That weekend, Jack sat outside as his father mowed the field. He stayed safely on the back deck, sitting on the wooden stairs leading down into the backyard. It was a blustery day, full of breezes to turn cheeks pink and ruffle hair. Jack's own face showed pink under his freckles, and his dark, longish hair was wild due to the wind. He was hunched over, his knees pulled up under his chin, his head resting on his knees. Not exactly watching his father's progress. More concentrating on the trees beyond the field. He didn't know why. His eyes were glued on them. If he stared long enough, their branches appeared to move on their own, even when the wind wasn't blowing particularly hard. In fact, he wondered if they weren't moving on their own.

As the tall grass was being cut down, clouds of fluttery little things tore up into the skies. Not things like bugs and dust; it was too cold for bugs and too clear for dust. They were more like little shimmers of shadow. Wispy-winged bits of iridescence. Pearly snakes of flickering light. Jack wondered why he could never grasp onto such things. He saw them often in various places, though not always so many at once, but he could never actually catch hold of or fully see such forms. They were like creatures that weren't quite in the world he was in and yet not entirely out of it either. Creatures that were somehow slipping between the layers of air.

They were real—of that Jack was certain. He knew he wasn't having hallucinations or merely dreaming up images. His eyes and his mind were entirely intact.

"Here you are, hon," said his mother's voice behind him, and then Mrs. Kemper was sitting down next to Jack, putting a cup of hot chocolate into his hands. She looked out at her husband, pacing back and forth with the lawnmower. "About time we cut that grass, hmm? You guys can run around out there all you want."

Jack knew that by "you guys," she meant Kyle. He held his cup in his bare hands, counted the marshmallows in it, listened to the drone of the lawnmower.

"You sure you don't want to come inside with the boys? They've made some popcorn and are watching football." Mrs. Kemper turned to her son. "Jack? Did you hear me?" She had to nudge him to get him to look up from his hot chocolate.

"Oh, yes," he muttered. "I mean yes, I heard you. But I don't want to go inside. I just feel like . . ." He looked out to the field.

"Like what?" his mother urged, smiling at her son's wandering mind.

"Like something's wrong," Jack answered sharply, a look of real concern leaping onto his face. The clouds of forms he'd been watching a few moments earlier weren't rising from the grass anymore. They were gone. His father had reached a few of the trees nearest the field. Where he'd tried to build a tree house some years before. A sudden fear had jumped into Jack when his father got to those trees, and he unknowingly stood, getting up so fast that he spilled half of his hot chocolate into his mother's lap.

"Jack!" cried his mother, also standing, pained from the hot liquid and shocked at her son's action.

"Dad!" the boy shouted, paying no attention to his mother and hurrying down the three deck steps onto the grass. "Dad . . . stop!" He flung his arms wildly, trying to catch his father's attention, and he succeeded in doing so within seconds.

Mr. Kemper, about twenty-five yards away from the house, frowned in confusion at his son and turned off the lawnmower with the intention of asking him what was wrong. Before he could shout anything, though, he felt the ground moving beneath his feet, the earth trembling where he stood, and shuddering with surprise and fright, he stumbled backward, away from the lawnmower and the trees. He tripped and nearly fell to the ground but managed to get back on his feet. Ran toward the house. Turned around in time to see the lawnmower sink into the earth as the ground he'd just been standing on gave way and crumbled downward. The largest tree shook—lost a good number of the dry leaves that had, until that point, managed to stay on its branches. But it stayed above ground, its roots dangling at the edge of the hole that now gaped in the middle of the field.

It took only about fifteen seconds for the caving-in to come to an end, and by that time, Mr. Kemper was a safe distance away from the weak ground. He stood staring, dumbstruck, at the enormous hole that was now in his backyard. He didn't know what to think. Couldn't believe what had just happened. Then he recalled his son, and he realized that, had Jack not called out, he might have been with the lawnmower, down in the pit. He went at once to his son, who stood with his mother on the lawn; both of them were in silent shock, their mouths partially open and their limbs frozen.

"I . . . I—we . . ." stammered Mrs. Kemper, her right hand pressing against her chest. She no longer felt the heat of the drink Jack had spilled on her.

Jack glanced at his father, finally took his eyes off the half-mowed field. His face was empty of expression.

"How did you know?" was all Mr. Kemper asked.

And Jack could not respond, because he didn't know the answer to his father's question.

Experts were called in immediately after an emergency phone call from Mrs. Kemper. Jack, Kyle, Matt, and David were ordered to keep inside the house, even though all of them except Jack begged to be allowed out to view the scene. They piled upstairs into Jack's room, where his window gave the best view of the field, and from there, they were able to see the full extent of the damage.

The hole was nearly the size of an above-ground swimming pool, and it went deeper than they could see. The far-side wall of the pit looked craggy—more like rock than earth—and the big tree hanging on the left fringe of the cave-in was leaning in toward it. As if it was being drawn into its depths.

The boys were frantic with talk, going on about caves and the core of the world, buried treasure and various monstrosities that could be lurking below, but Jack stayed with his back against the wall opposite his open window, unable to discern if what he felt was worry or relief. He heard the other boys talking but did not listen to them. He concentrated on the crisp air that was creeping into his room through the open window. There were curious things in that air. Curious smells and textures. They came from the pit outside, Jack was sure. Like pockets of atmosphere that had been locked deep underground for ages. Only just now released. Only just now able to mingle with the air of the world above. Was it glad to be let loose, or was it reluctant to leave its home? That, Jack couldn't tell either. He was unsettled by what had happened, but he wasn't even sure why. There was some sort of omen hovering in the skies, Jack sensed, and he didn't know whether it was foretelling something positive or negative.

Kyle turned from the window and glanced at his brother. "Jack," he said after a moment of wonder. "You were right the other day about feeling something weird down there! Who knew we had a sinkhole in our yard all this time? Lucky you never fell in!"

Slowly shaking his head, Jack partially took in what his brother was saying. His mind was too centered on the strangeness around him to really pay attention to anything else. Lucky was the only word that rang in his ears. Lucky. Somehow, the sound of that word grated raggedly against his brain. It had nothing to do with luck. Luck was definitely nowhere near the Kemper house; that he felt certain of.