I took Faradaythe long way.
We walked down the Avenue, negotiating its broken surface, a tumultuous sea of flagstones. To our right, the archery range was busy, as were the obstacle courses, the cliffs. Whenever my family gathered, we tested our skills against one another.
The dogs went past, traveling in an excited pack. One of the Rhodesian ridgebacks, Creech, stopped to sniff Faraday’s hand.
“Good dog,” she said.
“But twitchy around strangers.” I scratched his ears. “Don’t go out alone till they get used to you.”
“Which I hope they will. You always come to my house, when all this was so close!”
“Boston’s more fun.” At a snap of my fingers, Creech darted off to rejoin the pack. “There’s not much to do out here.”
“No horses?”
I shook my head. Riding was one of the skills no longer taught to young Mortons, along with javelin and hand ciphers. Archery clung on, thanks to the four legacy families’ yearly competition.
“We can make our own fun. Oh…wow.” Faraday’s hand went to an empty pocket, wanting to take a photo.
The Great House was in view, the wind turbines on its turrets fluttering against the gunmetal sky.
“That’s where the service is tomorrow.”
“With all this land, kinda thought you’d have a chapel.”
“We did. It burned down.”
“Bad luck. What denomination is your family again?”
“Whichever is least noticeable.”
She stared at me a moment. “So, Episcopalian?”
“Sure,” I said.
Faraday’s own family was mixed. Her mother was ambiguously Buddhist; her father, aggressively Catholic.
I led her through the greenhouses. Steamy rainforest, fetid marshland, arid desert—each miniature climate had its own spices, curiosities, poisons. We didn’t pause to see the flytraps, the scorpions, the stinging plants, just went straight out the other side.
There, at the edge of a dense forest, was the old barn. It looked decrepit and precarious, a dark brown hulk sagging to one side. The front door was gone to firewood, the wall timbers snaggletoothed and splintered. But hidden metal braces held it up.
In the gloom, we threaded between rusting machines. The barn smelled of bird shit and rotten hay.
Faraday looked up. From the lofts over our heads came scurrying. “Did you ever play in here?”
“Hide-and-Seek,” I said. “Freeze Tag. Endless games of Bunny Hunt.”
“Don’t know that last one.”
“There was one ambush where I broke Sebastian’s wrist.”
Faraday shrugged. “Accidents happen.”
“That’s what Peter said.”
On the far side of the barn was a smaller door. In the shadowed clearing behind it, enclosed by forest and the bulk of the barn, lay the Little Graveyard.
“Intense,” Faraday murmured.
