You do not give the marsh your feet. You give it your ears.

The porch is a dry island. The lantern makes a circle that ends at the steps. Beyond that, Hollow Marsh is a moving dark.

Knock. Knock-knock.

The shutter by the kitchen does it when the wind hits, a pattern so regular you could tap along. Then the chimney joins in: a low moan, almost a vowel, as if the house were trying to say o and got stuck.

The scream comes a third time. It is not in the house. It is in the alders, where the branches are thin fingers. It does not say words. Your brain tries to put words in anyway. That is a thing brains do, Aunt Mara told you: they hate a blank and will paint one if you let them.

A pale round face seems to hang in the nearest tree.

You raise the lantern.

It is not a face. It is a shape that wanted to be a face. Leaves. A cavity of darker bark. Then something white and sudden opens in that cavity—an owl’s disk of a head—and the scream, when it comes again, is slightly to the left of the owl, in the field.

Two sounds, then. House. Trees. Night trying to be a choir.

You could go inside and catch the knocks in the act, the way you catch a dripping faucet: by looking.

You could take the lantern to the tree line, stay on the grass, and see what has a round face and what has a red tail.