“She stopped. She was all right for the moment and she wiped her eyes with a paper tissue. She asked me to describe the stranger again, and I did, and she asked if he could have been some sort of ghost or spirit.

“It was the most surprising question. I had never thought of that.

“ ‘There are all kinds of ghosts, Tarquin,’ she said. ‘And they differ in the illusions they can create.’

“ ‘No, he wasn’t a ghost,’ I said. ‘He was too outraged by the flying glass to be a ghost. And he couldn’t see Goblin.’

“Goblin was still with us, trailing in a desultory fashion and unresponsive when I waved.

“Now, it was the time of day when I usually felt the panic most keenly, but I didn’t feel it because I had to be strong for her, and frankly she just created some sustained excitement in me which had banished the panic and all my bad and sad thoughts.

“I told her about the phantoms I saw, here among the tombs. And how they didn’t speak, and they seemed a coagulated mass, and we talked about the nature of ghosts in general.

“She said Stirling Oliver of the Talamasca was a kindhearted and profoundly honorable man, British to the core, like all the best of the Talamasca, and full of wonderful ideas about ghosts and spirits.

“ ‘Now, I don’t know if there is such a thing as a true spirit,’ she said as we were stepping respectfully among the gravestones and around the long-raised tombs. ‘I tend to think that all spirits are the ghosts of something, even if they lived so long ago in the flesh they don’t remember it.’

“ ‘Goblin’s a pure spirit,’ I said. ‘He’s not the ghost of anyone.’ I looked back to see Goblin some distance away, with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, just watching us. I was afraid to say too much about him, about the speed with which he was learning, about his more dangerous aspects.

“But I turned and I waved at him, just a friendly wave, and I told him telepathically that I loved him. He didn’t acknowledge me but his face wasn’t mean, and all of a sudden I realized that he was again wearing my lucky Versace tie. Why was he doing that? Why was he all dressed up and wearing that tie? Maybe it meant nothing.

“I think Mona saw this—my noticing him. Well, I’m sure she did. But she went on. ‘You never know with a spirit,’ she said. ‘It could be the ghost of something that wasn’t human.’

“ ‘How on earth is that possible, Mona?’ I asked. ‘You mean it would be the ghost of an animal?’