So she had stopped talking about her friends, and when her mother oh-so-casually asked about them, had lied without a blink. Did she still see children dressed as if they had stepped out of an old movie, children who seemingly walked through walls and whose laughter and voices only she could hear?

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not Madison.

Mama wouldn't be mad at her if she told the truth, she knew that, didn't she?

She knew it. But Madison had discovered even in her young life that there was truth... and then there was truth. And she had learned that some truths were better kept to herself.

Besides, she didn't always see the other children. Never at home, in their almost-new house near the ocean. And seldom at the homes of other family or her "real" friends. Just, mostly, at places like The Lodge, old places.

She liked The Lodge, even though there was a sad feeling to some of the rooms and parts of the grounds. She loved the gardens, where, she had discovered the previous day, it was possible to walk for hours with her little Yorkie, Angelo, and not be scolded by the gardeners for trampling the flowers.

Where the other children liked to play.

It was still very early when she was allowed to excuse herself from the breakfast table and left her parents to finish their meal on the veranda while she and Angelo went off to explore the gardens they hadn't got to the previous day.

"Don't go outside the fence, Madison," her mother warned.

"I won't, Mama. Come on, Angelo."

The Lodge provided a little postcard map of the gardens, and Madison consulted that as she and her attentive companion paused just out of sight of the veranda. Rose Garden, she'd seen that yesterday after they'd arrived here. And the greenhouse. She'd also seen the Rock Garden the previous day. But she hadn't seen the Zen Garden, and that certainly sounded like something worth seeing.