"Beanie, where are you, you little rascal?"
Scott sat very still and watched, fascinated, as the bottom end of a plank in the fence shared by the two yards rose like one side of a teeter-totter and another ghostly figure slipped into the yard.
This one was also dressed in white-but this one was definitely no child. The white was made from some sort of gossamer fabric and formed adorable baby doll pajamas the like of which he hadn't seen since his teenage fantasies.
And this one had all the rounded attributes of a full-grown woman. Silver blond hair curled in ringlets down her back. The pretty, heart-shaped face was creased with a worried look as she gazed about the yard.
"Beanie?" she called out. "Where are you?"
Scott realized, suddenly, that he was holding his breath. He could see all of them now, the two in the tree, the young one hovering at the bottom, the lovely woman searching for them.
Each wore white and each seemed to be glowing somehow. The thought that they were supernatural flickered through his mind again, but he dismissed it quickly. He was fully awake now, and fully aware that they were all too real.
"Beanie!"
She'd found the baby and scooped him up into her arms.
"You bad boy. Coming over here barefoot! Who knows what awful things this man has in his yard?"
She peered up into the tree. "Beth! Barnaby! You two get down this instant! You're supposed to be in bed and you know it!"
"Mommy, we're just getting apricots. The man doesn't want them."
She shifted the baby from one hip to the other with the practiced ease of a longtime mom. "Well, that's true. How anyone can let good food rot. ..."
"He's a mean old man," the young voice answered. "The kids down the street told me. He's a mean old man and he hates kids."
"Mean old man," a male version of the voice echoed from the treetop.
Scott found the urge to defend himself rising in his chest. Mean, maybe-but old at thirty-five? Hardly! It was time to assert his authority in the situation. He looked about for his towel and found it hanging almost close enough to reach.
"If he doesn't like kids," the woman was saying, "it's just as well he's never home, isn't it?'"
"Where is he, Mommy? Where does he go?'"
The baby chose that moment to glare at Scott again, lift his little hand and point, yelling "Aga! Aga!"
But no one paid any attention.
His mother merely shifted him a bit on her hip and went on talking up into the tree to her other children.