"We should." He sets his jaw and looks at Roy. They cannot meet each other's eyes. Burke is breathing hard.
"What's the matter? You don't think there's a real ghost in there."
"I ain't scared even if there is a ghost." Roy speaks calmly.
"How about you?"
"I'm not scared, I just don't want to go in there," says Randy.
"Chicken shit."
"You damn right I'm chicken shit." But he stares at the house, fascinated. He licks his Up. "You think it would be all right? You think we can get in?"
Burke laughs. He eyes Nathan up and down. "What about you?"
Nathan faces the house, tracing its shadow against the sky. "Going inside is fine with me."
Roy faces Burke belligerently. "See, asshole? Nobody's scared. The only thing I'm thinking about is we'd have to be careful. That house is liable to come down around your head if you step in the wrong place. It's dark and we won't be able to see. It's dangerous."
"Oh yeah? Well, I say you're scared. That's what it looks like to me."
They glare at each other. Roy holds his place, quiet and determined. He is a match for Burke, Nathan thinks. But Burke carries himself more aggressively, his chin juts toward Roy and trembles. His face flushes with emotion.
Nathan still faces the house. "It's a full moon. If we wait a little bit, there'll be plenty of light."
Roy is watching him, Nathan can feel it. But Nathan holds fast to the house, faces that direction, and breathes the scent of late blooming jasmine.
Roy studies the sky. He leans close, a warm presence. "You really want to do this?"
"That's what he said."
"I'm asking him." Waiting then.
"Why does he get to decide?"
But still Roy is silent. The moment is rich. Nathan can taste each fluttering of Roy's pulse, each rise of scent from his body. "It would be fun."
Roy scratches behind one ear. When he begins to smile, the tension eases. "Well, I know I don’t want to go in that front door. We'll never get it open."
Burke and Randy laugh. "All right," Burke says, "we won't go in that way"
Randy, generously, adds, "You know the house, Roy. How do we get inside?"
Secure in his leadership, Roy studies the problem. The rising moon brings soft light to the lawn, marinating the overgrown azaleas along the sweep of what was once a front yard. Eerie white glaze obscures the windows and washes the facade. "There's a door at the side. And there's broken windows. And there's doors at the back, too. Me and Uncle Heben tried a door back there. But we couldn't open it"
"Did you get in?"
"We could of climbed in a window. But Uncle Heben changed his mind."
"He probably got scared, too," Randy says.
"Maybe. It was a long time ago. I don’t remember."
They all stare at the house somberly. Burke walks toward it a few steps. This time he passes the flask to the others, and everyone drinks but Nathan. The moment has come. Roy finds his flashlight. "Just in case we need it," he explains. They trot across the yard in the moonlight, Roy leading. They are all following in no order, but Nathan runs close to Roy.
Beyond the layers of trees, white as anything, a full moon blazes. The ivory face threatens to make day, even glimpsed in pieces through branches. Nathan sees a woman in the glittering, the face of a woman staring into a high wind of whiteness, and soon she will be clearing the trees and rising into a sky filled with stars.
They travel in the shadow of the house. The size of the place surprises Nathan again as they approach. How could people need so much room? In the darkness the shuttered windows are like lidded eyes. It is a different feeling, to approach with the knowledge that they are going inside. The darkness seems darker, the sense of invisible presences more acute. They halt a moment at the foot of the stone steps leading to the main porch. Roy checks the windows nearby, slipping fearlessly up the steps and along the porch, sliding his hands along the shutters. Nathan's heart is pounding, but he keeps his eyes on Roy. From shadow to shadow he moves, and the others move parallel to him along the side of the house. He returns further along and whispers, as if they are all concealing themselves from something inside, "Everything's nailed shut. Like I remembered."
They reach the place where the tree has fallen against the house, and once there they climb onto the porch and review the wreckage. Roy clambers over the old tree trunk, peers at the splintered wood of the porch above their heads, the one that circles the second floor of the house. The bulk of the tree rests there. "The tree's leaning on the house," Roy whispers, "It didn't bust through."
"The windows?" Burke asks. "I bet it knocked some loose."
"Looks like it could have."
"You want to try up there?"
Roy considers. His face lost in the shadows of the tree. "Not yet. We can come back if we don't find something better."
Beyond the tree, they enter a fenced garden that runs the length of the house, adjoining the place where the house swells out and the porches stop.
