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plates and cups—artifacts, he said, to take home and photograph. He was particularly pleased to come across the skulls and bones of several small animals—foxes, raccoons, squirrels, he guessed, that had sheltered and died there.
    The little bones were too much for Erica. She retreated to a low stone wall on the edge of the woods and sat in the sun, her head close to her doll’s head, having one of her imaginary conversations.
    I didn’t like the bones any more than my sister did. I didn’t like the moldy smell or the damp cold either. In fact, I didn’t like anything about the cabin, and I wished Dad would finish taking pictures and get out of there.
    â€œI’m going outside,” I told him, “to keep Erica company.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll be done in here soon, just a few more minutes.” With his back turned, he busied himself poking around in a broken-down cupboard, going through things that once belonged to a long-gone stranger.
    I sat beside Erica on the wall, glad for the sun on my back and the smell of autumn leaves.
    â€œI want to go home,” she said.
    â€œMe, too.”
    â€œI wish his camera battery would die.”
    â€œYeah. How many pictures can he take, anyway? There’s nothing in there but trash and broken stuff.”
    â€œAnd bones.” Erica swung her legs harder, banging her heels. “I don’t like bones.”
    While she smoothed Little Erica’s hair, I watched a fuzzy brown caterpillar crawl slowly over the stones. He had a wide black stripe across his back, and I tried to remember if that meant a cold winter was coming.
    The longer I sat on the wall, the more I noticed rustling noises in the woods behind us. An animal, I told myself, moving around in the fallen leaves and underbrush. I turned and peered into the trees, but saw nothing. My neck itched. Someone was there. Maybe Brody and his friends had followed us.
    Erica moved closer to me. “Do you hear it now?” she asked.
    â€œHear what?”
    â€œThe whispering.” She dropped her voice so low I could barely hear her. “Air-ric-cah, Air-ric-cah—it’s calling me. Who is it? What does it want?”
    Despite the sun, I felt as if a shadow had passed over us. Even though I couldn’t hear the whisper, I sensed that something was behind us in the woods, hidden, watching us. If I told Erica that, she’d be even more scared, so I said, “Nothing’s calling you, Erica. You’re imagining it.”
    â€œYou must be deaf.” Erica turned away from me and hugged the doll.
    At last Dad came out of the cabin. Erica and I waited silently while he prowled around, taking pictures of anything and everything that stayed still long enough—glassless windows, splintered boards, the dark doorway, the chimney, tall weeds, tangles of thorns. He even lined up the things he’d found inside and took pictures of them arranged like still lifes on the wall. A little skull, a cracked plate, a few dead leaves, gloomy stuff.
    Finally Dad said, “Come on, let’s go.” You’d think Erica and I, not him, were the ones who’d wanted to stay. He waved at his collection of junk. “We’ll come back later with a bag and get this stuff.”
    Frankly, I hoped Dad would forget about coming back. I didn’t want those things in our house. They’d belonged to someone once. Someone most likely dead by now. The past clung to them like a stain you couldn’t wash away.
    We headed down the trail toward home, with Erica and me just ahead of Dad. We went slowly, cautiously, watching our step on the steep trail. Sometimes it’s harder to go down a hill than to climb it.
    Dinner did not go well that night. Mom was upset about her job. Receptionist, ha. A glorified typist, that’s all she was. Her boss was stupid and bigoted. He treated her like a servant—do this, do that, fix the coffee, go to Piggly Wiggly, pick up