Chapter 1
The house sat by itself, built into the side of a hill, miles from its nearest neighbor. It was a clapboard structure, probably purchased from Sears and Roebuck, and shipped west in pieces near the middle of the end of the 1800s. The long-dead workmen had done a good job fitting the pieces together. Even now, fallow fields surrounded the house in the winter.
It was a tight little house; the ceilings were low. A six-foot-tall man would bump his head if he stood up straight, and the rooms were small. Just large enough for their function, and no larger. When they’d assembled the house, heat had come from wood they’d chopped for themselves. It was hard work, too hard to be wasted, so it had been essential to build the house tight, and without wasted space.
We had planned to tear t
