Chad slowed his truck as he approached the intersection. I think this is the turnoff, he thought. He came to a full stop and pulled out the worn, folded-up piece of paper from his pocket. Collinwood Cutoff, he read, checking it against the road sign. This is it, all right, he thought as he folded up the paper again and stuffed it back into his pocket. He turned right, dropping the truck into low gear and stepping on the gas. The road inclined sharply, as it led further into the mountains.

Chad had driven this very same route—when? Was it only a week ago? It was hard to believe. Looking around him at the surrounding countryside, he found it difficult to relate it to his earlier trip this way. The last time he’d been this way, it was a dark, windy night. Now, however, it was broad daylight, a clear, pleasant Saturday afternoon, very different from the Halloween Night which had last brought him up this way.

He paid little attention to the landmarks during that trip, as he hadn’t planned on ever returning to the secluded, vacant hotel where the Halloween party had been held. Things had changed, however, and he now felt compelled to return. He could only vaguely remember where it was located, but fortunately he still had the hand-drawn map he’d been given for the party, with its complete directions on how to find the place.

As he drove, Chad wondered exactly why he was coming back. What did he expect to find? Was it only to set his own mind at ease, to convince himself that the strange events of that Halloween night were just a dream after all? Somehow, he doubted it could be quite that simple. For one thing, other people besides himself had witnessed strange events that night: a handful of stragglers who had remained long after the party itself was over. And after that night, Chad checked back with these people, and they confirmed that, yes they had seen the same, strange things that Chad had seen.

So he knew it wasn’t a dream; it apparently did really happen. But—as for an explanation, Chad was still unsatisfied. That night, that very late Halloween night, his thought processes were so impaired by sleepiness and the altitude, that he found it very easy at the time to accept the idea of an invisible woman. Later on, however, when he was wide awake and thinking clearly, it was no longer quite so easy a notion to accept. An invisible woman? he thought. Give me a break… There’s got to be another explanation…

But suppose there wasn’t? Suppose he really had met an invisible woman that night, one who, if she were to be believed, owned the strange hotel and lived there? If that were the case, then Chad knew he’d have to try and learn more about her.

These thoughts stayed with Chad the rest of the week following the party. He found himself quite unable to think of anything else, in fact, either at work or at home. His thoughts continually drifted back to the mysterious, enigmatic, fantasy female he had met and gotten to know that night, first as "Phantom Femme," then later as simply "Donna," an otherwise normal woman who, for reasons unknown, had somehow become invisible. He had to know for sure whether she was real or only a figment of his imagination.

From his friend Dan, Chad obtained the business phone number for the hotel, and had tried calling it repeatedly, but all he ever got was a recorded message. He’d called back several times, leaving messages with his name and number, even calling Donna by name, asking her to please call him back. None of these calls were ever returned.

So by the end of the week, Chad was nearly beside himself with frustration. By now, he began to reconsider the whole thing and began to wonder if maybe it was all just a dream after all. He had to find out the truth once and for all, so he decided to return to the mysterious hotel the next day, which was a Saturday, and just knock on the door, ring the doorbell and do whatever else he could to find out the truth.

And now here he was, driving up the winding mountain road to the mysterious hotel. For some reason, the trip seemed to go much faster in the daytime. The brightly-sunlit forests and meadows bordering the mountain road looked very different from the dark, gloomy, wind-swept forests of only a week before. But Chad barely took notice of them; so involved was he in his own private thoughts.

Before long, he began to recognize landmarks, even though they looked very different in daylight from what he remembered them. Soon, he approached the gravel driveway which led to the hotel. He slowed the truck and turned into it.

The driveway led to a large, gravel parking-lot, which had been packed on the night of the party, but was now completely empty. Chad parked his truck, switched off the engine and stepped outside. He looked up at the vacant hotel. Just as he remembered, it was hideous; if anything, it was even uglier in daylight than it was at nighttime. Chad shook his head in aesthetic shock: the building looked like a cross between something the Addams Family might live in, combined with Pee-Wee Herman’s Playhouse. Who the hell would design such a nutty building? Chad wondered. The architect must have been on a real bender when he dreamed up this place!!

Then Chad remembered something that Donna had said, about the building having once been a fancy hotel before her father bought it, at which time he had done extensive renovations to the building. Chad also recalled Donna saying that her father was also somewhat eccentric. Looking at the numerous quirks, follies and bizarre anachronisms which adorned the building, Chad had no doubt in his mind that Donna’s father must have designed the renovations himself. He made a mental note to himself not to comment on the ghastly appearance of the building when in Donna’s presence, or she might take offense.

