Just the dry husk of a big farmhouse far back from the highway, one of those foursquare, four bedroom, hipped roof houses as common as hay bales, part of a thick stand of young and old trees, like a box in a gray wicker basket pushed to the back of a shelf, not one track up the snowy lane, all of the glass shot out but the shadows not pouring over the windowsills onto the snow, the front door left open, the entryway dusty and black, like tar on a tree where a branch tore away, a whole branch of the Sundermans, Muellers, or Grays.