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I finally put aside the book and turned out the light, the day’s events made an imprint on my dreams—wedding cake with two tiny twin figures atop the highest tier; Geoff and me driving in the fog, only to find that we weren’t on a road any longer; Krystal throwing me her bouquet of roses and me catching a handful of thorny stems.
    Just as I dropped the bouquet and saw the blood on my palms spelling out “beware ghosts,” I woke to a banging sound. I was so disoriented from my odd dreams that I checked to make sure my palms weren’t really bloody. I looked at the window with fear, forgetting for a moment that I was not at home. There was a white wispy face at my window. I lay completely still as my sleepy brain sought to sound the alarm and my reason tried to reassure me that it could not be a face. My room was three floors up. It was only fog.
    I closed my eyes and tried to settle back to sleep. But when I opened one eye to double-check the window, the fog face leered at me and moaned a soft and unambiguous, “Helllllp themmmmmm.” I sat up with a gasp worthy of any Victorian nanny and instantly felt like an idiot.
    The face dissipated as the fog pressed and roiled outside, a dozen faces forming and bleeding away under my sharp gaze.
    I sighed, and calmed my racing heart. No ghost. Only fog. I checked my palms, for good measure. No blood. Justdreams. I hugged Teddy Smithers in one arm and
Manor of Dark Dreams
in the other. And then I went back to sleep and refused to dream until daylight woke me.
    In Maine, in summer, on the coast, that’s really early, about 4:30 a.m. Once the first rays of the morning entered my room, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I picked up my phone and debated whether to call Sarah. Call her early or wait? If I called now, I would definitely be waking her up. But if I waited, I might miss my chance. Her family was supposed to leave that morning on their Habitat for Humanity trip, and once they left, Sarah would become much harder to reach. She had a phone in her bedroom, but she didn’t own a cell. After finding that my phone got a signal only when I stood at my bedroom window (sure enough, it had a gorgeous ocean view), I opted to call now and later beg her forgiveness for waking her up. She answered a little sleepily, but then her voice brightened. “How’d it go with Geoff?”
    “Got any tips for getting a guy to talk? He takes ‘man of few words’ to a whole new level.”
    She sighed, and I could hear her finger tapping as she thought for a minute. “Ask open-ended questions that he can’t answer with yes or no.”
    “Tried that. Anything else?”
    She laughed. “Count yourself lucky he’s good-looking and stop pushing for more than that?”
    “Thanks a lot.”
    “Seriously. You know you’re bad about wanting perfect-perfect. Take the summer off and accept a little loosening of those famous Philippa standards, why don’t you.”
    “Easy for you to say,” I grumped.
    “Hey! I let the standards fall every summer—some of those guys can’t even hit a nail straight, but if they’re cute or funny, I’m not complaining. Just go with it.”
    The spinning sensation in my chest stopped at the idea of just accepting Geoff as he was for the summer. The kids, too. I gazed out at the ocean. Maybe it was time to try a change from the inside out. After all, it was only three months. I could do anything for three months.
    All too soon Sarah had to hang up and join the family trek to do-gooderville. I stared at the phone in my hand, wondering how often we’d get to talk with me busy working here and Sarah busy working on a Habitat for Humanity site.
    She had promised to try to beg a cell phone from someone to call me once in a while. I was sure it wouldn’t happen often, though.
    I made my great four-poster all neat, just like I hadn’t slept in it. I never made my bed at home, but it just seemed right to do it here. I liked the way the room looked so perfect again, just like a