“I went to the window and looked down over the east lawn. I saw him standing in the glow of the floodlights on the side of the house. He was dressed in a long flannel nightshirt, as was my custom by this hour, but I, of course, was still in my pants and shirt.

“ ‘Quinn, you go to Confession,’ said Big Ramona. ‘You tell the priest what you’ve done with this ghost! Don’t you realize he’s from the Devil? Now I know he was the one who broke all that glass.’

“I didn’t bother to argue with her. I went downstairs and out to him by the cemetery where he was wandering barefoot like a lost soul.

“ ‘You go to Europe with Mona, you leave me,’ he said. His lips were scarcely moving, but I could see his hair mussed in the breeze.

“ ‘I won’t leave you. Come with me,’ I said. ‘Why can’t you? I don’t understand.’

“He didn’t answer.

“ ‘I’m worried about you,’ I said aloud and under my breath, ‘worried about your feelings. You’ve become closer to me ever since you attacked the mysterious stranger. You’ve learned more things.’ Again there came no response whatsoever.

“I tried to hide my fear, reminding myself that no matter how sophisticated he had become and how at odds with me he might be, he couldn’t read my mind.

“As for me, I was restless and only partially focused on him. I was too in love with Mona to be focused on him. It was so wicked! After all these years. Did he know it?

“ ‘Come on, let’s walk out of this light,’ I said to him.

“I walked on back past the shed and onto the west side of the property, where the wicker patio lay in its own bath of electric light. He followed me, and when I glanced over to him, when I slipped my left arm around him, I saw that he had become my duplicate in clothing again. It seemed such a simpleton thing.

“ ‘Will you try to take me with you?’ he asked. ‘When you go to Europe? Will you hold my hand?’

“ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it. You’ll be right next to me on the plane. I’ll hold tight to your hand all the way.’ With all my soul I meant it but I was speaking to a faded love when it was my blessed Ophelia to whom my soul belonged. I was her Hamlet and her Laertes and perhaps her Polonius as well. But I must not forget my Goblin, and it was not fear of him but loyalty that goaded me now.