“Yes, be careful,” the girl said. “You wouldn’t want to damage that car.”

“Thanks,” I replied, looking at the guy, not her, then starting up the car, its roar ending the possibility of further conversation.

He must have watched my car as I drove the cobblestone circle, for he suddenly ran out in front of me, waving his arms. I wasn’t turning off the car again — if he wanted to talk to me, he would have to shout.

“Do you know you’re dragging your muffler?”

“Sure sounds like it,” I hollered back, and drove on, not that I didn’t appreciate his thoughtfulness in telling me, but I saw no point in stopping for a closer look. His clothes were casual chic, laid-back rich-kid clothes, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to crawl under and take care of it. I could drag it another quarter mile or so.

Back on Scarborough Road, I found what looked like a pull-off rather than a driveway and, after a moment of indecision, left my car there, not wanting to lose a wheel as well as a muffler. The entrance to the rest of the driveway was hidden by a sharp turn and overgrown shrubs. Scrub pine, high grass, and weeds cooked in the late-afternoon heat. About thirty feet beyond was the dense green of trees, and somewhere beyond their leafy darkness lay a house I vaguely remembered. As I walked, the stillness of the Sunday afternoon was eroded by the sound of insects swarming up from the tall grasses. The moment I entered the trees, the air changed, its temperature dropping, its dampness coating my skin.

Patch by patch, the old house began to show through the leaves, pieces of brown shingle roof and weathered gray boards. Its wood had a greenish tinge, like that of the mosscovered trees. I had remembered the house as being unusually long, and when I got close, I saw why. It must have been built as two structures, the left one added on to the right. Both sections of the house had a second floor, but the right portion was taller, boxier. The left portion sat low, with a simple sloping roof and dormer windows for its second floor. A narrow covered porch ran along the front of the low portion.