The house was silent the way a grave is silent not empty, but holding its breath. It stood at the edge of the old timber road, three stories altitudinous, its makeup long hulled into strips that coiled like dried skin. Every window had a faint fog to it, like eyes that had forgotten how to close. The locals called it the Waker's House, though no one could flash back why. Lena did n't believe in similar effects. She was thirty- two, practical, too habituated to megacity hum to notice old ghosts. She had come then for quiet, to finish her discussion on sound and silence in pastoral surroundings