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I HADN’T NOTICED THE PLOT COMING IN, FOR IT WAS ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE CIRCULAR DRIVE. .

Curious, I strode toward it.

When I got to the gate, I realized it was a cemetery, a family burial plot. Some of its gravestones looked extremely old, round-shouldered and leaning forward as if they were tired, their names and dates no longer readable. There were new markers made of shiny rock, and I strolled over to look at them. Thomas Barnes, I read. My mother’s father. I touched his stone lightly. Avril Scarborough. I didn’t know that name. I looked at the dates, drew back, then did the math again. Sixteen, as old as me. Did she have any idea she’d die that young?

The grave gave me an eerie feeling. I didn’t want to touch her stone, and turned, suddenly compelled to get out of there. As I did, I gave a quick glance back at the house. The lowering sun flared off the paned glass, but I saw it, the movement of someone stepping back from the window, as if trying not to be seen. After a moment I realized the person had been watching from my bedroom. I walked toward the house, but the reflected light made it impossible to see in.

A vague uneasiness seeped into me. Aside from the invitation itself, Grandmother and Matt acted as if they had no interest in getting to know me. But obviously, someone was interested enough to keep a secret eye on me…

Last night I visited the house again. It looked as it did ten years ago, when I dreamed about it often. Tve never seen the house in real life, at least not that I can remember. It is tall, three stories of paned windows, all brick with a shingle roof.

No wider than the front steps, it has facing benches that I like to sit on. I guess I was never shy, not even at six; in the dream I always opened the door, walked inside, and played with the toys.

Last night the door was locked. That’s how I awoke, trying with all my strength to open it, desperate to get inside.

Something was wrong, but now I can’t say what. Was there something dangerous outside the house from which I was fleeing? Was there a person in the house who needed my help? It was as if the first part of my dream was missing. But one thing I knew for sure: Someone on the other side of the door was trying hard to keep me out.

“I’m not going,” I had told my father back in June. “She’s a mean old lady. She disowned Mom and won’t speak to you.

She has never had anything to do with Pete, Dave, or me.

Why should I have anything to do with her?”

“For your mother’s sake,” he’d said.

Several months later I was on a flight from Arizona to Maryland, still resisting my grandmother’s royal command to visit. I took out her invitation, the first message I’d received from her in my life, and reread it-two sentences, sounding as stiff as a textbook exercise.