The House Opens Its Mouth

The first evening of the final summer

Nell, Tom, Mara, Suzie, and Art reunited at Bellwether House as it faced demolition, finding their old intimacy replaced by careful hostility. Lydia Whitcomb revealed a tape recorded after the 1957 drowning, and its first audible words suggested that the dead boy had not been alone and that Nell had once controlled the story.