These acts he was witnessing would be seen by no one else. Night, its solitude and cover, gave a thrilling aspect to the mundane—like knowing a secret. What the secret was, he had no idea. But as he came to the end of the sidewalk at the entrance to the park, and took a step onto the gravel path, he formed a theory that people were probably most themselves after sunset. He walked along the path through the park, just east of the baseball diamond. It came to him that he didn’t want to wind up in the pine barrens in his phantom state. But a few feet on, he saw a waist-high sign that was a wooden arrow. It pointed the way to the cemetery of St. Ifritia.

That’s how he found out why he was there. He’d come to pay his respects. He was in the cemetery where the event for Helen Roan had been held. A funeral without a body. He took the path to search for the grave marker awaiting her remains. His pale blue glow lit the headstones just enough so he could read them. As he crept along, he realized he was fulfilling some inner directive to atone for missing Helen’s memorial. He also became conscious of the fact that he was walking at night in a cemetery as a kind of ghost.

He came to a gravesite near a tree bedecked with pink and white ribbons, and hung with strings tied to now-deflated balloons. The waist-high marble marker in front of the tree read IN MEMORY OF HELEN ROAN and gave her dates. At the foot of the marker was a gaping hole awaiting its cargo.

With head bowed, he stood in silence and made his peace with Helen Roan. “I wish I could have saved you,” he whispered. He expected her spirit to fly out of the tree and admonish him for being a selfish coward. He occasionally had to remind himself that it wasn’t a fantasy land he now traveled but reality. That was the strangest part. He stood there for a time, hands folded in front of him, until he got the impression someone was watching him. Turning quickly, he saw no one. Slowly and quietly, he moved away from Helen’s headstone and back toward the path that led to the park.