Sir Stuart hauled me back again and said, in a faintly annoyed tone, “Mortimer.”

Mort didn’t say anything, but when I was once again sitting down, I didn’t fall right through the bottom of the car. He smirked at me in the rearview mirror.

“You don’t fall through the bottom of the car because on some deep, instinctual level, you regard it as a given of existence here,” Sir Stuart said. “You are entirely convinced that illusions such as gravity and solidity are real.”

“There is no spoon,” I said.

Sir Stuart looked at me blankly.

I sighed. “If I believe in an illusory reality so much, then how come I can walk through walls?” I asked.

“Because you are convinced, on the same level, that ghosts can do precisely that.”

I felt my eyebrows trying to meet as I frowned. “So… you’re saying I don’t fall through the ground because I don’t think I should?”

“Say instead that it is because you assume that you will not,” he replied. “Which is why, once you actively considered the notion, you did fall through the floor.”

I shook my head slowly. “How do I keep from doing it again?”

“Mortimer is preventing it, for the time being. My advice to you is not to think about too much,” Sir Stuart said, his tone serious. “Just go about your business.”

“You can’t not think about something,” I said. “Quick, don’t think about a purple elephant. I dare you.”

Sir Stuart let out a broad laugh, but stopped and clutched at his wounded flank. I could tell it hurt him, but he still wore the smile the laugh had brought on. “It usually takes them longer to recognize that fact,” he said. “You’re right, of course. And there will be times when you feel like you have no control whatsoever over such things.”

“Why?” I asked, feeling somewhat exasperated.

Sir Stuart wasn’t rattled by my tone. “It’s something every new shade goes through. It will pass.”

“Huh,” I said. I thought about it for a minute and said, “Well. It beats the hell out of acne.”

From the front seat, Mort let out an explosive little snicker.

Stars and stones, I hate being the new guy.

Chapter Eight

Murphy inherited her house from her grandmother, and it was at least a century old. Grandma Murphy had been a notorious rose gardener. Murphy didn’t have a green thumb herself. She hired a service to take care of her grandmother’s legacy. The flower garden in front would have fit a house four times as large, but it was a withered, dreary little place when covered in heavy snow. Bare, thorny branches, trimmed the previous fall, stood up from the blanket of white in skeletal silence.

The house itself was a compact colonial, single story, square, solid, and neat-looking. It had been built in a day when a ten-by-ten bedroom was considered a master suite, and when beds were routinely used by several children at a time. Murphy had upgraded it with vinyl siding, new windows, and a layer of modern insulation when she moved in, and the little house looked as if it could last another hundred years, no problem.