He’d barely even been aware of twitching his finger.

He hadn’t even checked to see if anyone else was at the cemetery. Or here, for that matter. This was not a good sign. What if someone had spotted him coming or going? Was he getting that forgetful? If Liana found out about this, there’d be Hell to pay.

But yes, this was where he’d rather be.

It seemed unchanged since since the times he and Tel and Laurette had played there as children, Except for one thing.

He couldn’t see it from where he was standing, but he could feel the magic.

Telesphore’s doing, the benches that stayed clean, the marble that stayed polished, the flowers that constantly bloomed. Greg disapproved of these posthumous spells. They tended to solidify, become stiff and unmanageable as time passed. But was it really for him to object? It was all more for ‘Sha’s sake than Lamont’s, anyway. She likely came here occasionally. He wouldn’t presume to raise his hand, strip it all away as a depressing sham.

Not now, anyway.

Greg turned and walked in the other direction, towards the slope overlooking the ocean and Small Cove.

This area, here, was where he and Tel and Laurette used to run about screaming at each other, Tel barrelling about like a bull, Laurette’s skirts above her scuffed bare knees, her braids flying loose. That old headstone he used to jump over was a bit grimier, but still there. And this was where Laurette and Tel had caught him singing “Donkey Riding”, and discovered teasing him about it was the one thing that could make him stamp his feet and weep with anger when he was a boy. He’d thought he’d never hear the end of it.

He walked over to the side overlooking the ocean.

It looked the same at least. He’d been a little afraid he might have to look at one of those new container ships, like the one he’d spotted in the Gulf last year while he was in Houston.

Ugly, blocky things. Nothing like the ships he and Laurette used to watch breasting their way through the water, sails flouncing.

And if he took a walk to his right…

Small Cove.

Papa had taught them all to swim there. Strange that nobody had yet encroached on it, set up beach umbrellas, spread out towels. No, not so strange when he thought about it. The cove was inaccessible, really, to the untalented. Maybe once this part of the island started being really developed there’d be an effort to cash in, heavy machinery brought in to blast the cliffs for a stairway or something.

And then they’d show up at Swedes’ Hill with bulldozers, and if Greg or Liana didn’t take steps to trim back some of what Tel had set up, some folks would face a few nasty surprises. What might Tel have left in store for them?

He laughed. Yes, it was wrong, but he couldn’t help it.

Suddenly he’d remembered Tel’s final, angry dig at Artie Macana. Liana and Laurette’s outrage had made it even funnier.

“Now, Papa, you know poor Artie’s high strung,”Liana had said. “You know deliberately frightening someone like that is cruel!”

“Hey, I’m high strung too!” Greg had told her. “My God, you should have seen how high strung your poor Papa was when Art held that knife to his chest.”

Here he could laugh. Here was where he could think about them, not that other place, with Tel and Felda and Papa and so many others lying politely with their hands folded beneath carefully arranged flowers, all of them dressed to go someplace else. Here was where he could find the heartbeat of memory.

His best wand was in his hand. He’d not even thought about taking it out. Forgetfulness again?

Who cared?

There were moments. There were places. Sometimes they came together and it was as if the sky, the grass, the ocean and wind all were waiting for him to act, to raise his baton and whisper a command.

First the sound of the salty wind, hissing through dry leaves and branches, rattling, sighing, swirling over the grass and the brush, rubbing against stones, rising overhead.

And behind it, the wet, treacherous drumbeat of the waves.

Into it all the sound of the green and blue, the color of dirt and all things that have been carried in that wind, children’s shouts and the feel of dry grass whipping bare legs, the smell of crushed clover and and Felda’s cheek.

The sunlight on long yellow grass that rustled as he paced and thought seriously of so many things, of schoolwork, of escape, of money, of marriage, his feet small and bare, his feet large and shod, to stand for a moment and look at the sea, believing himself inside himself, absorbed, thinking serious, adult thoughts when really, he’d always known exactly where he was as the wind touched his hair, and he could still hear it, still feel it…

It was the way Felda turned her head when he walked into the kitchen after work, the shadows that fell through the window of their old house at sunset, the pattern in the fur of Laney’s pet cat as it rubbed against his legs… Every moment of life remained like rain soaked into the ground, the living and the dead, and yes even the lost, coloring and echoing and scenting that tiny, brilliant, uncatchable instant that is now…

…with the sound of engines and static and the smell of wet plastic and lotion, the shrieks of new children and and the clicks of cameras everything, was new and raw and cutting forward through the black emptiness, the vacuum we call the future, and all of it, all that rawness would fall into memory as every other moment does.

