"Good Lord," he muttered to himself. "I must really be beat this time."
He was thankful he'd forgone the stiff drink he'd thought about having. Better to see ghostly little girls than pink elephants. He began to sink back down, eyelids drifting shut.
But no, there she was again, this time shimmying up his tree, her gown fluttering in the breeze. He frowned.
That was his tree, wasn't it? Some kind of fruit tree.
Apricot, maybe. He never paid any attention to it, letting the gardener take the fruit he wanted, and throwing out the rest. And now it contained one ghostly little girl.
Unless he was seeing things.
His gaze sharpened and he tried to wake up enough to concentrate. Something told him this was no vision. Visions didn't eat apricots. This had to be a real little girl.
Suddenly there was another child, a towheaded boy built like a fireplug, also in white. The child stopped and gazed about the yard and Scott could have sworn his eyes gleamed with an unearthly light. Then he, too, disappeared, only to reappear shimmying up the tree.
Scott frowned and shook his head to clear it. One part of his brain was telling him to close his eyes and ignore the children---they were figments of his imagination that would soon go away.
Another part of his brain was trying to rouse him, to warn him his territory was being invaded, that it was time to rise and defend his land from interlopers.
He moved restlessly in the water, not sure which impulse to follow. After all, he hadn't been home for two weeks. If a small family of wandering ghostly children had decided to take up residence in his yard, so be it. They didn't seem to be hurting anything. As long as they kept the noise level down…
No, wait. There was a third child. This one moved on terribly unsteady and very bowed little chubby legs.
And this one saw him.
He stopped, standing very still, dressed only in diapers, and then he raised a chubby hand and pointed at Scott.
"Aga doo," the toddler seemed to say.
"Beanie!" cried a voice from the tree. "Go home! Go home now!"
"Aga doo," the youngest repeated, pointing in Scott's direction again and seemingly frustrated that no one was paying attention to his warning. "Aga!"
Scott sighed. There was no use kidding himself, no use hoping this was all a midnight mirage. It was obviously a toddler invasion. He was going to have to rouse himself to do something about it.
Any minute now.
"Beanie."
This time the voice was adult and coming from the neighboring yard. Scott's head swivelled and he waited, sure the owner of the voice would appear out of nowhere, just as the others had.