Phoebe had chosen to squeeze into the bed with Graham when Mike seemed uneasy about sleeping on the floor. Uneasy wasn't quite right. It was more annoyed than anything. He'd looked at the cold floor unhappily and offered to share the bed with someone.

So when Graham's phone started going off in the middle of the night, Graham had to extract himself from Phoebe's sprawling limbs. The digital clock on the nightstand read 11:45 PM, only a half hour since they'd all settled down. They'd wisely decided on an early night with the long drive ahead of them in the morning. They still needed to make a few stops in the morning, including picking up Spencer from his parent's home.

Graham wasn't looking forward to that stop in particular.

"Do you know what time it is?" Graham slurred into the phone.He'd been on the edge of a horrible dream and the edges off it still danced around his mind. Flocks of birds obscuring a narrow passageway. His brother screaming, the taste of blood in his mouth. He rubbed at his eyes harshly.

"It's not even midnight, relax," Graham's younger brother Colby said.There were kids shouting loudly in the background of wherever he was and Colby called for them to quiet down. "Sorry, me and Alison took the kids to a movie, we just got back."

"Ali's there?" Graham asked, his voice pitched higher with tired excitement.

"Yeah, of course. The kids are on break so she came by to visit. Everyone say hi to uncle Graham," Colby called out. There was a chorus of cheerful shouts and scuffling as the phone changed hands.

"Hey! You made it there ok?" Ali asked. "You were supposed to call us."

Graham rolled his eyes and slipped out the back door of the hotel to stand outside. The cold night air seeped in through his thick jacket that he'd grabbed off the bed post before leaving the room. He could see the breeze rustling the treetops in the distance. The leaves rubbing together and falling made a hushed whisper like hundreds of voices just out of range. It made him shudder.

"I texted," he said.

"You know that's not the same," Ali argued. She'd been like this since she'd met the boys. Something about the angry and timid teen boy duo made her go full mama bear. Even with her own kids to worry about she always made sure to check in with her younger brothers. "Driving to the cabin in the morning?"

"Yeah, we have to stop for some snacks and stuff," he said, leaning back against the wall.

"Just don't overdo the drinks," Ali said knowingly.

"Don't worry, we'll keep the partying to a minimum. A bunch of them want to go hiking out on the trails anyway." That still sounded insane to Graham.

"Just be safe, okay?" she insisted softly.

The phone changed hands again and Graham could hear his niece and nephew chanting his name loudly. The voices faded and a door opened and closed. "Colby?"

"Yeah, me again," Colby told him.

"Did you need something from me or were you just calling to rile the kids up?"

"I was hoping you could do me a favor." The silence that followed grew as Graham waited for a response. All he could hear now was Colby's breathing, shallow and stuttering. "I need you to grab something for me, from the old house."

"Absolutely not, I'm not going in there," Graham protested. "I don't even have a key." He started pacing quickly back and forth. His breath billowed in front of him in a weak cloud.

"I snuck one into your bag, in that back pocket you never use. I was hoping you wouldn't notice for a while. Guess I was right," Colby said, sounding guilty.

Graham shook his head, nearly smacking a fist against the side of the inn. He couldn't imagine the owners or the other patrons would like to hear him taking his anger out on the building in the middle of the night. There were crescent moons carved into his palm when he relaxed his hand. "I'm not going in there," he reiterated.

Colby sighed on the other end of the phone. "It's just my old music books. They'll be easy to find, I promise."

"Then get on a plane and go find it," Graham snapped. He ended the call and shoved his phone deep into his jacket pocket so he wouldn't throw it into the trees. Visiting the mill had been hard enough, now Colby was pushing for him to go to the house? His hands formed fists again.

The grass was cold under his bare feet as he walked away from the inn. He kept one hand on the sturdy bricks. The further he got, the more it felt like he was tethered to a buoy out at sea. The solid presence behind him lent a sense of realness.

Just his fingertips touched the worn surface. It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. Any second a strong wind would knock him off the edge and he'd be free falling to some mystery that lay below. Graham stumbled back and pressed his back more firmly against the wall. The cold shook him out of the memories threatening to drown him. For a moment he'd been caught in the feeling of his face against the grass as a weight pushed down on his cheek.

Graham was groggy and irritable in the morning. The others chalked it up to his nerves about picking Spencer up from his parent's house. He did manage a grateful smile at Phoebe when she pressed a fresh cup of coffee into his hand.

"Thanks for letting me bunk with you," she said.

"No problem. I wasn't about to let you sleep in the truck. You might have gotten dirt on the seats," he teased.

Mike waved from the back of the truck as he closed it up. "Let's get this show on the road." He jumped into the backseat with Phoebe. "Store or Spencer first?"

"Spencer obviously, he eats like a horse. Man's paying for all of his snacks and breakfast," Graham said. He pulled out of the inn. The three of them shouted angry farewells to the building and its less than pleasant workers.

It was only just after sunrise when they began the short drive across town to Spencer's home. The lanky man who still hadn't quite grown into his long limbs was waiting outside for them. A shorter woman was walking alongside him as he headed for the car. They could hear her ranting loudly in Mandarin. Though none of them could understand her, it didn't take a genius to connect her angry words and her pointer finger jabbing frantically between Graham's truck and the taped off house across the street.

Graham had been pointedly looking anywhere besides his childhood home. Everything from the street lamp on the corner to the crooked mailbox did fine at bringing up unwanted memories. He didn't need to see the heavy wooden door with its brass ring knocker.

Spencer yanked open the front passenger door and passed his bag through the front seats to Phoebe and Mike. "I don't want to hear a word from any of you, just drive," he ordered. The others nodded and Spencer waved at his mother as they drove off. His father was standing just in the doorway, staring at the truck with barely hidden distrust.

"Who's up for some breakfast and awkward conversation?" Mike asked. He half snorted half laughed when Phoebe elbowed him in the ribs. "What? Suddenly I'm not allowed to mention familial dysfunctions? We all have them, it's barely a big deal."

"Yeah but did your mother lock you in your room to keep you away from the crazy family across the street?" Spencer snapped. "Sorry," he added when he caught the twitch in Graham's lip.

"Don't worry about it, I get it," Graham assured him.

They turned into a grocery store parking lot and piled out. "So, drinks? Chips?" Mike asked as they walked in.

Spencer rolled his eyes and grabbed a cart. "Maybe a vegetable or two? I don't want to die because of one disastrous weekend. Real food," he said sternly. He paused to grab a bag of mini Snickers off a shelf. "And these."

"Some things never die huh?" Phoebe teased. She laughed at his pink cheeks and stepped onto the back of the cart, forcing him to push down on the handlebar to keep it from tipping over. They piled food into the cart as they moved up and down the aisles. Mike and Phoebe kept them swimming in horrible snacks and drinks while Spencer added real food they'd be able to cook.

Graham let them to the majority of the choosing, until it came to the hot chocolate and marshmallows.

"You should just get the jumbo marshmallows," Mike said.

"No, those just absorb all the coco and then it's some weird fluffy soggy mess," Graham argued. He tossed a couple bags into the cart on top of the rest of the food. "I want some marshmallows with my cocoa, not the other way around."

The four of them rearranged everything in the back of the truck to fit the extra cargo.

"How long are we driving?" Mike called up from the back seat. He opened the cup holder between Spencer and himself to set his coffee in. The grocery bag of snacks crinkled beside his feet.

"About eight hours, another two into the woods after that," Graham called back. Steam curled from his tea in the center console. "So you'd better get comfortable."