Something cold fell on his cheek and he started awake. A woman was leaning over him, and her wet, tangled hair was dripping on him. The night lamp was still burning and he could see she had sea snails for eyes. Little crabs hung from her hair. It was the woman Alec had seen! He wanted to pull the covers over his head, but he couldn’t move, he was so scared. She raised her hand and pointed toward the window then whispered words he didn’t understand. She looked down at him with her seashell eyes, then pointed to the window again, then disappeared. Mika raised a trembling hand to his cheek and felt the wetness there. This wasn’t a dream.

He waited for a while to make sure she wasn’t coming back, then stole to the window and looked out. From here he could see the round pond and the road. Was there something she wanted him to see?

After some internal debate, curiosity got the best of him. He pulled on his breeches and slipped out of the bedroom. It was dark in the corridor except for a few night lamps. He looked up and down it for some sign of the ghost, but she was nowhere to be seen. He went downstairs and out to the pond.

The moon and stars were bright as gems out here in the country. Little peeper frogs, deep-voiced bullfrogs, and sawing crickets filled the air with their songs. Every once in a while he heard the plop of a frog jumping into the water, or the flop of a fish, or the flitter of a bat overhead. Out in the darkness a fox made the sound like a woman screaming that had scared him at the camp until Micum explained what it was. Now he just pictured the fox, wishing it was close enough for him to see it and what it looked like when it made that strange sound.

Mika had never been outside all alone in the country before. He sat by the water’s edge, hugging his knees and feeling the grass under his bare toes.

A bullfrog croaked right in front of him and he started, surprised. The frog splashed away, sprinkling his toes with water. When he looked up again, there was someone standing in the road, clearly visible to Mika. It was the mute ghost boy he’d met by the river. Happy and relieved to see him, Mika waved. The boy waved back. No, he was waving for Mika to come over. Mika had no reason to be afraid of him, so he walked down to the road to see what he wanted.