Irene says, “Meggie, one of the things that’s been most important about Who’s There? right from the beginning is that we’ve all had something happen to us that we can’t explain away. We’re all believers. I’ve been meaning to ask, does Will here have a ghost story?”

“I don’t—” the demon lover says. Then pauses. Looks at Meggie.

“I do,” he says. “But surely Meggie’s already told it.”

“I have,” Meggie says. “But I’ve never heard you tell it.”

Oh, there are stories the demon lover could tell.

He says, “I’m here to please.”

“Fantastic,” Irene says. “As you know, every episode we make time for a ghost story or two. Tonight we even have a campfire.” She hesitates. “And of course as our viewers also know, we’re still waiting for Juliet Adeyemi to turn up. She left just before lunch to run errands. We’re not worried yet, but we’ll all be a lot happier when she’s with us again.”

Meggie says, “Juliet, if you’ve met a nice boy and gone off to ride the teacups at Disney World, so help me, I’m going to ask for all the details. Now. Shall we, Irene?”

All around them, people have been clearing away plates of half-eaten barbecue, assembling in a half circle around the campfire. Any minute now they’ll be singing “Kumbaya.” They sit on their little towels. Irene and Meggie take their place in front of the fire. They clasp hands.

The demon lover moves a little farther away, into darkness. He is not interested in séances or ghosts. Here is the line of the shore. Sharp things underfoot. Someone joins him. Ray. Of course.

It is worse, somehow, to be naked in the dark. The world is so big and he is not. Ray is young and he is not. He is pretty sure that the videographer Pilar will sleep with him; Meggie will not.

“I know you,” the demon lover says to Ray. “I’ve met you before. Well, not you, the previous you. Yous. You never last. We never last. She moves on. You disappear.”

Ray says nothing. Looks out at the lake.

“I was you,” the demon lover says.

Ray says, “And now? Who are you?”

“You charge by the hour?” the demon lover says. “Why follow me around? I don’t seem to have my wallet on me.”

“Meggie’s busy,” Ray says. “And I’m curious about you. What you think you’re doing here.”

“I came for Meggie,” the demon lover says. “We’re friends. An old friend can come to see an old friend. Some other time I’ll see her again and you won’t be around. I’ll always be around. But you, you’re just some guy who got lucky because you look like me.”

Ray says, “I love her.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” the demon lover says. He goes back to the fire and the naked people waiting for other naked people. Thinks about the story he is meant to tell.