As I told you last week, Fred my cottage ghost and his kitty companion Jasper returned from their visit over the hill into the next river valley with another ghost kitty named Alice. It was quiet around here while they were gone. Any sounds from ice sliding off our roof were not accompanied by the shouting of Fred and Jasper as they tobogganed down the roof along with the icicles. Alice, I’ve found, is not as adventurous as the other two. She took a slide or two and then decided she preferred to be inside annoying my rescue cat, Marley who doesn’t like girls and isn’t pleased to be sharing his house with her and her friends. But he’s adjusting. When she bats his tail around too often, he curls it under him in his fluffy-puffy (his cat pillow) and keeps it out of her way.

It looks as if the weeks of bitter cold punctuated by an increase in temperature enough to snow for two or three days may be ending for this week, at least. Today the sun is shining, it’s 25 degrees out, hubby is shoveling, and I’ve shooed the ghosts outside to build snowmen, hurl snowballs at one another or chase bean pods across the crusted snow when the wind blows. Marley has only ever been outside twice in his life and only for a few minutes each. He jumped toward an open screen-covered window down in Florida, broke through the screen and found himself all alone outside. I opened the door, and he came running in with a howl of fear. The second time was also in Florida and much like the first. The back door to the house came open and he walked outside, then seemed to find it not to be what he wanted. That brought him sailing back into the house again. Now he is totally uninterested in the outside as a place for him. He does like to look out at the snow, but it’s clear he would be horrified if he ever found himself in the middle of it.

Fred told me this morning that he’s bored. I guess icicle riding is exciting only for a few days, then it loses its charm even for a ghost who has little else to do if the owners of the house he’s haunting are not frightened by his antics. He said he might take the week and pay a visit to a farm down the road where he once had been hired to help milk cows (pre ghost days, of course).

“I hope you don’t plan to frighten the cows there. They might stop giving milk and the poor farmer would lose the money he needs to support his family.” I know farmers around here struggle to make a living and frightening a cow wouldn’t help milk production.

Fred gave me one of his I-can’t-believe-you’re-so-naïve looks. “You don’t know anything about ghosts, do you?”

“Other than you and your companions, I’ve had no contact with the spirit world, uh, that I know of.”

“Cows don’t mind ghosts. Most animals don’t.”

“Marley does. He’s not crazy about you and Jasper, and he despises Alice, so I guess that proves you wrong about animals and ghosts.”

“Disliking ghosts is like any other form of prejudice,” said Fred. “It has to be taught and learned. If you hadn’t taught Marley to dislike us, he’d be fine with having us around.”

I looked over at Marley curled in his fluffy-puffy. “Are you listening to this conversation?” I asked.

He opened one yellow eye, shot a look at Fred and me, got up to reposition himself and shook his furry gray head. “I don’t mind ghosts unless they do annoying things like making noise when I’m trying to sleep. As for Alice, she’s a girl and I’m not real crazy about girls even when they’re quiet.”

Fred laughed, at least I thought it was a laugh. With a ghost, you never can tell. “I think Marley’s got a crush on Alice, and he’s playing hard to get.”

Fred disappeared out the door. I shouted after him. “Don’t bring home any more little friends. No cows, no pigs, and especially no more cats.”

“How about a dog?”

Marley abruptly sat up and growled.

“That’s a no,” I said.