He didn’t need to worry as they stopped well short. The man pointed into the gloom and Sam could see the moonlight glinting off of the windmills. It was beautiful in its way.

“Do you see that?”

“The windmills?”

“Yes. They dance with the wind. They dance in the moon. The wind and the moon dance together.”

Sam didn’t understand any of this but he thought his best chance was to agree with him. “Yes. I never really thought of it like that before.” Pause. “Do you like to watch them at night?”

“Of course. It’s very beautiful. I prefer it when they sing though.”

“Yes, of course.”

“You can hear that then?”

“Well, I mean yes, I hear the wind when it blows.”

“But do you hear it, or do you hear it sing?”
Time to admit the truth. ”I don’t really know what you mean.”

The young man’s shoulders sagged. There had been hope in his voice but all that hope had been dashed. Sam got a sense of immense loneliness.

“Maybe you could explain it to me.”

That didn’t really help at all. “I’ll try but…it seems as if I’m the only one. The only one they talk to.”

“Who?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The wind!”

Sam paused while letting this sink in. “The…wind talks to you?”

Bitterly, “Yes.”

“And what does it say?”

That brought him up short. “It depends. They often talk about their joy of freedom. They sing of it!”

“I guess that makes sense.” Sam was worried that the young man wasn’t all there. He started to wonder if he was dangerous. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to order security to let him handle everything.

“You don’t believe me do you? Just because something is new or different you can’t believe in it!” The moonlight showed two tracks of tears down his face.

“Look, you seem like a good young man so of course I want to believe you. It’s just that I’ve learned to distrust out of the ordinary things. That’s just the way I am. You shouldn’t take it personally.”

“Don’t take it personally? You’re calling me crazy!”

“No. No, I’m not. I just think that you’ve had some experiences that are completely different than anything I’ve ever had. I prefer to go it a little slowly in the belief section.”

Sam hoped that the young man would be mollified by that. It seemed to help a little but not very much.

“You’ll never believe me will you? Especially when I can help you?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘never’. I’m an open minded person. I don’t suppose there is any way to prove this to me, is there?”

“I…don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Fine. Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll let you think about it and see if there is any way to help me hear the wind as you do.”

That definitely helped. The subject was completely set aside for the moment. There were other important and obvious things that still needed to be hammered out. After the silence dragged on for a moment, Sam continued.

“So…you live up here then?”

The boys guard immediately came back up. “Yes. You’re not going to force me out are you? This is where I can hear them the best! Nowhere else has such…communion!”

“Well, I certainly don’t want to force you down but I have a bigger picture to think of here. I can’t have you lurking about scaring the tourists, can I?”

“I’d never do that! I’ve been up here almost six months and no one else has ever seen me. I can keep doing that forever if I have to!”

“Maybe that’s true. It’s not safe though. What would you do if a thunderstorm came through? In fact, what do you do?”

“I know a safe place. It does tickle when the lightning strikes though. Are you really going to kick me out? Are you going to send me into exile?”

Sam knew that this was the smart thing to do. He just didn’t want to be the bad guy here. How could he tell him that he had to go? This obviously meant so much to him. Maybe he should find out more about where he’d been living. Maybe something would give him an ironclad reason to oust him.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to let you stay up here. Maybe you should tell me more about your living arrangements. Tell me why you’re safe up here and out of the way. Convince me.” That put the ball back in the other court very nicely. “Actually, before you tell me anything else, how about telling me your name?”