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Around the bend Anna Trawley had fainted. Their eyes wet with tears, Dare and Freeboard helped her up, and then together, legs trembling, they walked toward the shore where they stood and stared mutely at the rusted wreckage of a capsized motor launch whose name, though blistered and faded, could be read: Far Traveler.

A tiny sob escaped Trawley.

“We’re all dead,” said Freeboard numbly.

Dare nodded his head, looking dazed.

He said, “We died in the storm coming over.”

“That’s correct.”

They turned and saw Case coming toward them. When a few yards away, he stopped and surveyed them, and then said to them:

“You were the ghosts haunting Elsewhere.”

With a whimper, Trawley slumped and fell back against the wreckage. Dare reached out a trembling hand to Freeboard.

“Hold my hand, love,” he said, his voice quavering slightly.

Freeboard took his hand and gripped it firmly.

“It’s okay. I’m with you, Terry,” she said.

“And I with you.”

Case appraised them for a moment, then spoke. “I never quite completed my history of the house,” he began. “I don’t suppose you’d like to hear it.”

“Oh, now, stop that,” snapped Dare, recovering. “Bad enough to be dead without having to stand in the damp and hear tired old rhetorical devices. Could we simply go on with it, please?”

Case smiled. “For the longest time—years after their death—Edward and Riga Quandt haunted the mansion, frightening and unbalancing the tenants, even killing a few, by the force of their hatred and rage at one another. But by the middle of the eighties they had made their peace, accepted their deaths and decided to move on. But then four years ago, you came. You and the launch captain died coming over. The captain moved on. You three didn’t. Or, to be more precise—you wouldn’t; you refused to accept that you were dead.”

“Yes, I know that now,” Dare sighed. “I understand. I see everything clearly now. Very clearly.”

“In that case you can explain why you refused to accept your death,” Case challenged. “Can you do that, Mr. Dare?”

“Yes, of course. I was terrified that death meant damnation.”

Case nodded. “Quite so. And you, Anna? Can you see what held you back?”

“Only dimly, I’m afraid.”

“You’d grown addicted to your grief for your daughter.”

“Oh, dear God!”

“Strange attachments that we make, don’t you think?”

Trawley shook her head. “Could that really be so?”

“Am I some kind of orphan here?” Freeboard said testily.

“Oh, Joan,” said Case.

“Oh, yeah, Joan.’ Cheezus-peezus,” she grumbled.

“You were terrified of dying,” Case told her.

“Shit, so’s everyone. Come on, now. What else?”

“You couldn’t bear to let go of your toys,” Case said gently.

Dare turned to her loftily and sniffed, “So immature.”

Freeboard glared.

“And what now?” Trawley asked. “Do we leave here?”

“That’s entirely up to you,” replied Case. “You may choose to cross over or choose to stay. In the meantime, my assignment here is mercifully finished.”

Freeboard wrinkled up her nose. “Your assignment?”

“Yes, Morna and I—we were sent here to lead you to discover the truth. Each time in the past that you almost confronted it, you’d reject it and then start the whole cycle all over, reliving again and again your first arrival here at the mansion; all but the shipwreck, of course; you blocked that out, just like everything else that would bare your delusion. That’s why you had no memory of your walk on the beach, Joan, because you knew around the next bend was Far Traveler. Incidentally, you’ve been acting out this fantasy for years, dear hearts, even after we arrived here to help. Stubborn sorts!”

Trawley gasped and put a hand to her cheek.

“And so that’s why you seemed so familiar to me.”

“Yes.”

Trawley sighed. “So it was not another lifetime.”

“No, Anna,” said Case.

“I’m crushed.”

Dare turned to Freeboard and spoke to her quietly. “Isn’t it hysterical? You couldn’t sell the house because you were haunting it.” Freeboard lowered her head into a hand. “Honest to God, if you weren’t dead already …” she murmured.

“Speaking of which,” spoke up Trawley. “We were eating