Susan reached for the soup bowl, and handed it to him. “You listen,” she said, in a quiet, firm voice. “Just forget about what you saw today. It was nothing to worry about. Eat your soup and your crackers, and in a little while Daddy will come up and read you a story. Then you can get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning you won’t think anything about it.”

She left his bedroom door ajar and went downstairs. Neil had come in a half-hour ago, and was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a Lite beer and reading the paper. He looked up when she came in.

“How is he now?” he asked her.

She went over to the range and stirred the big black iron pot of vegetable soup. The fragrance of fresh-cooked carrots and leeks filled the kitchen. She said, “He’s a little better. But he says a man frightened him.”

Neil put his paper down. “A man? What man?”

“He doesn’t know. It wasn’t like an indecent assault or anything. The man was just standing by the school fence, and Toby said he scared him somehow. The man wanted help and Toby didn’t know how to help him.”

“Help? What kind of help?”

Susan shook her head. “I don’t know. It worries me. I hope he hasn’t picked up some sort of illness. I mean, he talks as though he’s suffering from fever.”

“Did Doc Crowder check his temperature?”

“Sure. It’s normal. He said there was nothing wrong.”

Neil rubbed his chin. For some reason, he kept remembering that moment on the White Dove, the strange whisper of “Allen.” He stood up and walked to the window. It was dark outside now, and he saw his own thin reflection staring back at him from a ghostly reflected kitchen.

Susan continued, “He kept insisting he wasn’t alive.”

“Who?”

“The man by the school fence. Toby said that he wasn’t alive.”

Neil turned around. “Did he say what he meant by that?”

She shrugged. “I guess he meant it was a ghost.”

Neil let out a long, resigned breath. “A ghost. That means it was my fault. All that talk about ghosts at breakfast.”

“Well, it could have been,” said Susan. “But don’t you think you ought to call Mrs. Novato, and find out if they’ve had any bums hanging around the school?”

Neil nodded. “Let me go talk to Toby first.”

He went up the narrow stairs onto the wood-paneled landing, and across to Toby’s room. Toby had almost finished his soup and his crackers, and there was a little more color in his cheeks than before. Neil pulled a bentwood chair across and straddled it, looking at his son with affection.

“Hi,” he said gently.

“Hi,” said Toby.

“How was the soup?” asked Neil.