The chair was piled high with her brother's rumpled clothes. With a sigh she lifted one soft shirt and creased it neatly, set it on the edge of the bed. She balled together a pair of socks. She stacked boxers and tees and finally shook out a spare pair of jeans. As she began to fold them with military precision, something fell from the pocket. Shelby leaned down to pick up what had dropped: three pennies, dated 1932, which she set on the dresser where Ross would be sure to see them.

Ross turned and waved up at Ethan in the window, then cautiously approached the spot in the woods where he'd last seen the flash of white. He had left Ethan with the Maglite, which meant Ross fully expected to plunge headfirst over an exposed root. Although he couldn't see more than a foot in front of him, he could still hear the sounds of someone-or something-scrabbling around.

Ross shivered; it was colder out here than he'd expected it to be, and he wished he'd brought his sweatshirt. He could suddenly smell wild roses, as if there were a field of them underfoot, and he knew from Curtis that this, too, was a way a ghost might make its presence known. Show yourself Show yourself, he thought.

But any hopes he had of encountering his first apparition died as he came upon a young woman, crouching as she tried to dig into the frozen earth.

She was wearing a flowered dress, and her pale hair was wild around her face. The white flash Ross had seen was a lace collar. She was feverishly busy, intent on her task. And she was as real as the ground beneath his feet.

Clearly, she had not heard him approach, or she would have realized she'd been caught in the act of . . . well, whatever she'd been doing. Ross found himself tongue-tied-not only wasn't she the ghost he'd been hoping for, but she was young, and pretty, and uninvited. He seized on that, if only to have something to say. "What are you doing here?"

She turned slowly, blinking, as if surprised to find herself in the middle of the forest. "I . . . I don't know." Glancing down at her hands, dirt caught beneath the nails, she frowned.

"Did van Vleet send you?"

"I don't know Van Fleet . . ."

"Vleet." Ross frowned. Maybe it was only an unlikely coincidence that the night he began his investigation, an insomniac would come wandering onto the property. There were were other homes in the vicinity, and stranger things had happened. He found himself wishing that he hadn't started this conversation on the defensive. He found himself wishing she'd glance up at him again. "What are you looking for?" he asked, nodding toward the hole she'd been digging. other homes in the vicinity, and stranger things had happened. He found himself wishing that he hadn't started this conversation on the defensive. He found himself wishing she'd glance up at him again. "What are you looking for?" he asked, nodding toward the hole she'd been digging.

The woman blushed, which lit her from the inside. When she shook her head, he could smell that floral perfume again. "I have no idea. The last time I sleepwalked, I wound up in a neighbor's hayloft."

"With or without the neighbor?" Ross heard himself ask, and the woman looked so mortified that he immediately wished he could call back the words. He dug his hands into his pockets instead, trying to make amends. "I'm Ross Wakeman," he said.

She looked up, still discomfited. "I have to go."

"No, see, where I come from, the appropriate response is: h.e.l.lo, I'm Susan. Or: Hey, Hannah's the name. Or: Howdy, I'm Madonna."

"Madonna?"

Ross grinned. "Whatever."

A tiny smile played at the corners of her mouth. "I'm Lia," she said.

"Just Lia?"

She hesitated. "Beaumont. Lia Beaumont."

Every line of her body was poised for flight. Then again, coming across a stranger in the middle of the woods when you were sleepwalking was bound to be upsetting. If possible, she seemed even more unsure of herself around Ross than Ross felt around her. She nodded, still awkward, and started to walk off. Ross was filled with an unaccountable need to keep her from leaving, and tried to think of one thing to say that would keep her here, but all the words dammed up at the base of his throat.

Suddenly, she turned back to him. "Were you you sleepwalking?" "No, actually, I'm working." Ross wound the thread of conversation tight around himself, an anchor. sleepwalking?" "No, actually, I'm working." Ross wound the thread of conversation tight around himself, an anchor.

"Here? Now Now?"

"Yeah. I'm a paranormal investigator." He could tell the term didn't ring a bell for her. "Ghosts," he explained. "I look for ghosts. In fact, I came out here because I thought your collar was . . . well, anyway. You're not quite what I was expecting."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

She tipped her head to one side, studying him. "You really believe people can come back after they die? Like Harry Houdini?"

"Doesn't everyone?" She wore sorrow like a hangman's hood; it shrouded her delicate features. "Who knows?" he teased. "We may even have company right now."

But his words made Lia glance behind her wildly. "If he finds me . . ."

Who? Ross wanted to say, as he realized that this woman's skittishness was not about being discovered by him, but being discovered by someone else. Before he could ask, an earsplitting scream curled from the house. "Uncle Ross!" Ethan shrieked. "Uncle Ross, come back! back!"

