The shed rose crookedly from the leaves, its walls twisted crazily so that none of them leaned in quite the same direction. The forest grew close around the decayed structure, wrapping it in a tangle of vines rendered leafless by the autumn weather. The brown foliage rooted the building firmly in the dirt, binding its worm-eaten siding together and preventing it from caving in.

I shrugged as I stared into its obscure opening, warped by the shed’s protracted, interminable collapse. The feeble fingers of light that reached fading into the darkness revealed, barely, the edge of something—it was impossible to tell what by such inadequate illumination. “I’ve never looked.”

“Why not? Scared?”

I nodded, unashamed. Of course I was scared. He would be too if he had to live here. There were many dark places in and around the house—the east wing of the attic, the little closet in the bedroom, the dirt corner in the basement—and it was not good for a child to plumb their murky secrets. That was a lesson I had learned the hard way.

He laughed. I did not get angry. “Well, I’m not scared,” he announced, getting spryly to his feet and crunching through the leaves towards the shed. “I’ll tell you what I find.”