1953…

"Have you heard the stories about that farm two properties away from here?" asked Wanda.

Wanda slept in the room next to Ann O’Malley's.

"I have heard about it," said Ann.

"The whole family says that they have seen this glowing ghost walking around in one of the paddocks. They've moved all their sheep into another paddock now. They're too scared to let anything in the paddock where the ghost was."

"Ghost, they think," said Ann.

"Well a bright glowing man shape walking around in the paddock at night. They're all too frightened to do anything."

"I'm not, but if I am this close to home, I must not take a chance on being recognized. I shall  have to wear my mask as well as my costume, but I will take a look at that 'ghost' tonight," thought Ann.

*          *          *          *

Evening came and Ann waited for her chance to leave the orphanage unnoticed. When everyone seemed to be sleeping, she quietly unlocked her cupboard, using a key, which she would keep hidden inside an ornament, which could attach to her left bracelet. She took out her costume and mask, and slipped into them, discarding her bedclothes. Once she was dressed, she whispered to Wendell that it was OK to look, and he came out and joined her for their departure from the orphanage building.

"Another good thing about the hush between the eights is that nobody, not even the staff can open my door while I am supposed to be asleep between those times (eight pm and eight am) or enjoying quiet reading, or early morning quiet activities. It's a good thing that the hush rule still happens in the holidays."

She locked the door, replaced the key in the ornament, closed the ornament and attached it to her bracelet.

"I am also glad that my doors have small keys," she thought as she stepped out and sat on the ledge of the open window. She unfolded the anti-gravity triangles and used the controls on her bracelets to float off the ledge and down to the garden below.

The masked young adventuress walked quietly out to the oval, crossed its rich grass and disappeared into the Freedom Fields forest until she came to a small clearing.

There she met Wildstar, the fabulous spaceship with its robot pilot Butler One, a mobile computer armed with lasers, stun beams and an extensive memory bank assisted by retractable probes.

Ann boarded the spaceship and instructed the robot to make Wildstar's shortest ever flight, to land two properties away from Freedom Fields. The robot complied.

"Good. We have some trees between us and the house. You're coming into the next paddock with me, Butler One. Float! It's quieter that way."

They left the spaceship, and Ann noticed several sleeping sheep.

"I am glad that you picked a free patch of grass to land on," said Ann.

"I assumed that you would not wish me to crush any sheep, Miss O’Malley," said Butler One.

"And we'll just float harmlessly over them and into the next-"

Ann stopped her sentence and stared in astonishment.

"There it is, the glowing man!"
"I observe a human shaped light silhouette only, Miss O’Malley. What you see is not solid."

"Let's set down beside it."

Ann floated to the ground and ran towards the glowing man. She found herself running straight through him.

"He's just like a disco light. Extend your probe towards him and see if you can work out what he is, Butler One."

The robot's probe arm passed through the glowing man, and Butler One said, "This being, by its behaviour appears to be alive but in a form of light which is intangible to us."

“Maybe he’s from earth-D somehow,” said Wendell.

“His mouth is attempting speech, but we are unable to hear anything, Miss O’Malley."

"And he keeps pacing around with his hands moving in unusual ways. Can you work out what he's trying to say, Butler One?"

"I can attempt to analyze the repeated pattern of the lip movements that we have noticed, Miss O’Malley. If I combine this analysis with a study of his gestures, I may be able to comprehend the light being's behaviour."

"Well try it then, while I have a float around the farm. I'm going to look for other clues that might explain this. There might be someone projecting it from somewhere, to trick the people in that house and scare them."

"Impossible, Miss O’Malley. My analysis already confirms that this light being is not being projected from another source. It exists of its own accord."

"Well I'll still have a look around. Go to work Butler One."

"Yes Miss O’Malley."

Ann floated around the farm, paying special attention to the windows of the house.

"They all have their curtains drawn, even the windows on the far side," she noticed, "They must be really scared. Still, it means that they cannot see us."