Ross looked up at the window, where there was no longer any residual light from either the flashlight or the video camera. The blood drained from his face as he imagined what Ethan might have seen. "I have to go," he said to Lia, and without any further explanation, took off at a dead run.

From the New York Times New York Times: THINGS THAT GO b.u.mP IN THE.

NIGHT?.

by Kerrigan Klieg Comtosook, VT-The residents of Comtosook, a small town in the northwest corner of Vermont, are eager to tell tall tales. There are stories of maple sap running in the dry summer months, of flower petals falling from rain clouds and of ground freezing solid in the middle of August, of cars that suddenly can only move in reverse. Yet the strangest part of this gossip is that it happens to be true, and these odd occurrences are just the tip of the iceberg. Experts at the nearby University of Vermont in various fields have not been able to explain the numerous events, but residents have their own ideas about what's causing the commotion: a spirit, a restless one who doesn't want to be moved. Comtosook, VT-The residents of Comtosook, a small town in the northwest corner of Vermont, are eager to tell tall tales. There are stories of maple sap running in the dry summer months, of flower petals falling from rain clouds and of ground freezing solid in the middle of August, of cars that suddenly can only move in reverse. Yet the strangest part of this gossip is that it happens to be true, and these odd occurrences are just the tip of the iceberg. Experts at the nearby University of Vermont in various fields have not been able to explain the numerous events, but residents have their own ideas about what's causing the commotion: a spirit, a restless one who doesn't want to be moved.Weeks ago, Comtosook was a bucolic Vermont town. Then the Redhook Development Group struck a deal with an elderly landowner to acquire a small tract of property. Immediately, a local band of Abenaki Indians began to protest, insisting the land was a native burial ground. Archaeological testing done by the state has not revealed any human remains, although that is incidental, says Az Thompson, a local Abenaki leader: "I wouldn't expect some flat-lander real-estate group to know where my ancestors are buried, but I sure didn't expect them to tell me I'm lying about that, either. Who gave them the privilege to rewrite my history?" Adds Winks Smiling Fox, a fellow protester, "Enough has happened here lately to prove that as much as Redhook wants in in, there's something else that doesn't want out out."He refers to the growing list of oddities that have begun to wear down the general public, even those who live miles away from the disputed property. Abe Huppinworth, proprietor of a local general store, has become used to sweeping rose petals off the porch. "They fall all night long, like snow. Three, four inches deep when I come in to open up. And there isn't a rosebush within three miles of here." Ava Morgan took her two-year-old son to Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington when he awakened one morning speaking Portuguese, a language with which none of his family was familiar, much less fluent. "The doctors couldn't tell me what happened, either. They tested him forward and backward, and then one morning it all just went away, and Cole was back to saying Mommy Mommy and and milk milk." Not all residents are as complacent, however. Over six hundred signatures filled a pet.i.tion that was given to Rod van Vleet, project manager on site for the Redhook Group. Mr. van Vleet declined to be interviewed, but has previously dismissed all claims of paranormal activity on the property as preposterous.Reports allude that van Vleet may not be as confident as he a.s.serts. Sources say that the Redhook Group has commissioned an investigator to explore the property.To the townspeople, however, both the hidden intents of a real-estate developer, and the angry fury of the Abenaki, are equally unimportant. "All I know is, this is wearing me out," says Huppinworth, at a pause in his endless sweeping of petals. "Sooner or later, something's got to give."

It was an established fact of the universe that Meredith was never going to meet a decent man. At work, she was too smart, and therefore too intimidating. Blind dates didn't prove any more successful. The last one she'd been on was with an actor her grandmother had met in the park, who'd arrived at the restaurant dressed as Hamlet. To leave or not to leave, Meredith had thought, that was the question that was the question. Since that debacle, her grandmother had presented her with the phone numbers of a mortician, a vet, and a chiropractor, but Meredith had conveniently lost each one. "I want a grandchild before I die," Ruby said, on schedule, every two to three months.

"You have one," Meredith would remind her.

"One with a father," Ruby would clarify.

Meredith had finally caved in, when Ruby told her that this one this one spent his free time doing volunteer work with senior citizens. So now, Meredith was sitting across from Michael DesJardins, trying to convince herself that this wasn't nearly as bad as it seemed. spent his free time doing volunteer work with senior citizens. So now, Meredith was sitting across from Michael DesJardins, trying to convince herself that this wasn't nearly as bad as it seemed.

He was drooling. All right, so it had to do with dental surgery he'd had that day, but it wasn't particularly appetizing for Meredith. "So," he slurred, "you work in a lab? What do you do . . . feed all the mice and stuff?"

"I do PGD. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis."

"I'm in the catering business."

"Oh?" Meredith folded her hands in front of her, watching him b.u.t.ter an entire slice of bread and stuff it in his mouth. On the bright side, it did mop up his excess saliva. "Are you a chef?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

She'd always harbored the fantasy of a man whisking her to a cozy apartment, where a fabulous gourmet meal had been prepared for her enjoyment. "I guess being in a restaurant feels like work, then."