That is, of course, assuming that Donna herself really exists, he quickly reminded himself.

Chad walked across the parking-lot up to the huge, ugly building, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. Off to one side stood a sign-post, which read:

Available for lease for parties, receptions, business meetings. Call…

And displayed the same phone number that Chad had gotten to know so well, after having dialed it so many times during the past week.

Chad stepped briskly up the steps of the hotel. He tried the front door; it was locked. He knocked loudly and pressed his ear against the glass window of the front door, listening for sounds of anyone inside. All he heard were the echoes of his knockings reverberating throughout the empty building. He waited for several minutes and knocked again. Still nothing.

Chad then noticed a doorbell. He pressed the button and heard a bell ringing from some distant location within the building. He rang it a couple of times, and held it down a good long time, just for good measure, and waited.

But there was still no answer, no response of any kind.

Chad looked around, to his left and right. The porch extended to either side of the building, becoming a verandah, extending along either side of the building, all the way to the back. Chad started walking down the verandah, occasionally looking in windows as he went, lightly tapping on the glass, and trying an occasional locked door. All without any noticeable result of any kind. The only sound he heard was that of the boards creaking beneath his footsteps and the wind gently rustling the trees.

As he walked, however, he thought he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, a very brief, slight movement, of a lace curtain in one of the windows parting, as though moved aside by someone inside, looking out. Chad quickly turned back and tapped on the glass.

"Hello?" he called. "Donna? Are you in there?" he paused, listening. "Is there anyone in there? Anyone at all?"

Silence.

Reluctantly, he turned and continued walking along the verandah.

Finally, he approached a pair of French doors, and opposite them, a short distance away from the building, was a courtyard, in the midst of a heavily-overgrown garden. To one side of the courtyard sat a small garden bench. Chad stopped short as he recognized the location: It was there that Donna had removed her mask that night, revealing the truth about herself. Chad felt his blood begin to race, though whether from the recalled shock of the incident or from excitement at the additional proof that it wasn’t all a dream, he didn’t know. He stepped down the two steps to the courtyard, walked over and sat down on the bench. He recalled again the events of that strange night, sitting on that same bench, beside his mysterious escort of the evening. He looked over to the area of the courtyard where he had passed out. A shudder ran through him, and he got up and walked back to the verandah.

Chad continued walking and eventually found that he had come full circle around the building, and now found himself back at the front door. Yet he still hadn’t seen any sign of a living soul anywhere. The place appeared to be completely deserted. Silence hung heavy in the air. The only sound he heard was the gentle rustle of the trees blowing in the wind, but nothing more.

Chad began to feel very uneasy, as the heavy solitude of the location began to press in on him. What the hell am I doing here? he thought. I must be out of my mind… He turned and quickly descended the front steps of the hotel, then stopped and turned around to look up at the building one last time. The many windows of the architectural nightmare seemed to stare out at him. A sudden chill ran down Chad’s spine, in spite of the warm, Indian-Summer climate. He had the eerie sensation that he was being watched.

I gotta get out of here! he thought as he turned away again.

He was just about to take a step back to his truck, when a woman’s voice suddenly spoke to him, from close by:

"What do you want?" it asked. "Why did you come back here?"

Chad nearly jumped out of his skin and let out a squawk. He looked all around him with widened eyes, to find the owner of the voice. But there was no one there; he seemed to be completely alone. In spite of his shock, Chad immediately recognized the voice. He had heard that voice in his thoughts many, many times over the past week, ceaselessly echoing over and over again in his memory, like an endless recording. He had almost reached the point of thinking of it as a dream; the fact that it was now here and real only increased his shock.

"D-D-Donna?" Chad asked cautiously, continuing to look all around him. "Is-Is that you?"

"Of course," the voice answered, evenly.

"Wh-where are you?"

The voice let out a short sigh, followed by a gentle chuckle. "Why do people always say that? In movies or TV shows with an invisible person, somebody always says ‘Where are you?’ It’s so stupid. Because if I say, ‘Here I am,’ does it really help you any? No, because then you’d say, ‘Where?’ And then I’d say ‘here’ and we’d go through the whole routine again."

The voice paused. "Anyway, to answer your question, I’m about three feet in front of you, just slightly to your right. I’ve been following right behind you for some time now. I saw you arrive from an upstairs window, recognized you at once and when I heard you banging on the door and ringing the bell, I decided to follow you & see what you were up to."

