She went through her Friday routine, rolling his body onto the little gurney, changing his sheets. She gave him a sponge bath, drying him thoroughly, rubbing moisturizer into his skin and antiseptic on his bedsores. Once his body was clean and dry, she rolled him back onto the bed. Finally, she wrung out a facecloth in warm water and handed it to him. The one thing he would still do himself was wipe his face with the damp cloth. But this time he didn’t reach for the cloth. Instead he closed his eyes and craned his face up toward her. She looked down at it with horror, the trembling translucent eyelids, the grimace of dying, darkening teeth, the cracked lips. Taking a step back, she flung the damp cloth as hard as she could into his face and walked out.

For the rest of the day she dealt with the customers. Ruth came after lunch to help her, bringing Raj. Maud could see how happy and proud she was. He was such a lovely boy. He cleared out the cabin gutters and helped her with other heavy work. They all had dinner together and she went to bed. The next day, she didn’t go to Magnus’s cabin. Nor the next. Annie came around with the baby, but she told her he was sleeping. In the afternoon of the third day, she was working through her accounts on the screened-in porch when some customers she had been expecting pulled up, a young couple. As they approached, she saw Magnus staggering unsteadily down the steps to his cabin, wearing just that absurd, diaperlike loincloth. The couple looked horrified at this ghost, with his long wispy hair, who lifted his arms out toward them. As he did this, he collapsed—or, rather, lowered himself carefully to the ground. The couple ran to him.

Maud hurried outside. “He’s fine,” she called. “He’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“He’s collapsed,” the woman said.

“Just leave him be. Come on in,” she said. “You’re both here for a week, are you?”

“But—”

“Don’t worry,” she said.

They were young and responded compliantly to her confidence. Beside that, she could tell they weren’t married. She had developed an instinct for such things.

“He’s gone a bit funny in the head,” she said, as she handed them the key to their cabin. “He does this all the time. But he’s harmless.”

When they had gone, she took her knitting out onto the porch. He still lay prostrate on the dirt path. She went in as it began to get dark, but remained at the window. Before the sun had completely set, he pulled himself to his feet. She watched him laboring up the porch stairs. The front door opened, and there he was, staring at her with disbelief and horror for a moment before lowering himself to the floor, gulping for air.