That old slough seemed empty--between the cornfields, where the water seeped out of the land’s sponge and dribbled toward the lake. I took walks down there sometimes, when the farmer wasn’t plowing, and after his season was done and the fields were crimped with spent furrows and dotted rough with straw and gopher hills. A few feet of old boards stuck out of the edge of the slough at a weird angle and I never paid them much attention, let alone tried to look under them. I just figured they were too dangerous and full of nails and that I’d start to bleed if I messed around there. I didn’t pay much attention either as, over a few seasons of rain and snow washing away the soil, a shingled roof started to jut out of the earth, too.