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“I might have to invest in some of those rubber hip-waders, then. It didn’t look like
those frogs could jump very high.”
“That’s a good idea, until they get down in your boots and you can’t get them out.”
“You make a good point,” Rondeau said.
The trip back through folded space was quicker than the trip in, as was often the case.
She and Rondeau passed over the bridge, which was flickering and fading from view,
but still solid underfoot. They stepped out of the shimmer of obscurement, into ordinary
air.
Bradley Bowman was there, sitting on a white-and-red checked blanket in the grass just
ten feet away, reading a yellowed paperback with the cover torn off. He looked up,
shaded his eyes, and nodded.
“Hi there,” he said. “I hear you need to see a man about a frog.”
Marla stared at him, this ignorant seer with his fuzzy dreams and annoying persistence,
and then began to laugh. “Yes,” she said, eventually, when she was done laughing. “I
do.”
Bradley stood up, bundling his blanket into a wad under one arm. “Come on, then,” he
said. “We have to go across the bay.”
9
B radley and Rondeau sat slumped in the train car, while Marla stood holding a
handrail. “How did you know where to find us this morning?” she asked. “Another
dream?”
B shook his head. “I consulted a—I think it was the ghost of a demon—that I found in a
Dumpster, and it told me to find you at a sweet red hill in a lake—Strawberry Hill. I had
another dream, too, but this time it was about you, looking at a dead frog through a
magnifying glass, then smashing the glass in frustration. So I had some idea of what you
needed help with.” He shrugged. “I know where you can find out about frogs, so I
thought I’d better come find you.”
Marla nodded. “These dreams—you interpret them yourself?”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Not always. There’s a…spirit I consult.”
“The one in the Dumpster?”
“No, a different one. Lives in a sewer grate. Except it doesn’t ‘live’ exactly. ‘Haunts’
might be a better term.”