Most of the action takes place in and around Jane's house, which had become her property with the death of her father and her mother's conviction for murdering him.

The house was much smaller than she remembered. Its gray boards showed no sign of paint. The porch that spanned the front side of the rectangular building was rotten and sagging, and part of the roof was gone. Many of the small windowpanes were broken or missing. Still, it was better than she'd feared. The place might have burned down or rotted away in those twelve years.

The property includes a small barn with old rabbit cages, some woods, and a steady water supply: "An iron pipe had been driven into the face of the rock and tapped into an underground spring, so that even in January, water flowed from the pipe and down into the creek."

A couple...