He was just standing there, frozen.

Then a blackness crept across his eyes until they looked like two giant pupils filling the space between the lids.

And then the blackness crumbled away like ash. The breeze lifted the bits of residue out of his head.

The lights of the house behind him showed in those two spots.

I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like sand. We watched as he stepped off the porch. He walked about fifty feet from the house, then halted. His head lowered, a smooth motion like a security camera autoswiveling. Then he walked a few steps, made a right-angle turn, walked a few more, and did it again. He walked a little bit longer each time, though the turns remained crisp. He seemed to be charting a rectangular grid, spiraling out from the center point. It made no sense at all, and yet there was some terrible cold logic to it, a logic I could not grasp.

Seeing him like that, all stiff as if under a hex, felt worse than if we’d come home and found him split open like Mr. Franklin. I realized I’d cupped my hand over my mouth, maybe to keep from crying out.

Uncle Jim, who’d played marbles with me when I was a kid. Uncle Jim, who made the best paper airplanes and taught me how to sail them across the barn from the hayloft. Uncle Jim, who’d helped me with my algebra homework, puzzling through the equations at my side.

He continued charting his course over the land in front of our house, his vacant eyes lowered. I remembered what Patrick had said about Mr. Franklin, how it seemed he’d been looking for something on the ground. Uncle Jim stumbled over a rock but then righted himself and kept on course.

I turned around and saw that Patrick was breathing hard, his grip firm on the shotgun. JoJo and Rocky had drawn back into the brush behind us, ready to run.

“We have to go to him,” I said to Patrick. “We can’t leave him like that.”

“I know,” Patrick said.

I stepped out and jogged for Uncle Jim, ignoring Patrick’s shouts for me to wait up. As I neared, I sprinted even faster. I had to see up close, to know it was true, because part of me wouldn’t believe it.

I got within talking distance, and Uncle Jim finally halted. His head tilted up, and then I was looking at his face and through it at the same time. Everything else seemed the same—the scuffed cowboy boots, his faded Wranglers, that worn Carhartt jacket. I felt an impulse to run to him and hug him—to shut my eyes and pretend he was okay.