I picked my way through the undergrowth, thinking of the night before. I wondered if Judith had packed all her things and left, as she’d said she would. I wondered if Bill felt lonely now that she was gone. I assumed nothing and no one had popped up in my yard the night before, since I’d slept through the hours of the dark and into the morning.

Then all I had left to wonder about was when Sandra Pelt would try to kill me again. Just as I began to suspect that being alone in the woods wasn’t a good idea, I stepped into a tiny clearing about a quarter of a mile, or less, slightly southeast of my back door.

I was pretty sure this was the thin place, this little clearing. For one thing, there was no reason for it to be clear that I could see. There were wild grasses growing thickly, but there were no bushes, nothing above calf-high. No vines stretched across the area, no branches drooped over it.

Before I stepped out of the trees, I gave the ground a very careful examination. The last thing I needed was to be caught in some kind of fairy booby trap. But I couldn’t see anything extraordinary, except perhaps . . . a slight wavering in the air. Right in the middle of the clearing. The odd spot—if I was even seeing it right—hovered at the height of my knees. It was the shape of a small and irregular circle, perhaps fifteen inches in diameter. And in just that spot, the air seemed to distort, a little like a heat illusion. Was it actually hot? I wondered.

I knelt in the weeds about an arm’s length from the wobbly air. I plucked a long blade of grass and very nervously poked it into the distorted area.

I let go of it, and it vanished. I snatched my fingers back and yipped with surprise.

I’d established something. I wasn’t sure what. If I’d doubted Claude’s word, here was verification he’d been telling me the truth. Very carefully, I moved a little closer to the wavery patch. “Hi, Niall,” I said. “If you’re listening, if you’re there. I miss you.”

Of course, there came no answer.

“I have a lot of troubles, but I expect you do, too,” I said, not wanting to sound whiny. “I don’t know how Faery fits into this world. Are you all walking around us, but invisible? Or do you have a whole’nother world, like Atlantis?” This was a pretty weak and one-sided conversation. “Well, I better go back to the house before it gets dark. If you need me, come see me. I do miss you,” I said again.

Nothing continued to happen.