Michael let out a scream, but no one heard it, because a second hand had covered his mouth. A voice hissed, "Michael, be quiet!"
This voice Michael knew well. This voice was his father's. As was the hand over his mouth.
"But Dad!" Michael wanted to say, but all that came out was a muffled "Bmmh Dhmdh!" Mr. Scott spun Michael around.
"What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?" he demanded in a voice low enough not to be heard in the house but strong enough to convince Michael that he was in trouble. Michael wanted to tell his father why he was there, but was unable to, because his father hadn't removed his hand from Michael's mouth.
"Do you have any idea what time it is?"
Even if he could have answered, Michael wouldn't have, because he really didn't have any idea. He looked up at his father dumbly, hardly believing the man was there. Mr. Scott looked immense against the sky, with the thatched roof of the cottage row behind him, seemingly below his shoulders, causing him to look like a giant that had risen from the earth.
"Come on."
Mr. Scott led Michael up the slate path quickly and none too gently. Suddenly brought back to the world of houses with back doors and windows, and kitchens and electricity, Michael began to question almost as strongly as his father must have why he was out beside the garden shed, when he should be upstairs, in bed and dreaming. Perhaps he had been dreaming. As he stepped into the kitchen, though, he was sure he heard a soft yet sharp voice laughing at him from the shed.
" 'Do you have any idea what time it is?'" the peeping voice mocked. As Mr. Scott followed Michael into the kitchen, Michael could hear stifled laughter floating up the garden.
None of that mattered as soon as Mr. Scott shut and bolted the door. Michael was no longer in an adventure with mysterious voices speaking to him from the shed. He was in the kitchen with his father glaring at him, his father's mood anything but mysterious.
"What's the meaning of this?" his father chided him. Michael was capable of speech, now that his father was no longer holding onto him, but he knew better than to say anything. This was not a question-and-answer session. This was a scolding. Mr. Scott was whispering, because it was the middle of the night and Mrs. Scott and Willow were asleep, but his voice sounded as loud as thunder to Michael. Mr. Scott loomed over him like a storm cloud that rumbled and sparked in its depths but did not yet boom and flash. Michael knew storm clouds, though, and he knew his father, so he was confident this was going to be a cracker of an outburst.
He was wrong, though. While Mr. Scott's voice lost none of its anger, it suddenly turned gentle. Mr. Scott must have seen how frightened Michael was, which was much more frightened than when he had been out by the shed.
"Listen, Michael," Mr. Scott continued, "This has got to stop." By "this," Mr. Scott meant Michael's being up at all hours of the night. This wasn't his first nighttime excursion. It wasn't even his first this week. The night before, he had been imagining himself as a ghost, trying to glide weightlessly up and down the upstairs hallway, like the restless soul of a murdered man, a man slain in the service of a lady's honor, a man who could never tell the truth of his lady's innocence--whatever a lady's innocence was--a man who yearned to tell but could only haunt the hallway in which he was murdered, silent and forlorn.
Unfortunately, Michael had not been the most silent of silent ghosts. Ghosts might not have set the floorboards creaking, but Michael certainly had, to where Mrs. Scott had come out of the master bedroom to investigate the persistent squeaking and found Michael creeping along the dark hall with a sheet over his head. Mr. Scott reminded Michael of this now.
"You scared her half to death," he told Michael, "This is an old house, Michael, and it makes a lot of ... suggestive noises at night." Michael could attest to that. "Sometimes when you hear those noises, they can put thoughts into your head that you'd rather weren't there." Michael conceded this point as well. "So to come out of your bedroom and see a sheet walking up and down the hall ... well, I don't have to tell you, Michael, that it's very upsetting."
This was horrible. Mr. Scott wasn't yelling at all. He was explaining. He was reasoning. He was practically pleading for Michael to be sensible. Why couldn't he just yell? Michael expected yelling. Michael could understand yelling. Michael thought he probably deserved yelling, needed yelling, even--perhaps. This reasoning business, on the other hand, he didn't expect. This explaining he couldn't understand. This pleading he definitely didn't need. It made him think about what he had done. It made him realize what he had done. It made him feel guilty.
Mr. Scott had a knack for this that always caught Michael off guard. He would come upon Michael doing something he oughtn't, he would begin scolding Michael, and the scolding would become an explanation--a very good explanation--of why Michael shouldn't have done what he did. It was disarming, and Michael felt that it probably would have been quite effective if it had ever addressed what Michael was thinking about when he was caught doing whatever he was doing wrong. Unfortunately, Mr. Scott had the knack of making Michael feel guilty about what he was doing, but not for why he was doing it, so he never had cause to rethink doing whatever it was he was doing, and he usually did it again. Michael was pretty sure this drove his father crazy, but he really couldn't help it.
The night before was a perfect example. After Michael's mother had seen a ghost in the hallway and screamed, Mr. Scott had rushed out, found Michael with a sheet over his head and sat him down for a stern talk at the top of the stairs.
He had explained about frightening people in the middle of the night, but that hadn't mattered to Michael, because his mother was supposed to be frightened of ghosts--that's why he had been a ghost, to be frightening--but his mother wasn't supposed to be frightened of Michael.
His father had explained about going to bed early because there was school, but that hadn't mattered to Michael because going to bed early before school could only be important to Michael if he had wanted to go to school the next day, and he hadn't wanted to go to school the next day.
