The steps groan as my wife and I go up to her bedroom from when she was a young girl. The upstairs is heated now at least, but still gives off the vibe of a 100-year old farmhouse — uneven floors, leaning walls, light so dim it reveals little but an active imagination.

There’s one window in the bedroom, with Venetian blinds. It looks out on an old cemetery adjacent to the farmstead.

My wife says the glass used to be thick with ice on the inside in winter, but her mother piled on blankets to keep her warm. The room was sweltering in the summer so she slept with the window open. She’d cover her head when the occasional bat flew in. It was usually gone in the morning. If not, her father would chase it out with a broom.

The bed is creaky, and with my wife’s parents sleeping below us, we’re conscious of every movement. My wife says we need to be awake by dawn because we’ll see something amazing at sunrise. I figure maybe a herd of deer, a flock of wild turkeys…some gift from nature. Or maybe the red barn will glow like a light bulb when the sun hits it.

…When my wife nudges me, it takes a few seconds to piece together where I am. There’s a shimmer leaking through the blinds. My wife opens them, and we stand at the window. Dawn in the country is serene, but I don’t see anything “amazing.”

My wife tells me to be patient. After a few minutes, she points to the cemetery. Dark shapes form over some of the graves. “Look close,” she says. “They move.”

I don’t notice at first, but then, sure enough, they seem to undulate.

“Scared me to death when I was a kid.”

Gives me the willies now.

“Pancakes, sleepy heads.” I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of my mother-in-law’s voice.

We clump down the stairs. My father-in-law’s got a head start on the flapjacks. As we take our places, my wife exchanges smiles with her mother. “He saw them,” my wife says.

I nod. “I don’t believe in stuff like that, but… Do they come every day?”

My wife looks at her father. He shoves a golden-brown drizzled morsel into his mouth, takes a swig of orange juice, pats his lips with a napkin and deadpans: “Back at sundown if it’s not cloudy.”

My wife and her parents all laugh. After a moment, I do, too.