seemed to glow in the firelight.

“There are two worlds,” he said. “The daylight and the darkness.” He clapped his hands together. “They are the same world.”

The second man raised his face to me. He had the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen, and his voice came soft as music.

“When the door is open,” he said, “the people come and go. We have kept him apart, just as we promised.”

The third man raised his face to me, and in my heart I felt peace, like I knew everything would be okay.

“A secret sleeps,” he said, “deep in the woods.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.

The first man held a finger to his lips. “Quiet,” he said. “He comes.”

And in the dark I saw something move.

“Lee! Wake up!”

Murphy shook me awake. The room was dark, and for a moment I forgot where I was. I forgot Mom was dead and Horace was still out there and we were at our grandma’s house. I forgot everything, and that was the best feeling, that my life had started right back where it had been before this nightmare happened. But then I woke up with my face a foot from the ceiling like this bunk bed was a coffin I was buried in. It terrified me, this trapped feeling, pinned down and boxed in and suffocated, ready to be dropped dead in the dirt forever. I jolted up and smacked my head on the ceiling and lay back down, moaning a little.