“But when this alone proved to be no solace, Maria May’s mother took to sitting in the night garden night after night. Everyone, she thought, everyone is entitled to their own wish. No one is entitled to the control of another’s happiness.

“The farmhands got used to seeing the lone figure out on the bench, staring into the evening, and then one morning they found her still there when the sun came up. She had used her wish to be with Maria May.

“‘I’m telling you this, Franny,’ Sina said to me, ‘because I don’t want to leave things unsaid like I did with the Space Institute man. When you told me you saw a ghost, I pretended not to believe you because I didn’t want to. But that was cowardly. If Bertha saw a ghost, perhaps you did, too.’”

I was thinking I saw a ghost whether Bertha did or not but this was no time to be petty.

“‘But was it Maria May’s or her mother’s?’ I asked Sina.

“‘Well, they say ghosts are the dead who cannot rest easy, so I think the mother’s, myself. She, like I, regretted not speaking. Of course, it was only a UFO for me, nothing of great matter. Still, these things undone live on to be picked up by others.’

“‘In the ether,’ I said.

“‘Just so. Like it or not we all drink from the same pond. Franny, I’m not saying any of this has even a crumb of truth. I am just laying it out there. The possibilities.’

“‘There’s the gravestone.’

“‘Just so.’

“‘And, of course…’ I said.

“‘The ghost,’ said Sina.”

Winifred was practically fainting from the effect of this story; she had collapsed half on and off my bed as if her legs could not support her. I thought at first it was the idea of ghosts that upset her, but then she whispered, “People will live in unhappiness for the love of others, won’t they? People will do all manner of things for the love of others. Imprudent things! People will go to their deaths for the love of others.”

Wilfred just pushed his glasses up his nose, unmoved, and said, “What about the hermit, then?”

“Well, when he got here, the night garden had been so neglected it was a mess of weeds, and little pine cones had blown in and it was in danger of being ruined by a crop of small ponderosa pines that were pushing their way up. Old Tom keeps the secret of the night garden, but when he invited the hermit to weed it, he had to explain the dangers to him.”

“So did the hermit ever wish?” asked Winifred. “Even accidentally?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You’d better stay out of that garden,” said Winifred, turning on Zebediah again.

“All right,” said Zebediah. “But I’m going to go in and wish before we have to leave here. I can think of all kinds of things to wish for.”

“What would you wish for, Wilfred?” I asked with sudden curiosity. Wilfred was a hard nut to crack personality-wise.