'Already? That was certainly quick of him.' 'He's a terribly industrious young chap. Anyhow,' Tom carried on, 'apart from digging up a huge list of names of famous people who believe in reincarnation—everyone from Plato to Voltaire—he also managed to find the official religious line on the matter, in both the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. Pages of information, really. The basic theory runs that the human soul is sent back to live on earth again and again until it has learned the lessons necessary to pass into a higher state of being.'

'And what lessons are those?'

'It doesn't specify. There is the law of karma, which says that what you do in one life affects what happens in your future lives, so if you're a real schmuck in this life, you'll have a miserable time in the next. But of course,' Tom qualified, in his usual rational way, 'that's just the religious angle. There's a lot of investigative research here that supports the phenomenon of reincarnation without delving into the religious aspects.'

'Investigative research?' I echoed. 'You're pulling my leg.' 'No, really.' I could hear the sound of shuffling papers in the background. 'Some people are dead serious on this. For example, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia has collected seventeen hundred cases of people who have conscious memories of past lives. Mostly young children, who say out of the blue that they were so-and-so in a past life, and can identify their former homes and even their former friends and spouses. Very strange stuff. There's a fascinating case from India ...' He coughed, and the papers rustled again. 'But I digress. The other main body of research seems to come from hypnotherapists, if you believe in that sort of thing. They've regressed literally thousands of people into the past, and found that most people were just ordinary folk living ordinary lives. Oh, here's an interesting bit. This is an article on spontaneous recall of past lives, and it says that the people in the study all reported hearing a ringing in their ears, accompanied by a sensation of dizziness, just before the incident occurred. Sound familiar?'

'It sounds like you've got quite a bit of material, there,' I commented, trying to ignore the faint shiver that swept across my skin.

'Reams of it,' Tom concurred. 'Listen, why don't I send you the whole packet and let you read it for yourself, instead of rambling on over the telephone?'

'Fine. You've got my address, have you?'

'Somewhere.'

Not trusting my brother's memory, I gave it to him again, and listened to the scratching of his pen as he wrote it down. When we resumed our conversation, he seemed as disappointed as I was that nothing had happened since my return.

'Nothing at all?' he checked. 'Not even an unusual dream?'

'I haven't had any dreams, that I remember.'

'Maybe you're trying too hard.'

'I'm not doing it on purpose, Tom.' My voice was clipped and short-tempered. 'I'm just as eager to have something happen as you are, you know.'

'I know. Sorry.' Even through the telephone line, I could sense his smile. 'Rather funny, when you come to think of it.'

'What is?'

'Well, on Monday you were upset because things were happening, and now we're both upset because they aren't]

'Oh, I see. Well, it doesn't feel very funny from this end. It feels rather ominous, if you must know.'

'The calm before the storm?'

'More like ... like I'm being watched,' I told him. 'Like somebody's standing behind me, watching me. And waiting.'

'Waiting for what, do you think?'

f shook my head, not caring that he couldn't see the gesture. 'I don't know. I don't suppose you have any useful suggestions in that bundle of information you got from the librarian?'

'Not really, no.' He flipped through the papers again. 'Oh, but there were a couple of other statements I thought you'd find interesting....'

'Yes?'

'There seems to be a lot of evidence that we surround ourselves with the same people in each life—that your father in one life becomes your friend in the next, and so on. They're sometimes referred to as soul mates, those people to whom you take an instant liking without really knowing why.'

'So you could have been my brother in a past life.'

'Or your husband,' Tom teased. 'Or your son. Or your daughter, come to that. Sex doesn't appear to remain constant from one lifetime to another.'

'All right.' I accepted the information. 'And what was the other point you thought would interest me?'

'Ah,' Tom said. 'Well, the next bit is a little touchy, but ... most of the people involved in one of the studies said that they had actually chosen to be reborn; that they had sort of stayed in limbo, if you like, until an opportune moment presented itself.'

'So?'

'So you said that this ghost, this Green Lady in your garden, hasn't been seen by anybody for about thirty years?'

'That's what I'm told.'

'And has it never occurred to you,' Tom said slowly, 'that it was about thirty years ago that you were born?'

*-*-*-*

Tread lightly, she is near.... The words sprang, naturally and unbidden, to my troubled mind as I stood alone in the walled churchyard, gazing down at the overgrown grave of Mariana Farr. The poem was an old one, by Oscar Wilde. I'd had to memorize it once at school, and even now, years later, I could still remember the final, haunting line: All my life's buried here, Heap earth upon it.