Marie said it was soil shifting, nothing more than a natural geographic phenomenon. The yard aged like everything else. But Walter felt a simmering unease, a faint instinct telling him the ground shouldn’t behave this way, not this consistently or deliberately. Something was off, even if he couldn’t explain it.
By the eighth year, the feeling had grown with the mound itself. He would catch himself glancing at it from the kitchen window, sensing something watchful in the grass. It was ridiculous to speak aloud. It was just dirt, but the unease scratched at him steadily. Jasper still never went anywhere near it.