Table of Contents
For Addison and Jacqueline
PROLOGUE
“I WON’t GO INSIDE, I won’t, I won’t,” Preston called across the lawn at Peyton and Eva as he ran one way and they the other. Mrs. List, his best friend Peyton’s mother, had called them in three times and Peyton and Eva had run one way, gliding toward the Newburgh’s house on the balls of their feet, as Preston headed toward the cul-de-sac.
The trees hid the houses, so they didn’t have to run far. The trees hid everything. They grew between Preston’s yard and Peyton’s, between the Hoffstra’s and Eva’s. There were lines of them, two, sometimes three across, but they did the trick and even though Preston’s house wasn’t that far from the neighbor’s it felt like its own world.
Preston ran past the stone statue of a man on a horse at the edge of the road, turning into the cul-de-sac at Pinetree. When he was younger his father had taken him out in the neighborhood and read every street sign to him, telling him to memorize each word just in case he got lost. Preston could see his father, a towering figure now, though he’d been even bigger to him then, pointing up at a sign and saying, “see, see, P and P means pretzels and Preston and Pinetree.”
There were three houses in the cul-de-sac, all surrounded by trees. He looked toward the back where a small stream bubbled, gurgling and galumphing through the backyards toward the heavier woods that touched the neighborhood. The first house was peach colored, and no children lived there, only two adults and three dogs that barked just after dinnertime every night. A couple and their two teenage boys lived in the blue house next to it, one of the boys drove a rusted car and the other was always playing basketball in the driveway.
The yellow house in the corner sat empty most of the time. It was a fairly large house with a bright white front door and neatly painted shutters, like you’d find on certain types of family TV shows. There was a garden at the side, made up of all white flowers planted in symmetrical solid lines, a circle of them going around the white and gold mailbox. The grass was always mowed in neat rows and there were never any clippings left behind. The blacktop up to the white garage door shone a perfect black, the sun settling there like a mirage of water when Preston ran to it. Off to the side stood a basketball hoop hanging from a concrete post. It wasn’t like the teenagers’ basketball hoop, the regulation red and white; this one, painted in neon colors, hung over a lopsided court that had been drawn with bright pink and green chalk lines.
Preston hardly ever came this way, he’d only been here once before with Peyton and they’d darted away quickly when Mr. Hawthorne came out of his house. Now with Eva and Peyton playing in the Newburgh’s yard, Preston wanted to explore this place on his own and so he stepped closer, crossing first the street and then the sidewalk toward the house.
He cringed as one sneakered foot hit the black driveway, worried it might open up a hole he’d sink into. Mr. Hawthorne lived alone, though his house had two floors, and he drove what his father called a “trying-to-compensate-for-something” car really fast down the short, empty streets of the neighborhood.
Preston slowly approached the bright yellow house, each step a new island to Mr. Hawthorne’s front door. He could see the tree branches above him, separating Mr. Hawthorne’s yard from his neighbor’s. There were two cars parked in the driveway, one looked brand new while the other was bright purple with lines of rust clinging to the sides. Preston stepped toward the sidewalk leading to the house. Flowers lined the walkway and he stopped to look down at them. They were not colorful like the flowers in the books at school, but all white, like a snow garden. Preston leaned in, his nose grazing the petals as the front door opened. He could hear the way the knob turned, the sound of the screen door sliding, and when he craned his neck, Mr. Hawthorne was standing on the stoop just outside his house.
He was tall, his face a blank stare, his dark hair cut close to his head like an army sergeant. He gazed out at his yard as if he hadn’t seen anything, but right away he caught Preston, who shot up straight when his eyes met Mr. Hawthorne’s. He might have run from his neighbor, but he was ten years