“My mother always said to us, ‘Girls,’ she said to me and my sister, ‘always wear clean underwear. In case you’re ever in an accident.’ And it haunted me, you know, the idea of being in an accident and taken to hospital and them finding me in some cheapo old-lady underpants, so I decided then and there to get the best, most expensive underwear I could find. That’ll show them, I thought. And the best, most expensive underwear came covered in gold sequins. And glad I am that I did, as I had to strip down to it twice in the last few years to rescue that annoying hermit.”

I thought about this.

“So you did rescue him twice?” I said.

“That’s right,” she said. “I was there when his first plane went down, too. I thought it was an accident the first time, but the second time I could see he was making a habit of it.”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“You know,” I said. “I think he may have thought you were a mermaid.”

“He’s not too bright,” she said. “I think he may be a bit touched in the head.”

“Well, some folks are,” I said.

Then I walked all the way to the hermit’s because I was determined before this whole thing was over to have all my questions answered.

He was in his garden pulling weeds.

“Hello,” I said, but he just looked bashfully down and kept weeding. “I won’t bother you. I won’t engage you in a long conversation, and I won’t stay long. I just have one question.”

He looked up then.

“You wished yourself on the Argot with Zebediah. That means that all that time in the night garden you never once made a wish. Even accidentally. How did you manage that?”

“Nothing I wanted,” said the hermit, looking at me for once.

Then he went back to weeding and, as promised, I turned around and went home.

The End of This Particular Story

THE END OF THIS PARTICULAR STORY

When I got in, Sina asked me where I’d been and I told her. She and Old Tom and I sat around the kitchen table for dinner. It wasn’t burnt, and the old table felt like coming home after our more elaborate dining room meals.

Sina turned a face full of sympathy to me. “Are you sad to have Winifred gone?” she asked.

“Well, sort of,” I said. “But you know—houseguests.”

We all ate companionably but silently for a while after that, and the sun was setting over the ocean when Old Tom went to bring the horses in. But before he left he said, “Hey, why didn’t you children want the soldier to use the outhouse?”

“That was Zebediah’s idea for the parachutes. He put them down the hole.”