a gravel path for so long that I began to wonder whether it wasn’t a driveway at all, but another unmarked road, when at last I reached a small clearing. The headlights’ white halo fell onto brown shingles. Frogs leapt out of the beam. I cut the engine. A half-moon hovered over the massive shadow that was the house, a dark seashell shape against the sky, with a second floor slightly smaller than the first, topped by a pitched loft like a dollop of cream. Squares of soft light resolved into windows, the distance between which suggested a structure with impossible dimensions.
