How it opens
Eseldorf was a drowsing Austrian village in 1702, and you were Theodor Fischer, fourteen, and bored to the pitch of legend.
The one excitement in your sky was the ruined castle, where nobody went, because of its ghosts, of which it owned a full set.
Do not mind me. I saw you from above and came down. Boys are the only conversation worth the walk.
Nikolaus BaumannYou came through the wall.
The wall stood in the shortest line. Walls are a habit, not a law.
Choose
Ask him his name, as the oldest of you, and the one with the most to lose.
Ask him if he is the castle's ghost, the one with the lantern.
Ask him where he comes from, a question your grandmother taught you for strangers.