“Did you find it?” I whispered.

“No, dagnabbit,” she whispered back. “Maybe you can distract Zebediah later and I can sneak up again. I can see it isn’t in his pants pocket, which was where it was when he came home, so I am sure it is no longer on him but must be hidden somewhere in his room. I checked all his drawers and bedding, but he’s a master hider. I need more time.”

Sina and I went into the kitchen to help Gladys finish up while the others came in to watch and drip on the kitchen floor. I began to elaborate on what I had seen. I was pleased to note that when Sina got the long version, she began to show a little concern. It seemed to be finally sinking in that I hadn’t made up the ghost simply to top her UFO. But Gladys just shrugged.

“Oh yeah, ghosts,” she said, as if ghosts were a dime a dozen where she came from. “I heard you yell ‘Ghost,’ but it must have cheesed it by the time I got there. Well, there’s only one way to get rid of ghosts, and that’s to smudge.”

“I’ve heard it said cinnamon is effective,” said Sina vaguely. Sina had all kinds of bits and pieces of information crashing around her brain from her long and varied life on earth. Apparently now that she’d decided there was a ghost, she was prepared to retrieve something useful from her store.

“Well,” said Gladys, “cinnamon is all right, but if you ask me there’s nothing like a good smudging. If you get me some sage and rosemary from the garden, I’ll show you how. Then that ghost won’t bother you anymore.”

“It’s pouring rain,” said Sina. “We’ll have nothing but puddles all over the floor if people keep going out.”

“Do you want puddles or ghosts?” asked Gladys.

Sina turned on her heel at this and was going out the front door to get sage and rosemary when Old Tom came in, shaking himself like a big wet dog.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To get rosemary and sage. To burn. Smudging. It drives away the ghosts.”

“Starved for entertainment,” said Old Tom.

“You can help if you like,” said Sina.

“I believe I will give this one a pass,” said Old Tom and went upstairs to read.

Once we had the herbs, Gladys dried them because they were soaking wet from the rain, tied them tightly, and then lit them. All of us but Old Tom walked solemnly about the dining room in parade formation behind Gladys, who was either speaking a lot of drivel she was making up on the spot (which is what I primarily believed) or incanting just the right ghost-exterminating words. It smelled nice anyway, the smoke, sort of like Thanksgiving.

“Maybe the ghost has moved to another room,” said Zebediah. “Maybe we should smudge all the rooms.”

“There’s no such thing,” said Wilfred. “I’m going up to read.”