"Why didn’t you just answer the door?"

"Maybe I like my privacy; did you ever think of that?"

Chad was struck silent; the truth was, that possibility had never even occurred to him. Moreover, he wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected a slight trace of hostility in Donna’s voice, nothing at all like what he’d expected. Although…now that he thought about it, he didn’t really know what he expected. Maybe…maybe Donna was just…being cautious. That could be, Chad thought. After all, with her being invisible and essentially alone for almost her whole life, it was probably second-nature to her by now to be wary and distrustful of strangers. Although Chad felt a bit hurt that she should still regard him as a stranger. He was just about to apologize for intruding, when Donna spoke first.

"Anyway, what you doing here?" she asked. "What do you want?"

"Oh! Well, I—I came back to see you—I mean—" he caught himself too late. "I—I wanted to talk to you."

"What about?" The distrustful tone in her voice still remained.

"Well, just—you know, things."

An awkward silence followed, and Chad felt extremely uncomfortable, both from the circumstances of feeling like an intruder, as well as the odd experience of having a rather cold conversation with thin air. Chad waited out the silence as long as he could before he felt the need to say something.

"I—I tried calling you. I called that phone number," he said, pointing at the sign. "And I left messages. I’d—I’d hoped you’d call me back."

"Why?"

"Well, I just—" he hesitated, then dropped his voice. "I told you: I wanted to talk to you." he said softly.

Another long silence followed. The level of uneasiness continued to rise within Chad. This was so bizarre; here he was, way out in the boondocks, standing in front of a hideous eyesore of a building, talking to a disembodied, female voice, like a ghost. Looking around at the deserted, empty hotel grounds, he knew that somewhere out there was a woman, a naked invisible woman, standing there, watching him from somewhere. He still could hardly believe it, even though he knew it was true.

"Um—" Chad tried again, now beginning to break into a nervous sweat. "Look, I can—I can see I—I guess I got you at a bad time." he said. "I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you, I… I guess I’d better be going now," he said, turning away.

"Wait a minute," the disembodied voice said, only now much closer to him. It seemed as though it were right next to him. Closer…and yet slightly softer, as well. "You said you wanted to talk to me. What did you want to say?"

Chad turned to face where it sounded like Debbie was standing. He stared hard into space, as if doing so would somehow reveal a face to go along with the voice. He felt that he should be able to see someone there…even though there was no one.

He swallowed. Might as well stake it all on one throw, he thought.

"Well, I just thought," he hesitated. "I just thought that we—you know, I thought we were friends…" He swallowed dryly. "And that I’d…I’d pay you a visit. I’d like to maybe visit you more in the future."

Another long silence followed. This one was broken by Donna’s voice, now sounding very small.

"You sure waited long enough," she said. There was no mistaking the hurt in her voice. "A whole week you waited."

So that’s it, Chad thought. "Well, I’m sorry, but—well, you know, this is a long drive for me from where I live. And anyway, I did call that number. Didn’t you get any of the messages I left?"

She paused before answering. "Yes."

"Then why didn’t you call back?" Chad asked gently. He took a step closer to where the voice seemed to come from. "I really did want to talk to you, you know. I didn’t forget you."

A brief pause followed, before Donna responded.

"I didn’t forget you, either." she said. "I did nothing but think about you, for days after that party. I wrote about you in my diary, and…well, I just couldn’t stop thinking about you, and—and what a wonderful time we had together and…" her voice trailed off.

"I—I couldn’t stop thinking about you, either," Chad said after a pause. "I thought about how—how unique and really special you are. And—"

"Did you?" Donna said, her tone changing slightly. "Or did you only think of me as the creepy little ghost-girl who scared you?" Her voice remained quiet, but now contained a somewhat petulant tone. "To be forgotten about just as soon as you got back to your safe little home? Is that it?"

"No, no, of course not!" Chad quickly countered. "Like I told you that night, and I’m telling you now: I want to be your friend." Chad took another step forward. He decided to press his luck and reached a hand out. He groped for a moment before his fingers made contact with soft warm skin. It felt like a slender arm. Chad gingerly reached down until he felt a small, delicate hand; he gently squeezed it in his own.

"I didn’t forget about you." he said quietly. "How could I? You’re the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met in my entire life. And I’d—" he paused. "I’d like to get to know you better."

At this, he felt the hand start to pull away from him, as if in alarm. "No, no, I didn’t mean—" he hastened to add. "I just meant…that I’d like to get to know you as a person, as a friend. Really…" he said.

