Chapter 13

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Everything proceeded without further incident, other than my continuing to notice manifestations of nine: nine cars in a parking lot, nine blue bottles in an apartment window, that sort of thing. I wrote it all down, carrying the notebook with me. But the process became one of regularity and I continued to be agnostic in my view on these manifestations. And finally, the day of my birthday dawned, and I lay in my bed and looked out the window, seeing blue sky broken with small tufts of cloud. As I lay there, out of habit I counted the clouds framed by the window.

There were nine.

I froze for a moment, and then began to laugh at myself. It was so silly!

“Spooks,” I said, and got up.