Kitty Rose Baranca had stepped outside because she felt like crying again and thought fresh air might help.

Over the phone last night, Inez had uttered that word, the one Kitty had feared hearing from her daughter for the past three years.

DIVORCE.

Her own daughter was going to be a divorcee.

And naturally that led to Kitty thinking of Dierdre’s latest fiasco with that married man from Pensacola.

Thank God for Jean-Paul, the only one of her children who seemed to understand piety, fidelity, basic common decency. He and dear Declan had been together now for years.

So she stood in her back garden and took a deep breath and… She heard something.

Music? Or maybe she hadn’t heard it, maybe it was a scent, or something she felt as the breeze touched her cheek.

Kitty stepped back inside to fetch her guitar.

There was no word for this. She just knew it was there, something faint, distant, but close to what she felt when she was writing a song, when she knew she was really on to something good.

She stood in the garden and waited. It was almost like that time in Ojai, that dinner party at Greg’s with Lee and Derek. The night she wrote Green Circle.

Of course! Kitty smiled and her fingers moved gently, surely, weaving a melody into the oddly singing air, folding it gently around herself, around it. Yes, it was unnatural, but surely God Himself was grinning and tapping a gold-shod foot as He shook His mighty head.

Trust a Duday to find new and amusing sins.

“And should I not spare Ninevah, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”

She looked at Artiste, waiting for him to smile, as he usually did at the end of the Book of Jonah, but he simply lay very still, his eyes closed. She could not really tell whether or not he was asleep.

If he were really sleeping, she could go inside and do a little straightening. Laurette was an exemplary housekeeper, but caring for Artiste was taking its toll. Dishes were sometimes left in the sink, and Marion had noticed some of the higher shelves needed dusting. She hoped Felicia and Judy wouldn’t bring Laurette back any time soon. They’d left at 10:30 and Judy had told Marion they were going to try for about 5:30 pm — brunch at the Rose, then a visit to The Compleat Gardener, then some time relaxing at Felicia’s. Just a nice day’s vacation for Laurette. She needed one.

But Marion wasn’t there to clean house. She was there to keep Artiste company. She decided to err on the side of caution. “How about the story of Eutycus?” she asked. Maybe that would coax a smile from him.

She turned to Acts.

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight…”

“Listen,” Artiste said.

He had opened his eyes and raised his head.

Marion started to say something. “Listen,” he repeated.

Marion listened.

At first she heard nothing, then… Was it music?

Or was it not a sound at all, but a scent? She could have sworn she smelled, just for an instant, something grassy and sweet and tart. Or she tasted it, the fat stem of a clover flower in spring, plucked from the ground and enjoyed as she felt the wind touch her face. She…

Marion stood, trying to recapture what she’d just sensed. It was strange, it was… She was sure she’d felt it once before.

It had been both the piercing homesickness she’d felt after marrying Leon, and the headlong joy of that time he’d coaxed her into riding a roller-coaster. When she wasn’t screaming with laughter she’d been shouting “stop!”

And then the feeling was gone.

She looked down at Artiste.

He smiled.

“B-Flat,” he said.

Then his head fell back. He closed his eyes and began snoring faintly.

Hank was browsing the Internet and enjoying the feel of the evening air. It was something he did these days just before turning in. Hell, he didn’t recognize three quarters of the celebrities who showed up on the late night shows any more, or understand half the jokes. He’d just as soon look at cat videos.

When he heard the sliding doors open, he had a feeling he knew what Marta was going to say.

“Dad…” She sighed.

“What’s the problem, sweetheart?”

“Could you come talk to Ethan?”

“I passed his room just now, and he’s turned on his light and refuses to put it out I’m sure it’s that movie he saw today over at Frankie’s.”

Thirteen Ghosts. Ethan had watched Thirteen Ghosts over at a friend’s house. Not that hokey old Castle movie either, but a newer version, which, judging from Ethan’s dinnertime conversation, involved lots of mayhem. “Heinous!” had been Ethan’s enthusiastic term for it.

