“I know you’re a ghost, but I don’t mind,” Mika told him. He wasn’t sure if the boy ghost understood him, though. He tried to take Mika’s hand, but his fingers went through Mika’s like a faint breeze. In the other plane they’d played and wrestled, but here he really was a ghost. Mika still wasn’t scared, though, just a little disappointed. It would make it harder to play.

“Come see the pond and the frogs,” he said, but the boy shook his head and pointed up the road, toward Menosi.

“I can’t go with you tonight,” Mika explained. “Master Thero wants me to stay here, and besides it’s too far.”

The boy looked impatient, and pointed again.

“Who are you talking to, Mika?”

Startled again, Mika turned to find Vhadä at the edge of the pond in his nightshirt. When Mika turned to introduce the mute boy, he was gone.

He walked back to join his alive friend. “You didn’t see the ghost?”

“She’s never out here,” Vhadä replied.

“No, not the ghost lady in the house. My friend I met—” It occurred to Mika that the planes and ghosts at Menosi were really a secret. So once again, he had to lie. “I saw a ghost boy by the road just now but he’s disappeared.”

“You were talking like you knew him.”

“Well, yes. I met him when we were at the camp. I found him by the river.”

“And you can talk to him? Does he answer you?”

“He can’t talk.”

“But he came all the way down here to find you? I guess you must be friends.” Vhadä sounded a little jealous.

“Do you ever see the drowned lady ghost?” Mika asked, more anxious to change the subject than curious.

“Sometimes. I saw her one night in the kitchen after everyone had gone to bed. She’s scary looking but she didn’t hurt me. Is your friend scary?”

“No, he’s nice. But he’s gone now.”

“Oh,” said Vhadä, clearly disappointed. “Hey, since we’re out here do you want to see a big owl?”

“Yes!”

They walked to an oak tree in a field behind the house and saw two white owls as big as Seregil’s cat sitting on a branch, with huge eyes like shiny gold coins. Vhadä taught Mika how to hoot so that they would answer, and Mika taught Vhadä the polite, reverent way to speak to an owl, hand on heart. Vhadä liked that, and Mika was surprised to learn that the boy knew almost nothing about Illior, even that the owl was Illior’s bird.

They went back to bed after that and Mika tried to go to sleep, but it was a long time coming.