Or melted wax, I thought with a shudder as I remembered the way her features ran into each other on the night everything started.

“Ope,” Jess said as she tripped over the root despite the warning. The wagon between us jostled, rattling the hammer against the metal.

“Shhhh,” I hissed as she regained her footing. Behind her, Melissa trailed, holding on to the end of her ponytail, keeping distance between herself and the house.

The house was dark, the windows black. The night air seemed heavier, as though someone had hit a pause button and all time had stopped. I nodded silently to Jess, and we slowly crept around to the corner of the house, where we would have to walk across the yard to the pit without any cover. I glanced around the corner to make sure the path was clear. All I saw was the blue plastic Adirondack chairs around the firepit. They were overturned, splayed on the concrete, and covered in dried mud.

An owl hooted. It sounded like a warning, like it knew what was coming next. Another owl responded. A mating call. I only knew this because one night Mark and I were kept awake by two owls, calling back and forth as we silently pleaded for them to just get it on already so we could sleep.

Melissa whispered, her country accent strong, “Y’all, I don’t know about—”

I jerked my head toward the backyard. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Fuck yes,” Jess said back.

She came around to the side, and we faced each other, holding the wagon with the wood sticking out, the top of the boards pointing at Melissa, like stakes threatening a vampire. I nodded and we took a step forward, then another.

A light breeze ran through the yard, tinkling the wind chimes Liz had made with her children last summer. My breath caught as I heard them. I always thought of the movie Twister when I heard wind chimes, of the aluminum cans tinkling in warning when a storm was near. June and I had watched that movie over and over one summer, making emergency storm kits for the basement and monitoring every thunderstorm on the Weather Channel.

Jess was about to step forward again when my gaze was drawn to an object near the wind chimes. I froze, which caused her to stop suddenly, making the hammer rattle again. Melissa reacted too late and ran into one of the fence posts, grunting as it thudded against her chest.

I shook my head as I squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the shape. It was over by the tiki hut on the opposite side of the yard, with the pit in front of us.

“Wait, is that—” I leaned forward even more, causing Jess to shift the weight of the wagon toward her body.

“What?” Melissa sounded like the word escaped her lips without her permission.