“I’ll have a chat with him,” Hank said.

“Tell him that story you used to tell me,” Marta said, “The one about the time you and your friend got scared at Swede’s Hill. It always made me feel better when I was afraid at night.”

Ethan was in his night clothes, but he was sitting on the bed rather than in it.

“Hey, kiddo.”

“Hey Grandpa.” Ethan smiled.

“Your grandfather has something to tell you,” said Marta. She bent and kissed Ethan on the cheek. “Don’t sit up too late talking, guys, okay?”

“Okay Mom.”

Hank waited until Marta had left, closing the door behind her.

“I hear you don’t want to turn out the light.”

“Why should I?”

“I like to be able to see things. Like, if I hear a noise, I like to be able to open my eyes and see what it is, that’s all.”

“It’s not because I’m scared or anything.”

Hank sat down. “So what kind of noises are you hearing?”

“I dunno.” Ethan raised his shoulders in a shrug. “Just…noises.”

“Things I don’t hear when the lights are out.”

“I bet you hear clicks, and creaks,” Hank said. “Maybe what sound like footsteps? And you listen really hard, and then you hear… It’s more like something you’re sure you’re about to hear, isn’t it?”

“And maybe you get this feeling inside, like something is wrong, but you’re not quite sure what?”

Ethan nodded.

“I’ve had that feeling, too. Used to keep me awake at night. Sometimes you can hear a sound, and if it doesn’t seem right, if you can’t see what it is, it scares you to death. Once I even got scared in broad daylight.”

“Is it okay if I tell you about it?” He asked Ethan. “You won’t think I’m stupid or boring or anything, will you?”

“I’d never think you were stupid or boring, Grandpa.”

“Okay. Well, back when I was about your age, I had a really good friend. His name was Andy Patch.”

“Andy and I became best friends just after my family moved to the Island. He wasn’t like a lot of Islanders were towards new people. He was friendly, a nice kid, showed me all the safest places to swim, the shops that had the most interesting comics, and best of all, the spots you could go to get away from the grown-ups and do what you want.”

“Our favorite place was called Swede’s Hill. It’s all changed now. Now it’s called Bellevista, and there are a bunch of houses and a little park there, but back then… back then, it was an old burial ground.”

“There were headstones, graves, even a gated monument, most of them going back, like, a hundred years. And best of all, hardly anybody ever went there because it was supposed to be haunted, and not just by ghosts. Witches, and demons, and even a werewolf were supposed to hang around out there. Andy told me all about it. He said even a lot of the adults believed it. He believed it. But he thought it was okay during the day. ‘I sure wouldn’t want to be here at night, though,’ he told me.”

“So we’d go up there sometimes because, really, nobody seemed to go there, and it was a place where we could pretty much do anything we wanted.”

“Nobody to tell us what to do.”

“It was almost like being a grown-up.”

“So, one day, Andy and I are up there. I don’t think it was even very late in the day. Just before lunchtime, maybe, and the sun is out, and nothing is even casting so much as a shadow, and we’d just got there and already we’re having a good time doing I can’t exactly remember what…”

When suddenly Andy said, “What’s that?”

“We stopped what we were doing, and we stood very still, and we listened.”

“At first, I thought we were hearing music. I was sure that’s what we were hearing, but then I realized it was impossible. How could there be music up there? Unless someone had brought a guitar or something, and that’ wasn’t really what I thought we’d heard. And then…”

“Then we were afraid.”

“Why were you afraid?”

“I can’t really explain it, Ethan. We couldn’t see anything, but… It was like we could smell, taste, feel, and hear something all at the same time, something we couldn’t understand that got inside of us and scared us, something so strange it scared us really, really bad. We did the only thing two little boys could do at a moment like that.”

“We ran. We ran away as fast as we could.”

“And we didn’t slow down until we got to Drum Street.”

He stopped there, as he’d stopped back when he told Marta about it. How many years had it been since he even thought about that story? 1988? ’89? Sarah had come in while he was watching Letterman and said, “Marta can’t sleep because of those stupid stories she heard at the slumber party…”

And now Ethan was looking at him just the way Marta had.

“And….?” Ethan said.

“What do you mean ‘and?'”

“C’mon Grandpa. I know there’s a moral. What did you and Andy find out later? What was the explanation?”

