Here was a new oblivion and openness and absence with which to contend. Neil had felt love and devotion, joy and contentment, passion and futurity. He now felt howling soreness of heart, melancholy, dismay. He was being torn through love's labors with tight-gripping pincers on his head. Minna said it was not so -- which Neil had thought -- that she and he were soulmates. She said, "We are not soulmates."

Both out of strength and out of weakness, Neil resolved she should bear the burden of her decision. And he bore the burden of his. Let her go her way. Let her be her way.

There were ghosts about. The Camperdene Daily Journal had dubbed the unidentified caller who'd recently phoned the police at four in the morning -- who'd got into the Museum of the Year 2012 after hours and placed the phone call, then disappeared -- the "Museum Ghost." When, a couple weeks later, on a Friday, a burner on the stove in the auditorium kitchen was turned on and left on over a weekend, word arose that this was done by the "Museum Ghost." When someone snuck into the museum staff lounge and spun the microwave oven dial to high for the longest time allowed, with the ashes of burned books within, the word went out: this was done by the "Museum Ghost." Then there was a "break-out" by an unidentified person shortly after the museum closed: the "Museum Ghost." The cars of five museum staffers were scratched (apparently by a key or screwdriver) across the sides, hoods, and trunks of their cars, parked in the museum staff parking area. The word went forth. The "Museum Ghost" had done it.

The new Chair of the Board of Museum of the Year 2012 Trustees, Ben Mulvane, very reasonably suggested these events were somehow tied into the possibility of a new appointment to the political post vacated recently by Veronica Pillsbury -- museum trustee. There were already rumors of the post being filled by an outspoken anti-Museum-Ghost advocate. Ben Mulvane insisted the Board of Museum of the Year 2012 Trustees should fill the trustee vacancy created by Veronica Pillsbury's resignation not with an appointment, but through the election process. And in this he did prevail.

Neil typed up a memo to the staff in which he welcomed their input regarding safety issues in closing and leaving the museum at night. He asked staff members to please check the Auditorium kitchen stove burners and oven and Staff Room stove/oven/microwave/coffeemaker when locking up, before going home.

The end of the year was fast.approaching. Hayden Brown had put together a big artificial Christmas tree by the main entry doors, and had begun decorating it. He was there, at the museum, after it had closed, the night the police appeared to deal with a "break-out" that occured. Someone had been in the building after closing time, and had set off the alarm when leaving the building, even as Hayden Brown decorated the Christmas tree. Hayden told Neil that Fran Micheline remembered giving to a man ("homeless" in appearance) the key to the men's room shortly before closing time. Hayden surmised that this individual stayed in the museum after closing, set off the motion detector alarm and, upon seeing the arrival of the police, got out of the building without being apprehended.

Now Ben Mulvane wrote to the Police Chief, asking that detectives be assigned to investigate the people who loiter out back of the museum, in the staff parking area, calling on the Chief to punish vandals and successfully defend the museum's safety and security -- at any price.

Neil wrote to Town Attorney Carson: "There have been inquiries, from museum staff, vendors, and others, as to why our bills are not being paid promptly, and on a regular basis, as they used to be. The explanation given me, and which I can only pass on, is that the fiduciary responsibility of the Trustees to pay the museum's bills has fallen victim to the longstanding tradition of Museum of the Year 2012 Trustee political feuding. Try to explain that to the collection agents! One trustee, Wallace Barrow, who has been entirely forward and publicly outspoken, both in front of and away from microphones, about his status as a 'minority' Museum of the Year 2012 Board member, has told me his not signing the warrant, though it leave the museum's debts unpaid, stems from his resolute belief, often stated, and in no uncertain terms, in his 'minority' status. He has insisted he wishes to make 'a point.' The point, he says, is this: it is the duty of 'the majority' to sign the bills, and that this is no duty or obligation of his. Unfortunately, this position statement is currently less honorable, and more aggravating, than in even the preceding several months. When recently the Board still had its full membership of six, the Board voted that bills would be signed not weekly, but monthly, at trustee meetings. Mr. Barrow regularly declined, at these meetings, to sign off on the bills. Because the Board is not meeting this month, all trustees were notifed, in telephone calls, that at least three trustees would need to come to the museum to sign the warrant, to pay the bills. When told, this last Monday, that the warrant for bills needed trustee signatures, Mr. Barrow indicated he might, or might not, sign (in fact, he again failed to sign). Roland Henselmeier stated he'd be in; he did not come in, however. While he has claimed, in the past, to be independent of Mr. Barrow's influence he has, on occasion, in similar circumstances, left the bills unsigned (though he has personally promised me that he would be in to sign). I understand he has explained these reversals by indicating Mr. Barrow had told him personally that he would sign the bills, and then did not. With Veronica Pillsbury no longer on the Board, we now have a Museum of the Year 2012 Board of five, not six, members. Mr. Barrow's 'enemies,' the Board "majority," thus now consists of three, not four, members. Mr. Barrow asserts that Roland Henselmeier is 'with' him -- I have no idea whether or not Mr. Hemselmeierer is 'with' anyone, or in outer space, or in the world at all. Mr. Barrow has likened this majority of four Board members to the Three Stooges. Mr. Barrow is entirely forward and outspoken about this work of his, to see 'The Four' disgraced, and me with them. His schemes and concoctions hatch usually as front-page news, his 'enemies' slammed in the local paper. The central most painful insult to me, however, was never in the papers. Mr. Barrow's assertion that 'the Library will be better off when Ben Mulvane is dead' was the clearest indication he had given me, up to that point, that in fact he has (instead of a reasonable sense of fiduciary responsibility) remarkable vanity tied to even more remarkable venomousness, absolutely breathtaking contempt, and a big mouth. I understand that Ben Mulvane, after learning from Mr. Barrow himself his deep hatred for him, which triggered my making my own inquiries, and my own personal value judgment, about him, and about Mr. Barrow, has heart troubles and has been in the hospital. With Ben Mulvane unable to come in, and with Roland Henselmeier promising to sign but not doing so, and with Mr. Barrow making his 'point' by refusing to sign the bills, we are left with just two trustees to sign the bills: Superintendent Bonaventura and Reverend Jack. By regulation of the Town Charter, two signatures are insufficient. Though Mr. Barrow is often in the museum, with even furniture and a space in a corner of the museum recognized as being 'his' -- and with even some staff members generally recognized and identified as being 'his' -- still he declines, even in these circumstances, to sign the warrant. Should not the Town of Camperdene, by way of Town Counsel, have an opinion in these matters? Is this open, oft-repeated show of fiduciary irresponsibility, this relentlessly arrogant attitude and conduct, acceptable? Can nothing be done? Must the Museum of the Year 2012 curator, as Mr. Barrow has insisted, work for him alone in order to remain museum curator? Must those trustees who disagree with him come around to his way of thinking 'or else' -- for example, the bills won't be paid? If this be a sign of 'leadership,' whether from a real or imagined 'majority' or 'minority' trustee, then may the electric company turn off the museum's lights so that the rest of us in the town will finally see Mr. Barrow's 'point.' Having myself been often threatened and slandered, in this entrenched tangle of political feuding and game-playing on the part of the self-announced current 'minority' Board membership, I obviously have no power, or influence, to effect a good outcome from 'his' war. In the coming week I will again actively solicit the required three trustee signatures to pay the museum's vendors, hoping to hold at bay the encroaching collection agents."