“I am, I am replete. And I am splitting my shrinking seams with things they need to know.” Maybe he was a little drunk; maybe the world was already sliding toward ruin.

“You’re daring us,” said Dee. She smacked the glass with a knife handle, and they all leaned in. It smelled of candles.

Breakfasts over the summer were almost always the same: a soft-boiled egg, pork belly cured in salt and sugar by Dee, rye or linseed bread and jam or some peaches in syrup, or applesauce, or berries. On weekends, Dee served what Merle called a real Swede spread—sliced meats and soft cheese and herring and sometimes smoked salmon, more jams, special honey—on her fancy china.

On weekends, no one left for an office or classroom, but Jane would work on her thesis or Papa’s research. She was trying to identify markers that could help determine the evolution of a story, whether the bean or the vine or the lost cow came before a similar story of a starving boy selling his baby brother and coming home with a baby sister or perhaps a frog. She followed them around the house testing out versions of stories. What story sounded right? Which one scared them more?

The scariest was always the simplest and shortest, and Edmund and Polly usually agreed with each other. Had they gotten the answer right? Jane didn’t always know. That was the point.

But today, Papa and Dee needed to drive to the city for a doctor appointment, and Merle, having argued with Jane about who most deserved to drop a class, was the one to stay home with Polly and Edmund. He was in a fine mood, unshaven and humming Beach Boys songs with a stuffed-nose midwestern twang. He brought out stale cornflakes and did not suggest they dress. He turned on the television, and they watched one movie about Hawaii and another with Tarzan dodging dinosaurs, headhunters, lava, and pretty girls. Merle claimed to be terrified of everything, equally, and Polly and Edmund agreed this was a scream.

The villains sank into quicksand.

“Put that on your map,” said Merle.

Which was worse, lava or quicksand? Was lava always red, and was quicksand the slime green they guessed? The movie was black and white. A few weeks earlier, they’d seen Ben-Hur, and Edmund wondered about leprosy. What else fell off, besides noses and fingers? Merle said quicksand looked like vomit, and penises fell off, too, and lava darkened to black as it hardened. He made them sit still while he read aloud a long story about freezing to death in Alaska. Was it better to burn or freeze, Merle asked at the end.