“A horse. No, a motorcycle,” said Wilfred.

“I’d wish for a dozen, no, three hundred and sixty-five dresses, one for each day of the year,” said Winifred, talking over Wilfred.

“You have nowhere to keep them,” said Wilfred practically.

“Dresses, that’s a stupid wish,” said Zebediah. “You’d soon outgrow them.”

“You wish for what you want, I’ll wish for what I want,” said Winifred primly. “Anyhow, it’s only pretend. The whole thing sounds cockeyed to me. I don’t believe it for one instant. Still, if Old Tom says we can’t wish, then we can’t. It’s his property and his garden and his rules, and don’t you forget it, Zebediah.”

“Oh, rules,” scoffed Zebediah.

Then we heard the back door bang closed, and the Maddens scurried upstairs to bed before Old Tom could come upstairs and catch them in the hallway and maybe start yelling again, although I assured them that, tonight notwithstanding, he really hardly ever did.

I went back up to the cupola because once again I was wide awake. Although my mermaid story had been going great guns a while before, now it was as dead as a doornail. As I sat chewing on my pen, I saw a white blur drift through the Japanese garden. This blur was different in mass and shape from the one I’d seen in the dining room. Of course, I thought. Maria May haunts the gardens; Maria May’s mother haunts the house. I was so overwhelmed with all that was happening that this seemed to make a kind of sense. I waved vaguely to her and went back to work, this time trying to write about ghosts, but that didn’t go well either. Finally I just went to bed.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast, which Old Tom made because Gladys was taking her usual union-mandated Sunday off, there was a polite pall. I hadn’t known such a thing existed until then. It was different from the pregnant pause even though both consisted of silence. Experiencing for the first time these pauses and palls was a definite side benefit of having different people in the house. In this pall you could clearly detect that Old Tom was going to pretend nothing had happened. Sina had managed to sleep through the whole debacle, and we children were not going to apprise her. Everyone was a bit more subdued, but by the time evening came and we’d had another wonderful roast chicken dinner with no burnt bits, we were all in a better mood and had a rousing hour around the piano. Gladys joined in without once bebopping, which seemed as miraculous as anything that had happened so far.

* * *

Monday, Old Tom and Wilfred went out to weed the kitchen garden, Winifred and I went out to do the eggs, Zebediah disappeared into the woods, and Sina came into the chicken coop and said, “Girls, I’m going to Brookman’s, so could you load the truck for me?”

“Again?” I all but shouted.