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  “That was great,” she said, feeling lame.
  “Yes. It was. You were great. You tasted good.”
  “I got a little taste of myself.”
  “Mmmm, that.”
  “When will I see you again?”
  “When I’m standing in front of you.”
  “Jesus, that’s so cryptic.”
  “I can’t make promises I might not be able to keep.”
  “What is that supposed to mean?”
  “It means you’ll see me again if I’m able to come to you.”
  “I’m still not sure I understand. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
  “We’re all in some kind of trouble, if you stop to think about it.”
  “Maybe I don’t think about it that much.”
  “I want to see you again. Is that what you want to hear? I very very much want to see you again.”
  “That’s something, I guess.”
  She gave him another hug, pressing his bones into her bones, before turning to go back into the house. She felt his eyes watching her as she walked across the side yard. She even thought she felt his eyes watching her as she lay in her bed, drifting off in the narcotic smell of his sweat and the taste of his come on the back of her tongue.

 
    Four
     
    Zack wandered down out of the hills into the clearing of the hollow. It was too small to be called a valley. It was a place of secrets. A dark place. Hills rose on all sides, nearly obliterating the sky. Even with the moon hanging swollen and full overhead this was a place too dark for shadows.
  Coming into the clearing, the same fear gripped him that gripped him every night.
  What if he didn’t see the house?
  Zack knew, in order to see the house, the owners of the house had to want you to see it. That was the first step. The house was a place of great power. Or, maybe, the people living in the house contained the power. Part of this power was the giving and taking of the house. Ever since seeing those people from his bedroom, months ago in a California suburb, Zack had desperately strove to be in their favor. Ilya and Ernst. Zack had yet to find out their last names, if they even had last names. It had taken him quite some time to figure out their first names. They had seduced him in much the same way he was seducing Charlotte. After seeing them for the first time, he wanted to be with them. They made him feel powerful. They promised him some of their power. They said he was chosen.
  Zack stood at the edge of the clearing, marveling at the way the hollow seemed to absorb the moonlight, and waited for the house to appear. Standing on a gravel road running along a ridge traversing the hollow, Zack strained his eyes into the darkness. Since meeting Ilya and Ernst, he had become something of a nocturnal creature. His eyes had adjusted well to the dark. Still, he could not see the house.
  Longing for the sight of the house, desperation scrabbled around in his head. He knew this was part of it. It was all just part of their game. Part of his training. The panic. The anxiety. So far, the house had not failed to appear to him.
  All of a sudden it was there, standing in front of him in its sad and dark glory.
  It did not slowly appear as Zack had at first assumed it would, as it usually did. Most times he watched it carve itself out of the mist and darkness hanging in the air, like a ghost putting on substance for a haunting. This time was different. One second he stood there staring at nothing and then when he got tired of staring he blinked his eyes and when he opened them again the house was there with all the blinking suddenness of a light bulb. Waiting for him. Begging him to come in.
  He walked down the hill from the ridge, across the clearing, deeper into the hollow, his insides tingling with some dark revelation.
  Since coming to Lynchville, he had familiarized himself with many of the legends surrounding the town. Some of them were simply mundane—haunting, disappearances, insanity—common rumors surrounding any small town. Others