The Old Willis Place

brother was right. We never spoke the old woman's name out loud, just as we never went too close to her house. Miss Lilian was the snake in the garden, the witch in the gingerbread house, someone to fear even though she was dead.
    At last, the truck moved on and parked next to the trailer. We scurried after it and hid in a thicket of dead vines and pokeweed. Unseen, we watched the man and his daughter get out of the truck.
    As Georgie had said, the man was just as tall and scrawny as a person can be, a human heron if I'd ever seen one. His shorts looked three sizes too big and so did his T-shirt. But he had a pleasant face and a nice smile.
    I knew at a glance he wasn't like the other caretakers. Which made him more dangerous, I supposed. He was the sort who noticed things.
    The girl was pretty, small and slender, about eleven or twelve years old. My age. Her hair hung down her back, smooth and wavy, so dark it shone with blue highlights in the sun.
    The first thing the girl did was get the dog out of the truck. He was a big mutt, part golden retriever, part shepherd maybe. I couldn't tell if he was fierce or not, but he hadn't caught scent of Georgie and me yet.
    "Give MacDuff some water," her father said, "but keep him tied, Lissa. I don't want him running off into the woods."
    "Lissa," I murmured. It was a pretty name—a whisper, a sighing sound like a breeze blowing through a field of wheat.
    I watched Lissa tie MacDuff to a tree and bring him a bowl of water. Leaving the dog lapping sloppily, she helped her father lift a shiny blue bicycle off the truck.
    "A bike." Georgie nudged me. "Wouldn't you love to ride it?"
    He didn't bother to hide the longing in his voice. Our bikes had disappeared a long time ago, soon after the bad thing happened. Despite the warm fall sunshine, I shivered at the memory.
    "Maybe she'll leave it outside," I said, "and we can borrow it after dark for a moonlight ride."
    "We could go a long way on a bike like that," Georgie said. "Miles and miles, on and on and on—"
    "Yes, all the way to the gate and back," I reminded him.
    He sighed and plucked a blade of grass to chew on. "I know, I know. I was just daydreaming, that's all." He sounded so sad that I was sorry I'd said anything. But I couldn't let him forget the rules.
    Lissa leaned her bike against a shed. "Will it be safe here, Dad?" she asked.
    "Sure," he said. "We're a mile from the road, and the gate's locked. Who'd take it?"
    Georgie and I pressed our hands over our mouths to keep from laughing out loud. They'd learn soon enough what was safe and what wasn't.
    "Give me a hand with some of these boxes, Lissa," her father said.
    We watched them come and go, carrying things into the trailer. To Georgie the best thing was the television. What pleased me most were the books, boxes and boxes of them. It had been a long time since I'd had anything new to read. Or anyone to talk to but my brother.
    Without thinking, I said, "Wouldn't it be fun to be friends with Lissa?"
    Georgie stared at me, wide-eyed with shock. "Friends? We can't be friends with her. You know that, Diana."
    I gazed past him at the trailer. I'd never wanted to break the rules before. Not once. For as long as I'd known what we could and couldn't do, I'd accepted the rules completely. I'd stayed hidden, I'd never gone beyond the gate at the end of the drive, I'd kept away from Miss Lilian's house. But now, for the first time, I was tempted.
    I looked at Georgie. "How can it hurt to have a friend?"
    He scowled. "I can't ride that bike past the gate, and you can't have a friend. We're not allowed."
    Suddenly angry, I pinched his arm. "What can happen if just one little time—"
    Georgie pulled away and rubbed his arm. "You'd better not talk like that," he whispered. "You'll ruin everything."
    "Ruin everything?" I glared at him. "It seems to me everything's already ruined."
    Without answering, Georgie moved deeper into the shade. Behind him, the sun shone on a field where corn once grew. My brother and the trees were dark against the brilliance.
    "Where are you going?" I was torn between following him and staying where I was, watching Lissa and her father.
    "Nowhere." Then he was gone.
    Sometimes Georgie was such a baby. I hadn't really hurt him. One little pinch. He deserved it for being such a spoilsport. Who did he think he was, telling me what to do? I was older than he was. He had no right to boss me around. If I wanted to break the rules, he couldn't stop me. So I