The words come out from under her parasol, which she holds low enough to conceal her face from view. Not from my view, however. We are crossing an enclosed area, a walled space around a monument tower which is now open to curiosity seekers. Coming here was her idea.

“No,” I say.

“How do you know you’ve never seen one?”

“I suppose I’d know that!”

“Why do you suppose? I think they are there to be seen all the time. I roll through the streets here, and the people flash by my carriage. How can I know that every one I see is solid flesh and blood?”

“Wouldn’t there be something otherworldly about them? I thought ghosts were always obviously ghosts.”

“Sometimes I lie awake and hear noises in the house, and despite myself I’m frightened. Then I hear some familiar sound—a clock strikes, or a train whistles somewhere—and my fear abates. But why should those sounds comfort me, and others frighten me? Why couldn’t a ghost make the sound of a train?”

The wind rises along her length where she parts its current, and there stream from her head two or three calligraphic locks. Her hair is a deep black with grey spun in almost imperceptibly.

She squeezes the money into my palm, and I pay our way into the tower. We ascend slowly, past suits of armor and tapestries woven specially to exploit the curvature of the tower wall. There is only one floor, a bare round room at the summit with a stone bench to the right of the entrance. An archway leads out onto a windswept promenade where we take in the view together.

I feel her distraction.

I place my palm lightly on the center of her back, expecting her to step forward toward the battlement, and moving forward a little myself. She doesn’t move forward, but allows me to come up near to her, my hand sliding a little forward toward her right shoulder. I am within her warmth now, and the climate of her breath, her hair, and she seems to bend slightly into me, so now she is leaning with her shoulder and part of her bosom on my chest. I feel her hand gently alight on one of my shoulder blades. I drop my gaze to her face, but meet only the sight of her lowered eyelids; her features taper away from me, her lips are parted. She is strangely well-preserved, her face is unlined. A ghost lifts my left hand from my side, and I watch it settle uncertainly at her waist. She turns a little more in my direction, still not looking at me. Sparkling fingers touch my left hand, and she guides it smoothly up her body; I feel the sweep of her ribs flow beneath my palm, and flex out with her breathing. She tosses back her head, I am looking down into her shadowed mouth, and the lips I kiss are plated with cold over warm. The tip of her nose is cold, and draws a line like a stylus on my cheek.