LIKE SOME WEIRD HOMING pigeon, Dad walked us over mounds, into dips, across a stream that relieved the night quiet of its eeriness. The thick dark clouds obscured the moon until only a suffocating blackness surrounded us, yet no stumbles arrived from Dad’s direction, only the steady pad of his footsteps led the way.
Rain continued to fall, and had spread a slow saturation across my shoulders and hair by the time we rounded a craggy corner about a half hour later.
“Does that look right to you, Son?” Dad asked, slowing to a stop.
I stared beyond his vague outline toward the only distinguishable shape ahead—the points of turrets, linked by solid blocks of what I guessed to be walls, and three windows glowing out their rooms’ engagement. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“Sammy?” Jack’s rumble carried fr