"I—I’m sorry," Donna’s voice said. "It’s just that—I’ve been alone for so long… I’m afraid I’m not—" she hesitated. "It’s a little hard for me to trust people, feel comfortable around them. I’m always afraid of someone finding out about me, and what might happen as a result."

"I know, I know," Chad said, trying to reassuring. Truth was, he didn’t know; he couldn’t even begin to imagine what such an existence must have been like, to have lived with such a fear, day after day, for one’s entire life. "But as I said, I’m your friend. You can trust me; I’ll never give your secret away to anyone."

Which was true, Chad suddenly realized. After all, he thought, even if he did feel inclined to tell someone, who would believe him?

"You must be very lonely up here, all by yourself." he went on. "I’m—I’m sure you could use a friend…couldn’t you?"

Donna said nothing, but Chad could almost sense a tiny smile on her face. "I’d like to come up and visit you more often," he said, trying to guess where her eyes were and to look into them. "And then…maybe later…you know…more can develop between us…in time…"

He raised his hand up and, after awkwardly groping around at the air for a moment or two, his fingers found Donna’s chin, and he raised it, as though to look into her eyes, eyes that he couldn’t see. He held her cheeks gently in his fingertips, and he felt that he could at least imagine a face there.

Chad somehow felt that Donna’s manner had softened somewhat, and as she gently pulled away from Chad, this new softness was apparent in her voice. "You said you had a long drive. Would you…" she began, hesitantly, almost shyly. "Would you care to come inside for a drink?" Chad felt an unseen hand gently, almost timidly, tugging at his own.

"Sure," he said, allowing the hand to lead him back up the steps of the hotel. He took special care to take small strides, allowing a generous distance between himself and his unseen guide, so as not to accidentally step on her bare feet. The hand suddenly released his at the locked front door.

"Wait right here," Donna’s voice said. "I have to go in my own, secret way. Then I’ll come back and let you in." Her voice seemed to move away from him down the verandah.

"Why can’t I come with you?" Chad said, taking a step.

"No!" Donna’s voice said firmly. "I told you: I have to use my own private entrance. Don’t follow me."

Chad decided not to press the issue, and remained where he stood. He waited for about a minute or so, when he was suddenly startled by the sound of the front door unlocking and opening by itself.

"Come on in," Donna’s voice said from within as the door opened wide. Chad stepped in, giving wide berth to his unseen host. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you," Donna said, closing the door. "But I can’t be too careful. I don’t want anyone to know where my secret entrance is, not even you. It’s for my use only, while I’m…you know, when I’m walking around like this. I can’t risk using the front door. Even though there aren’t too many people who come by this place anymore, except by accident, I can’t take any chances of someone seeing the front door opening and closing by itself."

"But you opened it just now, for me." Chad pointed out.

"That’s different. Besides, if anyone was looking, it would most likely look as if you opened the door yourself. Anyway," she said, taking his hand again. "Let’s not talk about it anymore. Let me get you that drink."

Again, Chad allowed Donna to lead him down the corridors of the vacant hotel. Seeing its empty interior in the daytime was an eerie experience for Chad. He remembered it from the week before, when the Halloween party was in full swing and the place was packed with people. Now, in the daylight, completely deserted, it was eerily quiet, almost oppressively so. Chad tried not to think about it…but the thought briefly crossed his mind that if he had to live all alone in such a creepy place, he’d probably go nuts.

"My place is this way," Donna said, leading Chad up a flight of stairs. "It’s three flights up."

"Doesn’t this place have an elevator?" Chad asked.

"It has three. But none of them work, and I don’t have the money to get them fixed. Anyway, I don’t really need an elevator. There’s just me living here, all alone, and I can just as easily use the stairs."

Donna led Chad up three flights of stairs, past two floors of vacant rooms, to an isolated fourth-floor tower, where, Donna explained, she kept a suite for her living quarters and office. When they arrived at the door, Chad found himself quite winded.

"Whew!" he said, catching his breath. "You climb all those stairs every day? Sheesh! You must get all the exercise you need on those things! Man, I’m pooped!"

Donna laughed. "It’s the altitude that’s got you so winded." she said. "I grew up here, so I guess I’m just acclimated to it."

The door to the suite opened wide by itself. Instinctively, Chad stepped back.

"Won’t you step inside?" Donna said. Her voice now came from over there, when he thought she was over here. God, that is so creepy… he thought.

"Go on," Donna said. "It’s all right, go ahead."

