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boarded up, the grounds were overgrown with weeds, and I knew, without knowing how I knew, that no one was home.

Scud and Andie
    I t’s difficult to describe the feeling that came over me as I stood staring up at the impossible. I should have been terrified, but I felt no fear stepping through that vine-laden doorway. It was as though I had been pushed too far, as if entering this other world had pushed me beyond shock. What remained was simple wonder.
    I was looking at Boggs’s End, but it was not the Boggs’s End I knew. Where the rows of apple trees had stood was now only a weedy expanse surrounding a collapsed corncrib. The barn was there, but the other sheds were gone.
    Had I stepped into the future? If so, how many years had passed? A terrifying thought occurred to me. I looked quickly at my hands, half-expecting to see the wrinkled hands of an old man, but they were as I remembered.
    What was this place?
    I waded through the grass, circling the house. The moonlight was bright enough to see the cracked windowpanes, the flaking, powdery paint, the rusted steel gutters. Boggs’s End looked as though it had been vacant for years. A broken-down tractor with flat tires and vines growing over its engine sat parkedin the weed-spotted drive. The tall pine trees that had stood at each corner of Boggs’s End were gone, replaced by smaller trees. The front door was sealed with three boards nailed across it. I backed away from the dark house. A jumble of thoughts filled my brain. I wanted to go back through that door, but I also wanted to know where—or when—I was. I started toward the road. The driveway was so overgrown I was sure no one had used it in years.
    The road was different, too. The road I recalled was paved, not a rutted, dirt track. I decided to head down the hill, since it was easier than going up. I’d only taken a few steps when I heard a voice.
    â€œHey, kid.”
    I stopped and looked around, then saw a figure standing on the other side of the narrow road.
    I said, “Who, me?” From his size and the sound of the voice I knew he wasn’t an adult, but that only made me a little less scared.
    â€œYeah. Who d’ya think I’m talking to? Joe Louis?”
    â€œWho’s Joe Louis?” I asked.
    â€œThe colored boxer. What’re you, a dummy?”
    I gritted my teeth at that, but let it pass. He stepped forward into the moonlight, showing me a long face with a wide mouth. A strange-looking floppy cap rested atop a pair of large ears. His flannel shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, a pair of baggy bib overalls patched at both knees hung from narrow shoulders. Both hands were buried in his pockets. He was a few inches taller than me, but I guessed him to be about the same age.
    â€œHow come I never seen you around?” he said. “You live around here?”
    I pointed back at Boggs’s End.
    He raised his eyebrows, then laughed. “Yeah, sure. Ain’t nobody lived there in years, not since the Boggses disappeared.”
    The Boggses? Boggs was the name of the man who had built the house.
    â€œI bet you run away from someplace, didn’t you? I ran away a couple times. One time got all the way to Minneapolis. Where’d you run away from?”
    I didn’t want to explain, so I just shrugged.
    He said, “Well, I guess that’s your business. You want to stay in the old Boggs place, I ain’t gonna tell nobody. Listen, you hungry?”
    â€œA little.”
    â€œAndie and me, we’re going to grab some apples off old man Henderson’s place. You want to come?”
    I said, “Sure. Who’s Andie?”
    â€œKid, you don’t know anything, do you?”
    â€œMy name’s not kid. It’s Jack.”
    â€œOkay, then. Jack. Let’s go, Jack.” He started up the road.
    I let him get a few yards away, then followed. What else was I going to do? I called after him, “So what’s your