Down the old county road and the one made of dirt, choked with blackberry bushes and rampant nightshade and a mist that hung above the path, no matter the season, in searching, white wisps, through a veil made of bramble and low-hanging moss that two heads brushed aside on a large, distant house as an armadillo trundled past in its coat of chainmail before rustling off, up an overgrown drive, down a cracked flagstone path, which mounted three steps to a heavy front door where Breonne, the sister, and Phillip, the brother, didn’t bother to knock, for the house was theirs now.

It was a hunting lodge built in a rambling style, with a gray roof peaked over a vast picture window, like an eyebrow that questioned the traveler’s approach, and a wraparound deck made of unpainted logs, a thick, green screen of trees behind it. Though she was worried it wouldn’t, the lockbox code worked and Breonne went first through the leaf-strewn foyer.…