"This is a cut above my place, actually . . . you ever go into the Wendy's on Sixteenth Street?"

Meredith was saved from responding when the waiter approached with their entrees. Michael began to cut his entire steak into little quarter-inch cubes. It made her think of the meals they served in mental inst.i.tutions.

She smoothed down her napkin and looked down at her chipolata sausage, nestled on a bed of polenta. The silver lining The silver lining, she told herself, is that I'm going to get a good meal out of this. is that I'm going to get a good meal out of this.

Michael pointed to her dinner with his knife and laughed. "Looks like a Great Dane did his business there." A line of drool dribbled down his chin.

I will stand up and excuse myself to go to the bathroom, Meredith thought. And then I just won't come back. And then I just won't come back.

But if she did that, Granny Ruby would accuse her of deliberately ruining another date. So Meredith began to think of ways to make Michael want to leave of his own volition. She would ask for crayons and start to color on the fancy linens. She would sculpt with her polenta. She would lick her plate and offer to lick his. She would communicate only in mime, or Pig Latin.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Michael said. "Are you ovulating?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's just that these days, when I look in the mirror, I see Daddy Daddy." He grinned and pointed to his forehead, as if the word had been tattooed there.

Meredith wished for many things in that moment: her grandmother's head on a pike, patience, lesbian tendencies. Volunteer work with senior citizens, Volunteer work with senior citizens, she remembered. She stared at Michael's plate. "Are you going to eat that?" she remembered. She stared at Michael's plate. "Are you going to eat that?"

"The steak?"

"No, the bone. I wanted to bring it home to my grandmother." Meredith leaned closer. "She's in her seventies, practically dead, and it's cheaper than feeding her."

Michael choked on his sip of water. Then, recovering, he raised his hand and signaled for the waiter for the check. "You're finished, aren't you?"

Meredith folded her napkin on the table. "Oh, yes."

Ethan now knew what fear felt like: your forehead, being pressed in from all sides, although there was nothing around you. All the hairs on the back of your neck, rising one by one like dominoes in reverse. Your legs going to water, and shaking so hard you had to sit or fall.

"It wasn't like I was afraid," Ethan insisted for the hundredth time since yelling out for his uncle the night before. "I mean, it was just weird, you know? To be in the dark all of a sudden?"

Ross sat beside him in the living room, his infrared video equipment hooked into the TV. The picture was grainy and dark, the edges crackling. Plus, since it had been mounted on a tripod, it was boring as all get out. Ethan didn't know what on earth was interesting about staring at a wall for three hours of tape. In spite of the fact that this was apparently a Very Important Element of paranormal investigation, he could not keep from yawning.

That was something else Uncle Ross had taught him: When you're in the presence of ghosts, they wear you out.

His uncle was being cool, especially since-well, if he wanted to be honest, Ethan had to admit he'd freaked out when the flashlight went dead and the video camera just shut itself off. The camera, it turned out, had only run to the end of its tape. The flashlight's batteries were shot.

Now, his mom frowned at the picture on the TV. "Am I missing something?"

"Not yet." Ross turned to Ethan. "You know what I think? I think it was in the room with you."

Ethan couldn't help it; he shivered. Could a ghost hitchhike home with you? Could you catch one, like a cold or the measles? He felt his mother's arms come around him and he leaned back, lock to key. "I . . . I thought you went outside because you saw something there."

"No, that turned out to be someon someone." Suddenly Ross. .h.i.t the pause b.u.t.ton on the remote. "See those?"

"Fireflies?" Shelby said.

"When was the last time you saw so many fireflies moving around it looked like a snowstorm?" He rewound the tape and pumped up the volume, so that his voice and Ethan's could be heard again. "This is where I leave," Ross narrated. His footsteps, on tape, thudded lighter and lighter as he made his way downstairs. "See? Those lights show up just after I go."

Then the camera went black.

Ross rolled his shoulders until the bones popped. "I think whatever it is came into the room with Ethan when I was outside. Those sparks on the tape-that was energy changing form. And that would explain why the flashlight went out. Ghosts need energy to materialize and move around; this one was using the double A's in the Maglite." He watched Ethan stifle another yawn. "And, apparently, whatever force keeps Ethan going."

But Ethan had been alone in that room, and he hadn't seen anything. Or had he?

A bathtub. A foot, rising from the bubbles.

The picture rose from the still blue of his mind, then sank to the bottom before he could grab hold. Each of Ethan's eyelids, by now, easily weighed ten pounds. He heard his mother's voice, an underwater current. "What are you going to tell the development company?"

