“Yes, but-”

”Then come on.” His voice had taken on an impatient edge and it startled her. He stood a few yards ahead, looking back at her, and she noticed that his hands were clenched into fists.

“Okay,” she said meekly. “I’m coming.”

A few yards farther, the woods suddenly opened up into a clearing. She saw an old stone foundation, all that remained of a long-gone farmhouse. Elijah glanced back at her, his face dappled by afternoon light.

“It’s right here,” he said.

“What is?”

He bent down and pulled aside two wooden boards, revealing a deep hole. “Take a look in there,” he said. “I spent three weeks digging that.”

Slowly she approached the pit and stared inside. The afternoon light was slanting low behind the trees, and the bottom of the hole was in shadow. She could make out a layer of dead leaves, which had accumulated at the bottom. A rope was curled over the side.

“Is this to trap a bear, or something?”

“It could. If I laid some branches over it, to hide the opening, I could catch a lot of things. Even a deer.” He pointed into the hole. “Look, you see it?”

She leaned in closer. Something gleamed faintly in the shadows below; chips of white that peeked out from beneath the scattering of leaves.

“What is it?”

“That’s my project.” He reached for the rope and pulled.

At the bottom of the pit, leaves rustled, boiled up. Alice stared as the rope went taut, as Elijah hauled up something from the shadows. A basket. He pulled it out of the hole and set it on the ground. Brushing aside the leaves, he revealed what had gleamed white at the pit’s bottom.

It was a small skull.

As he picked off the leaves, she saw clumps of black fur and spindly ribs. A knobby chain of spine. Leg bones as delicate as twigs.

“Isn’t that something? It doesn’t even smell anymore,” he said. “Been down there almost seven months now. Last time I checked it, there was still some meat on it. Neat how even that disappears. It started to rot real fast after it got warm, back in May.”