“The final stretch of the drive ended at a small cottage nestled in a grove of ancient live oaks. The weathered structure , with chipping paint and shutters that had begun to blacken at the edges, was fronted by a small stone porch framed by white columns. Over the years, one of the columns had become enshrouded in vines, which climbed toward the roof. A metal chair sat near the edge, and at one corner of the porch, adding color to the world of green, was a small pot of blossoming geraniums. The Best of Me”

“The final stretch of drive ended at a small cottage nestled in a grove of ancient live oaks. The weathered structure, with chipping paint and shutters that had begun to blacken at the edges, was fronted by a small stone porch framed by white columns. Over the years, one of the columns had become enshrouded in vines, which climbed toward the roof. A metal chair sat at the edge, and at one corner of the porch, adding color to the world of green, was a small pot of blooming geraniums. But their eyes were drawn inevitably to the wildflowers. Thousands of them, a meadow of fireworks stretching nearly to the steps of the cottage, a sea of red and orange and purple and blue and yellow nearly waist deep, rippling in the gentle breeze. Hundreds of butterflies flitted about the meadow, tides of moving color undulating in the sun.”

“Tendrils of mist slithered over the forest floor, around the base of trees. Xander noticed that some of it had climbed the porch pillars and drifted, almost invisibly, over the shingles of the porch roof. It reminded him of an old TV series Dean's dad had bought on DVD: Dark Shadows. It was about a creepy old house and a vampire who lived there. Barnabas, Xander remembered.”

“The magnificent houses, the three old-money brick houses, each with a small turret and a wraparound porch, had been built uptown near the churches when the town was younger and smaller, before the Great War. The wraparound porches were there to hold rainy-day children and morning tea carts and quiet late-evening converstion, cosy, discreet conversation which could not easily take place in front rooms or kitchens or bedrooms, certainly not on the street.”

“then, as though it had been waiting on a near by roof for their arrival, the moon came slanting suddenly through the vines and turned the girl's face the color of white roses.”

“A freshly red-painted train caboose had, for decades now, made its home on a green, little patch of the world outside of the one-room post office. Every small town that I had ever been to had had a caboose.”