“ ‘You always know what to say, Tarquin,’ said Goblin. ‘But how can I go with you to Europe? Tarquin, I am afraid.’

“I felt a sudden stab of sympathetic fear.

“ ‘You’re very happy, Tarquin,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget me. Don’t forget that I love you. Don’t forget that I’m here.’

“ ‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ I pledged. ‘I’ll hold your hand; remember, I told you. All the way to Europe, I’ll hold your hand. That’s how we’ll do it. You’ll sit next to me on the plane.’

“I doubled back into the house to make sure Aunt Queen understood this need for the extra first-class ticket for Goblin, to which she replied that she wouldn’t dream of putting such an important member of our party in the coach section, and what sort of an aunt did I think she was?

“Once again I was headed for the trailer, but Goblin, riding beside me, was still insecure.

“ ‘Europe is far away, Tarquin,’ he said.

“ ‘That doesn’t matter, old buddy,’ I said.

“ ‘Stirling said there were two kinds of hauntings,’ said Goblin. ‘Hauntings of a person and hauntings of a place.’

“ ‘God, you hear everything, don’t you?’ I asked him.

“ ‘Not everything, Tarquin,’ he answered. ‘I can’t be in two places, and sometimes I wish that I could. I’d go to the Retreat House of the Talamasca, Tarquin, and learn from them about spirits, Tarquin, so that I’d be the finest spirit ever made. I know I need you to see me, Tarquin. I know that I love you. I know those things are true even when I hate you, Tarquin.’

“ ‘That’s never, Goblin,’ I said sharply. ‘You have your moods, that’s all. But be quiet for now. I have to do this all-important job.’

“I had reached the trailer and found that all was topsy-turvy, as Grady Breen’s ‘ladies’ were moving ‘everything’ out to the new house in the Autumn Leaves development, on the outskirts of Ruby River City. How splendid that things were happening so fast! I had decreed it but not believed it. And who should come up to me but my nine-year-old self, with his black curly hair and in his navy blue Catholic school blazer?

“ ‘Do you want to go to Europe tomorrow night?’ I asked. ‘I’m not kidding you!’

“He was speechless. And then in a white-faced stammer he shook his head and said, ‘I can’t leave Brittany.’

“ ‘I’ll make it up to her, I swear. And I’ll tell her that myself. Okay? I can’t take her from Terry Sue right now. You know that.’