Chad took a few hesitant steps into the room. Inside, he looked around him, at the room with its sparse, but comfortable furnishings. A sofa with a little coffee-table in front, an easy-chair, a little dining-room set, a small television, a bookcase with some books and a compact stereo made up the sum-total of Donna’s apparent worldly possessions.

"Hey, this is a really nice place you’ve got here," Chad said, looking around at the immense, nearly-empty room.

"Thanks," Donna said, closing the door. It’s actually bigger than I really need, though. I only decided to live here because of the view. Check out the windows."

Chad crossed to a window and looked around. Donna was right: the view was incredible. He could not only see the grounds surrounding the hotel, including the parking-lot, but he could also see for miles around in any direction. He could see quite a bit of the long, winding road he’d just driven up, and looking beyond, he saw the valley, far, far below. He tried to guess where his tiny apartment was, somewhere far below in that incredible landscape that lay before him.

"This way I have a bird’s-eye view of everything." Donna went on. "If anybody comes up this way, from any direction, I know about it long before they get here. Which gives me time to hide or otherwise prepare for visitors, if I have to. And on the rare occasion when I do have visitors, like when I rent this place out for parties or business meetings or whatever, here I have a nice, quiet, out-of-the-way private place of my own, with no one to disturb me. And I have a little office over there, too," she motioned to a side-door, forgetting for a moment that Chad couldn’t see her pointing. "Where I conduct my business affairs. You know, managing this place, such as it is. Anyway, have a seat." An unseen hand gave Chad a gentle nudge toward the sofa. He walked over to it and sat down, slightly afraid of accidentally bumping into his unseen hostess.

"I’m afraid I don’t have much," Donna’s voice called out from the next room. "All I have is some iced tea; would that be all right?"

"Iced tea is just fine," Chad answered. He started to relax slightly; this was almost starting to seem normal to him, oddly enough.

But only temporarily. Because a few minutes later, Chad nearly jumped up from the sofa when he saw a tray with a glass pitcher and two drinking glasses on it, floating out from a nearby doorway and across the room, setting down gently on the coffee-table.

"I’ve got a little kitchenette back there," Donna’s voice said, causing Chad to jump again at its sudden, unexpectedly close proximity. "A little ‘fridge, a little stove, just about everything I need is in here." she went on.

The glass pitcher floated up from the tray and proceeded to fill the two glasses. When they were filled, the pitcher settled back down again, then the two glasses likewise floated up, one drifted over in Chad’s direction, stopping about a foot in front of him, where it simply hovered. Chad found that he could do more than merely stare at it.

"I rarely even go downstairs anymore unless I really need to," Donna went on. "Like to accept delivery of groceries or whatever. I—What’s the matter?" she asked, only then noticing Chad’s reaction. "Don’t you want your drink?"

Suddenly stirred, as though from a deep sleep, Chad finally moved, carefully reaching a hand out to pluck the floating glass from the air. "Th-thank you," he said, staring at the glass, not really sure where else to look.

The other glass floated away from Chad, to an easy-chair nearby, which suddenly moved a couple of feet closer to the sofa. Deep impressions formed in its cushions as Donna sat down in it. The second glass floated up and tilted itself slightly, its contents vanishing into thin air. Chad coughed loudly, as his drink suddenly went down the wrong way.

This is so freaking unreal, Chad thought. Like out of a dream! Here I am, way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, calmly sitting down and having tea with an invisible woman! If somebody told me it happened to them, I’d say they were crazy! If I wrote a book about it, nobody’d believe it!

Gradually, however, Chad forced himself to accept the bizarre situation and at least try to behave normally. He hesitantly sipped at his drink and tried to make conversation about the most innocuous topics he could think of, talking about the weather and so forth. His manner was stilted at first, as was Donna’s in response, and there were many long, awkward pauses, as the two were obviously still a bit uncomfortable with one another. However, as their conversation continued, they both began to relax with one another, and in time, Chad finally began to accept Donna’s unique condition, and marveled at it. And, despite the earlier awkwardness he’d felt around her, he now felt strongly attracted to her, recalling the intense feelings he’d had for her the week before, on the night of the party. It seemed to Chad that Donna was also gradually loosening up towards him, although she still seemed to be rather cautious in her manner towards him, perhaps even a bit defensive, at times. Well, that was to be expected, Chad thought. After all, it’s probably very difficult for her to trust anyone, let alone trust them enough to allow them to get close to her. Yet Chad felt confident that, in time, that could possibly change for the better. He resolved to be patient with her.