Daniel did not know what made him think that, but he knew it was true, and while he’d never really given it much thought before, he realized that those two scared him. He was not sure why; Billingsly had always been polite and deferential to him—too polite and too deferential—while Doneen had always been shy and elusive and seemed to have a crush on him. But he was afraid of them, he realized, and he began making a concerted effort to stay out of their way, to not come into contact with them, to avoid them whenever possible.

His parents, he noticed, did the same.

What was going on here? Why didn’t his father just fire Billingsly?

Because it wasn’t only the servant and his daughter. It was the house as well. Something about their home seemed threatening and confining and unnatural, as if…

As if it was haunted.

That was it exactly. It was as if the building itself were alive, controlling everything within its borders—who slept where, what time they ate their meals, where they could go and what they could do—and they were merely its pawns. It was a strange thought, he knew, but it was the way he felt, and it explained why his father, who had always been lord of the manor, the king of his castle, walked around these days like a beaten man, a guest in his own home.

No, not a guest.

A prisoner.

If he’d been braver, if he’d been older, he would have talked to his parents about it, would have asked what was wrong and why and whether they could do anything about the situation, but that was not the way the dynamics of their family worked. They did not talk out problems, did not confront them directly, but hinted around about them, trying to get their individual points across with oblique references and small suggestions, hoping the other members of the family would understand what they meant without having to come out and explain.

So he stayed out as much as possible, played with his friends, concentrated on summer and fun and tried not to think about the changes at home. He and Jim and Paul and Madson built a clubhouse in the woods behind Paul’s backyard. They made a go-cart that they took turns racing down State Street. They panned for gold in the creek. They watched game shows on Jim’s family’s color TV set. They camped out in the park.

Outside the walls of the house, it was a great summer.

But inside…