After we went to his parents’ Thanksgiving (truffle oil and roasted garlic mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, life-well-spent turkey, chocolate bourban pecan pie, chestnut stuffing) we went to my friend Jourdan’s potluck Friendsgiving (three different kinds of cranberry sauce/relish alone), and around 9pm we reluctantly stood to leave her warm, sweet-spiced kitchen for some far away party. The door swung heavy behind us.

I stared petulantly at the windshield wipers as he started the car. “What if . . . we just went back to your place and fell asleep?” I proposed. I often propose this, actually, especially as it gets dark earlier: it’s one reason it either sucks or rules to date me. I am sleepy as hell.

“Yeaaaah,” he stalled. “We could do that. But . . . I think we should go. It’s probably going to be pretty amazing. And I brought my digital recorder for the bonfire.”

I sighed. “Okay. But, I might nap on the way up.”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing in to the wilderness.We were on dirt roads and had gotten turned around a few times before we suddenly saw a house, glowing through the trees like an elven palace. Porches were stacked in utilitarian squares, illuminated with bare light bulbs. Everything flickered through rustling leaves.

“That’s the house Damon built. Well, is building. That’s where we’re going.”

“Oh.”

The car rumbled around one final bend in the road, and he pulled off to the side, the wheels hovering over a ditch, maybe, or a half-frozen muddy pond, or a half-buried body. I never know what to expect from rural Massachusetts. “You ready for this?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.

The moon was full, glazing surrounding pine trees in a hollow light. In the distance, we could hear drum-playing, screeches of laughter, the pop pop of burning wood. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a nightmare I’d once had. (There are shadows chasing us, don’t look back; never, ever, leave the car!)

“Let’s do it.”

I pulled on my hat, filled my chest with air.

He said “oh, just so you know, everyone here will call me by another name.”

“Hmm?”

“There’s still goat left, if you want some,” a dude leaning against the garage door said. Raw light flooded out from the room behind him, illuminating the outline of stubble on his cheeks and casting the rest of his face in shadow; he kicked the rocks and dead leaves at his feet, exhaling smoke. I am immediately attracted to people like this, probably because I grew up in the ’90s.

“We missed the goat roast? That’s a shame.”

“Yeah,” he grinned at us, teeth shimmering. “But, the pianos are still in the field, waiting. Hey, have you guys gotten the tour yet?”

And my hand was taken. “Yeah, I’ve been here before — I can show her.”