We followed the sound down the birch trail. Above us flew the bats and the night birds, the eerie song just a part of the night, same as the starlight. The song led us to the tenant house. A flickering of candlelight shone from the windows, and it cast the forest in a holy glow like in an old cathedral.

“It’s just the tenants,” said Murphy. “Let’s get back to the house already. Grandma’s got to be finished with whatever she’s doing by now.”

Murphy turned to leave, but I stayed.

I wanted a closer look.

I crept up to their cabin, lit up by candles, the windows bright and gold-hued from the light. I heard music, a guitar and fiddle, voices harmonizing. I peeked inside. The tenants were seated in a circle around a fat purple candle, eyes shut, playing a song. It was strange, incantatory and minor-key, a kind of dirge, like an old folk hymn or something. Cass sang lead, her voice deep, gravelly even, not the kind of thing I pictured from her at all, more beautiful than I ever could have thought.

Cass opened her eyes, catching mine in the window.

I ducked down, hiding.

I knew she’d seen me. Now she’d think I was a Peeping Tom or something, and she’d tell the others that I was spying on them. I raised my head to the window again, and she was still staring my way. I caught her eye again, but I didn’t turn my head away. Neither did Cass. She stared right at me, her eyes deep and brown, reflecting the candle flame.

Murphy grabbed my arm, puncturing the dream. When I looked back at the window, Cass had her eyes closed, swaying silently to the music.

“Come on,” Murphy whispered. “Let’s get back to the house before Grandma notices we’re gone.”

We walked back through the woods. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched and followed somehow. I tried to tell myself it was only my imagination. But from the way Murphy kept looking around, glancing back over her shoulder, I knew she was feeling it too. From the edge of the field the house loomed over us, many-eyed and strange, like some kind of gargoyle sprouting up out of the earth.

There was a light on in the house, a lantern glowing in the attic.

“Grandma told us it was empty,” said Murphy, “that there were holes in the floor and we would fall right through. What’s she doing up there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Think we can get back to the room without her hearing anything?”

“We can try,” said Murphy.

When we reached the kitchen, we took our shoes off and walked soft and careful, the old house creaking no matter how gentle we stepped. Murphy shut the door to our bedroom quiet as she could.