“Um, can you please hurry?” We turn to see that Ebb has doubled back, and he looks more miserable than ever, if that’s possible. A few ghosts float in and out of the woods behind him, barely noticing us, including an elderly lady in the moonlit yard moving back and forth as if hanging something on a clothesline.

Ebb follows my gaze out to the ocean and the sky. “Oh. Now that you have your sight, you’ll start to see everything. The world as it really is, all the terrible and wonderful things just under the surface. It’s all part of the invisible fabric—that’s what witches and ghosts and all the magical, unseen things are made of. And it’s all much more visible at night—it glows in the dark, but only to people with the sight.” I immediately think of glow sticks and glow-in-the-dark stickers, how they only show up in darkness. “Your eyes will take a while to adjust.”

“The invisible fabric I read about in the guide, it’s basically magic?” I ask, nodding to the strange and marvelous sights around us.

Ebb looks up, unimpressed, the same way I would look at an airplane or a car driving by.

“Yeah. Like me, all this has always been there. You just haven’t noticed.”

Then, as simple as that, he turns back toward the cliffs and we follow him—down the rambling dirt path that leads along the grassy clifftops toward the woods. I’ve walked this path before, but never at night. And I have no idea of how far we’re going, or where. Luckily, the moon lights our way.

After a few minutes of silence, Ebb seems to take pity on us, because he hangs back a little. “Of course, ghosts are the flimsiest of all, the least powerful, the fabric spread thin, I guess.” He clears his throat. “Witches, like you read, are made of much sturdier stuff—as are their familiars. They are part magic, part real, like the book says, though still invisible to most humans.”

As we walk, we catch sight of the occasional ghost drifting along the path or through the nearby trees. Most turn to look at us, and then, seeming to dislike being seen in return, hurry away.

“I didn’t know our woods were so haunted,” I say.

“Oh, this is nothing. Every place in the world is haunted. Living people completely miss the whole thing. Makes them feel quite alone, the things they don’t see.” And then he adds, pensively, “I was surprised too—when I died and saw it all. You get used to it.”

Ebb floats on down the path, and we follow, getting farther and farther away from home. Once or twice I see him do something puzzling—reach down to his shirt pocket, open it, and whisper to it. Is it possible for a person to be dead and also delusional?