Hank laughed. “You’ve heard too many of my stories, haven’t you? Well, about a week later, I heard one of the older boys at our school, a real jock you know, one of those rich jerks who think they have the world by the tail. He was complaining because he’d taken a girl someplace one night to make out – Swede’s Hill of course — and he’d forgotten something there. You know what it was?”

“A brand new gadget that had only just hit the island that year. Very high tech. It was called a transistor radio.”

It took a moment, but Ethan grinned, and Hank felt a faint paing of guilt because he’d just told a fib. Hank never did hear Mark Redfern say it was Swede’s Hill where he’d lost his new transistor. He’d only put two-and-two together years later, when he was in college. But kids don’t always understand about adults making logical connections, figuring things out after the fact.

“So that’s what you heard!” Ethan said.

“That’s what we heard. Just a new thing, that’s all, something that in a few years became completely ordinary. And you know what just killed Andy and me? If we’d gone to check it out, instead of panicking and running off, maybe we’d have had a transistor radio of our very own!”

“But you’d have given it back to that guy, wouldn’t you?”

“Ohhhh, I don’t know. Like I told you, kiddo. He was a jerk.”

Ethan laughed.

He never did talk about it with Andy when they were older. Never got the chance. Andy’d died at Khe Sahn in ’68.

God, to die so young. What would Andy have said if they’d talked about it? To think there once was a time when hearing Andy’s voice, seeing his face was as easy as picking up a phone, or turning around in class while old Miss Pascoe wasn’t looking… Strange how the dead got smaller with distance as the years passed, but no less detailed. It was the same with Sarah. What he wouldn’t give for the chance to talk with her again. Or with Andy again, find out if he’d come to the same conclusion, or even felt the same thing. On Swede’s Hill, he’d been sure. He’d looked at Andy and known, known for a fact, that he was feeling exactly what Hank was feeling, that weird…

The realization hit him so hard for a moment he couldn’t move.

“Grandpa?”

His face felt cold. He’d probably gone white.

“Grandpa, are you…”

“I’m okay, kiddo.” Hank rested one hand on his belly. “Your old grandfather shouldn’t have had that Italian sausage for supper. Excuse me.” He stood up.

“Gotta see a man about a dog?” asked Ethan.

“That’s the truth of it.” Hank bent to kiss his grandson. “Under the covers and lights out,” he said.

He walked out quickly.

He had to be alone. He had to think.

From the back balcony, he could look west and see Sanctuary Bay, the lit windows of downtown and The Hotel Macana, and far, far off in the distance, Pittime Bridge.

Perspective, that’s what it was. From here, from this height, you had a perspective about how distant and how close things were, something you couldn’t see when you were, say, drinking in the bar at The Rose, or walking down Mordechai. Objects loomed, blocked your view. Especially when you were young.

Did what he now understand change so much?

He thought perhaps it did. He was an engineer. His life had been dedicated to building solid things, using solid, logical concepts. To suddenly realize this late in life…

“Dad? Are you all right?”

“How’s our boy?” he asked, as he turned.

“In bed with the lights out, thanks. But he’s worried about you. He said you didn’t feel well.”

“Oh,” he said, “Just a touch of indigestion. And I was just remembering poor Andy Patch. Sometimes it hits me. He died so young. Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. I’m just an old man with memories.”

“Thank you for helping out.”

“It was nothing.”

“No, Dad, it wasn’t. It isn’t. Ever since Jason walked out on us, you’ve been here. You’ve been my father and Ethan’s, and that’s so important.”

“I just want you to know how important you are to us. You make us feel as though we’re still a family, we still have a home.”

She hugged him. She kissed him on the cheek, and said goodnight, and went back in.

He hadn’t wanted to lie. He’d wanted to say to her, “You know that story I told you all those years ago? I didn’t understand it then, but I do now. It was real.”

And then he’d have to explain what was real, and she’d be convinced he was on the road to dementia.

What he and Andy had felt, it was so strange at the time, so alien. It was like they were on a boat carrying them away fast, and there was nothing they could grab to make it stop. It was like the sky itself was a curtain that shifted and rippled but could never be drawn back. It as like people were tiny points of brightness in a pattern that that became a single color in the distance.

Magic was real.

How else could he expain two little boys, however briefly, seeing the world through the eyes of an old man?