His father had explained about needing sleep, but that hadn't mattered to Michael because he obviously hadn't needed sleep, or else he would have been asleep rather than in the hallway.
Michael felt guilty for causing a fuss and waking the household, but that was just because he'd been too loud, not because he'd been a ghost in the hallway, so what Michael learned was to be more quiet in the hallway next time, which turned out to be this time, and he had been very, very careful to be quiet in the hallway this time.
He hadn't felt guilty about being in the hallway that other night, because he had had a very good reason for being there. He had heard the old house making noises, just as his father had talked to him about, and, just as his father had said, it had made him think unpleasant thoughts. One of those thoughts was of ghosts wandering the hallway.
This thought had bothered him so much that he was unable to sleep, so he had taken the sheet from his bed and stepped out into the hallway, deciding that if he could work out what it was a ghost would be doing in the hallway, he could better understand what to do when he encountered one there. Once he knew how to behave in the presence of a ghost, it would no longer disturb him, and it could creak away at the floorboards all night, for all he cared. Then he could have slept, which would have made his father happy, what with there being school the next day.
Evidently, his mother had never conducted this experiment, because when she encountered what she thought was a ghost, she screamed. Michael couldn't stop her being frightened, because she had interrupted him before he had thought through why a ghost would have been there. So now, not only was his mother still made nervous by the nightly creaking sounds in the hallway, but so was Michael, and sleep was less possible now than ever, even while his father was telling him to go to bed. His father, though, did not want to hear this explanation, and Michael had felt guilty, confused and not half frustrated.
Tonight was a different matter altogether. Michael was being scolded for being out in the garden in the middle of the night with a sheet over his head. Given his recent poor history with sheets over his head, this was understandable, but there was obviously more to the situation than just Michael, the night and a sheet. This was not Michael playing a game. This was not Michael frightening his mother. This was Michael investigating an invasion of the garden shed. If Michael could explain to his father about the rocking shed, and the face that had popped up outside his window, and the voices speaking to him, then his father would stop lecturing and come and see who was in the shed.
Michael knew, however, that his father knew nothing of any of that. His father only knew that Michael was out and about in the middle of the night, for a second night in a week, with a sheet on his head. This was the theme of the lecture Michael was receiving. Michael knew it was wrong. Worse, Michael believed, it was unfair. He had to speak out.
"Dad, listen," he said. His father stopped talking. In the dark, Michael couldn't be sure of his father's reaction. He had never interrupted one of his father's scoldings before. He waited for the storm clouds to gather again. They didn't.
"I'm listening," his father said in a curious tone that Michael couldn't identify.
"Dad, there's something in the shed."
"There's something in the shed," his father repeated, sounding at once like he was trying to make sense of what Michael was saying and like he was encouraging Michael to continue.
"Something or someone," Michael went on, "I'm not sure which."
"Something or someone," Mr. Scott said, seeming to wash the phrase around his mouth, like he was tasting it in order to better understand it.
"It was moving around in the shed, and it came out, and it talked to me," Michael blurted out.
"It talked to you ... " This conversation was becoming as weird and frustrating as the one Michael had just had with the shed.
"Dad, it was in there," Michael insisted. He wanted to take his father's hand and lead him out to the bottom of the garden. His father stood still, not speaking, not moving.
"Dad," Michael said again, unnerved by his father's silence. After what seemed ages, Michael's father squatted down so that his face was below Michael's, in the way that adults did when they wanted to seem less threatening. He stayed silent for a while longer. When he spoke, it was firmly and clearly.
"Michael," he said, "There is nothing in the shed."
"But Dad ... " Michael wanted to explain. His father didn't let him.
"There is nothing in the shed, and you're worrying your mother, and you're angering me. It's bad enough you've taken to wandering the house and the garden in the middle of the night. That's worrying your mother. It's worse that you seem to need to make up stories about it when you're caught where you shouldn't be. That's angering me."
Michael was stunned. He wasn't making up stories at all.
"But Dad," he said again, almost in tears, "There's something in the shed."
"There's nothing in the shed."
This time Mr. Scott's voice was a little louder and a lot firmer. "There's nothing in the shed, and it's late, and I have a big meeting in the morning." Then his voice softened. "We're all tired, Michael, and we all need to go to sleep. We don't need any more excitement for the night, and we don't need any stories about something in the shed."
"But Dad ... " Michael needed to plead his case.
"There's nothing in the shed Michael," his father repeated. Now Michael identified the strange tone in his father's voice from earlier on. It was the tone that parents used when they were willing to listen to what their children were saying but not willing to really hear it. Michael's cause was lost. There was no reasoning with his father tonight.
"I'm sorry, Dad," he mumbled, knowing that this was the right thing to say.
Mr. Scott sighed.
"We'll talk about it tomorrow, Michael, shall we? When we're all less tired."
Michael's mood brightened immediately. This was his father's signal that although he was angry, he still loved his son.
"Now, off to bed with you," Mr. Scott said, "Off to bed with both of us, eh?" He rustled Michael's hair. Michael hated to have his hair mussed, but tonight it was alright.
"Good night Dad," he said, and he started towards the stairway.
"Good night, son," his father said, still standing in the kitchen. Michael realized he hadn't really seen his father's face during their whole conversation. He looked back at it now. His father looked tired and still a little irritated, but he gave Michael a smile.
Michael expected to lay awake for hours, thinking about the night's events. Instead, he fell asleep as soon as his head was on his pillow, still seeing his father's smile.