But Ethan did not hear his uncle's answer. He was already dreaming of a beach, of sand so hot it felt sharp as a knife beneath his jitter-bug feet.

Shelby knew that some librarians felt the human brain was like a microfiche file, impossibly tiny images and words on transparent leaves, arranged page by page for a person's viewing pleasure. But every time she saw those miniature dossiers, she thought that if any part of the body were similarly cataloged, it would be the heart. She imagined autopsies, the organ sliced thin. One sliver would chronicle the way you had cherished a child; one would record the feelings you had for parents and siblings. Another, scarlet, might be etched with moments of pa.s.sion; angels embracing on the head of a pin. And for those who were lucky, the thinnest slice would be teeming with memories of a love so strong it turned you inside out and left you gasping, and would be an identical match to a slice stored in the heart of a soul mate.

Desiderate: to long for.

"Do you need any help?"

Shelby pushed her reading gla.s.ses up her nose and turned to the pockmarked clerk of the probate court. "No, thanks. I can do this in my sleep." To ill.u.s.trate, she pulled out the base of the microfiche machine and deftly switched transparencies, so that she could view the next page of the will.

It was Ross who'd made the request for her investigative services-and because he so infrequently asked for help, she agreed. He had wanted her to find out how long the land had been in the Pike family, if there was any record of a Native American settlement on it. Shelby had driven to the munic.i.p.al building, which housed the police station and the district court, as well as the probate department and the town offices. What she learned was that the property had only belonged to Pike since the 1930s.

There was no record of any Native American ever living there.

Shelby had taken it upon herself to discover how Spencer Pike got the deed to the land. It had not been a real-estate transaction, to her surprise, but rather an inheritance. From his deceased wife.

Shelby hadn't made a will of her own. It wasn't like she had all that much, actually-not that Ethan would be left as a tatterdemalian if she was. .h.i.t by a car on her way out of the court building, but then again, she wasn't Ivana Trump either. However, the reason she hadn't bothered to go to a lawyer to have one drawn up had less to do with her a.s.sets than her benefactors. Every other parent in the universe left their worldly goods to their children. But what if you knew for a fact that you were going to outlive your son?

I, Mrs. Spencer T. Pike of Comtosook, Vermont, make this my last will, hereby revoking all previous wills and codicils made by me.

Shelby frowned at the date-it had been signed in 1931. The lettering of her signature was delicate and spiderlike. She had signed the will that way too-Mrs. Spencer T. Pike-as if before her marriage she had not existed at all. Shelby had to wade through the legalese, but the intent was fairly straightforward: Mrs. Spencer T. Pike had left everything to her husband. Almost.

I give and devise all of my tangible personal property, including but not limited to my furniture, furnishing, jewelry and automobiles, to my husband, Spencer Pike. I give and devise the real property owned by me located at the crossing of Otter Creek Pa.s.s and Montgomery Road, in Comtosook, Chittenden County, State of Vermont, to my issue resulting to my marriage from Spencer Pike, to be held in trust by my executor for those issue until they each reach the age of 21. Such real property shall be held by those issue as joint tenants. If Spencer Pike and I shall have produced no living issue at the time of my death, I give and devise the aforesaid real property to my husband, Spencer Pike.

There was nothing in the will about how a woman with so little sense of self had wound up owning the property in the first place. Nothing about how her husband had been affected by her untimely death; whether he had ever looked at the property that was now his and thought that he would trade every square inch if it brought her back.

Shelby loved words, but she would be the first to tell you they had a habit of letting you down. Most of the time, the words that were not not written were the ones you needed most. written were the ones you needed most.

She slipped the microfiche out of the machine, slid it into its protective dust jacket, handed it to the clerk, and left the probate office. But she had no sooner stepped off the curb outside than a police cruiser screamed into the circular driveway of the munic.i.p.al building; coming to a stop so close that Shelby found her hand outstretched, as if that might keep the car from striking her. The cop who got out muttered an apology, but he wasn't even looking at her as he hurried into the police station.

Shelby shook the whole way to her own car. Promised herself that she would have a will drawn up by the end of the week.

Eli was late. He rushed into the lobby of the station and stuck his head into the dispatch cubicle. "They're looking for you," the sergeant said.

"Tell me something I don't know. Where are they?"

"In the conference room. With the chief."

Groaning, Eli walked down the hall to find Chief Follensbee sitting with two teenage boys. "Ah, Detective Rochert. Mr. Madigan and Mr. Quinn, here, said that you specifically told them to meet you here at ten-thirty to take down their statements. And yet here it is, past eleven."

"I'm sorry, Chief," Eli said, hanging his head. "I got, uh, hung up." Actually, he'd overslept. After spending most of last night awake, he'd drifted off shortly before dawn. He had been dreaming of the woman who smelled of apples, the same one he'd dreamed of before. Was it any wonder he'd ignored his alarm?