Trailer lights and campfires dotted the placid lake under a dreamlike view of the Milky Way. A big red star hung low in the East to watch a rare display of northern lights that flickered creating an effect of wavering ghostly essence. Fragrant wind blew fresh and cool on the bucolic prairie with black soil as the group of kids walked to Granny's mail order Sears and Roebuck home. When the eleven-year-old vacationer said goodnight to her grandmother they heard a scratching noise in the wood stove pipe.

"Just a trapped bird... it happens sometimes," Wow said. She opened the stove door, but a bird did not fly out -- it was a bat. The nocturnal animal darted around the room. Grandma opened the front door while waving a forked birch rod her father occasionally used for water witching to shoo it out. The frightened creature flew up Wow's nightgown! She screamed as she ran out to the porch. The bat swooped from under her gown into the night.

At times there was a deafening silence in the country. Arcelia tried to sleep but rhythmic ticking of a pendulum clock rooms away grew so profound it drummed like horse hoofbeats at full gallop. She pulled pillows around her ears to muffle the echoes.