Will Edwards lay on his belly in a tall stand of summer-dry grass, peering down through field glasses at the old farmhouse that squatted in the bowl-shaped valley. His bicycle lay on the ground beside him, the click of a still-spinning rear wheel drowned beneath the sussuration of cicadas. The sun beat down on his back. The day had been Indian-summer hot, but the sky was already deepening purple and night was falling quickly and soon the cold of late November would gather like pooled ink in the valley's gulleys and hollows. Soon it would be time to fire up the generator, sending electricity to the farmhouse and each of its many outbuildings. The lights would glow warm and orange, a cozy contrast to the autumn-bare trees that flanked the hillsides and the dark serpentine stream that wended its way along the valley floor. It would be the only warm place for miles beneath a cold, almost-full moon.Tonight, though, the lights wouldn't go on, because Will was the only one in the whole family who could coax the generator into operation. And he'd sworn to himself that he'd be damned if he ever lifted a finger to help any of them ever again.