“But why should I go further? He’s waiting for me there.”

Alice ran out into the garden. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. I did not want to enter into her fantasy world. If she wanted, let her surround herself with apparitions and wizards and enchanted nights, good giants from the magic blue planet… Just so long as she would go to bed on time and eat normally.

I lowered the lights on the veranda so I could keep an eye on Alice better in the darkness. So I watched as she ran up to the apple tree, an old tree with mighty branches, and she stood beneath it.

And then… A blue shadow separated itself from the apple tree’s trunk and moved to meet my daughter. The shadow swam through the air, not touching the ground. The next moment, grabbing something heavy for a club I had already jumped down the three steps to the lawn. I didn’t like it at all. Either it was some sort of really dumb joke, or… It was the ‘or’ that I didn’t want to even think about…

“Be careful, papa!” Alice said in a loud whisper. She had heard my heavy steps. “You’ll frighten him!”

I grabbed Alice by the hand. In front of me a blue silhouette came apart like mist.

“Papa, what you’ve done! And I almost saved him!”

Alice howled shamefully while I carried her back to the terrace.

What was that thing beneath the apple tree? A hallucination?

“Why did you do it, Papa?” Alice howled. “You promised…”

“I didn’t do anything.” I answered. “Apparitions do not exist.”

“You saw him yourself. Why won’t you speak the truth? He can’t stand it when the air moves. Don’t you understand you have to come up to him slow so not to make a wind?”

I really did not know how to answer her. Of one thing I was certain, as soon as Alice fell asleep I was going out into the garden with a flash light to take a look.