But that smell, she told herself. Could she really have imagined that smell? And the sound of the creature’s voice. Ground glass on glass. The sound of pain.

It was real and she knew it.

She pulled on her jeans and got the hell out of the house, walked down the hill to the trailer.

“Nate? You here?”

Not in the kitchen. No coffee had been made. No granola left out.

And he wasn’t in the bed.

The truck was parked in the driveway, windshield covered in dew; the keys hung on the little brass hook next to the front door. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called him. It went straight to voice mail.

She clenched her jaw, felt the air around her grow thin, the walls moving in a little closer.

No need to panic, Helen told herself. He must have gone for a walk. Early-morning bird-watching maybe. That’s a Nate-like thing to do.

“Nate is fine,” she said to the empty trailer.

Say the words. Make them real.

She made coffee, ate some cereal, checked her email, telling herself everything was fine. Everything was normal. An email from her friend Jenny greeted her:

Glad to hear you’re making progress with the house. Love the pic of Nate’s mountain man beard! And the story of your “ghost” visitor. Olive sounds like quite the kid. Still though…maybe I’m reading between the lines, or maybe it’s just my best friend super-psychic powers, but are you doing okay up there? Really?

Helen closed her laptop, looked over at the pile of library books on the table. She kept renewing them. She picked up Communicating with the Spirit World and opened to the first page:

Do you ever feel that you are not alone?

Do you sometimes look over your shoulder, sure there was just a figure standing there?

Helen slammed the book closed, hands trembling, and left the trailer and stood in the yard calling for Nate. Nothing. Only the morning chatter of birds.

She walked down the path to the bog, sure she’d find him there sketching early-morning birds. But there was nothing. No one.

She looked out into the center, where the deep part of the water was, and imagined George Decrow pulling his wife out, dragging her to the edge, her body cold and lifeless as he started CPR. She imagined it was her doing the CPR, Nate beneath her, lips blue.

Helen shook the image away, trudged back up the path to the trailer, poured herself another cup of coffee.

She grabbed the little notebook in her purse, found the number the realtor had given her for George Decrow down in Florida. She dialed it and waited.

“Hello?” A crackling old-man voice, a little out of breath.

“Yes, good morning. Mr. Decrow?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Helen Wetherell. My husband, Nate, and I bought your place in Vermont out by the bog.”