In abandoned cisterns and old wells, in moldy heaps of straw forgotten in the corners of deserted barns, in reedy pools deep in the woods, in fungied hollows of dead trees, in all such secret places apart from man, strange life engenders, drifts in and takes root and form. In a place called Yancey's Meadow such a thing grew and waxed and made itself a shape, listened and dozed and waited.