Bats cannot stand upright. Unable to maintain its balance, it keeps flapping its wings, but this causes it to move slightly off the ground, at which point it screams, stops flapping, falls back to the ground and rolls. Then start over.

"Fools?" The bat repeats itself after Ellswys, its voice is small, but definitely that of Farrow. "Fools? Fools don't say half of it! ”

Selwyn held out a steady hand to prevent the bat from tipping over.

Out of gratitude, the creature kicked him. But then it started jumping around, raising a little foot and shouting, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" You big bully! "It tried to kick Selwyn with the other foot, only to have its back in the air.

Selwyn held out his finger, and the bat reluctantly grabbed it, straightening itself and using the little finger at the edge of its wings as a hand. Selwyn's gaze ranged from bats with huge ears and fleshy noses, to Farrow's corpse, to Elsweis. "What happened?" He asked helplessly.

"'What's going on?' The bat screamed. What happened? What kind of silly question is this? Selwyn Rosen, you idiot, even you should be able to see what's going on. You idiot. Still grasping Selwyn's left hand: the index finger, it kicked at the bone of Selwyn's right hand, missed the kick, and found itself - with both feet off the ground - dangling from Selwyn's fingers with his thumb.

Ellswis naturally sided with the bats. She snatched the bone from Selwyn's hand and shook it at him. "Didn't I tell you to keep looking at the corpse?"

"Well, actually," Selwyn corrected, "it's not so much that you're saying it's acting"

She hit him on the head with a bone.

"Yes," he agreed, just to be on the safe side. "Yes, you did."

"Then why are you pointing it at a bat?"

"I didn't mean to," Selwyn said. "It's just that the bat suddenly made a sound that startled me."

"Scaring you?" Both Ellthweith and the bat screamed at him. Ellswys pointed the bone at the little bat and shouted to Selwyn, "Look at him." He's about the size of your finger. What, exactly, makes you feel so scary that you have to confuse the spell? ”

"The noise startled me," Selwyn protested. Why does she always say things out to make him sound like a fool? "I'm not afraid of a bat." He decided not to mention that an entire flock of bats was more terrifying than a single bat. Ellswis was most likely not intimidated by any number of bats, and she looked ready to use the bones in his head again. He said, "So Farod's soul returned to the wrong body? Did it get into the body of this bat? Can we redo this spell? ”

"No," Elsweis's tone again showed that he was a fool. She said to Farod, "The bats can't stand it, so don't try again." ”

"As if death wasn't bad enough," the bat grumbled, still clutching Selwyn's fingers and jumping up and down in anger, "and now I'm going to have to be a rodent too?" ”

"I'm sorry," Selwyn said.

"Actually," Ellswyes said, looking thoughtful, "you're not." ”

Selwin and the bats glanced at each other. "Who isn't what?" Bat asked. "Doesn't he regret it?"

Ellswis shrugged. "I don't know. But you're not a rodent. ”

"I'm a bat."

"That's another thing entirely. Bats have mouse-like faces, but their order is completely different from that of rodents. ”

"Thank you very much, Professor." The bat spits on the floor. "Now there's a completely useless piece of information to add to the whole mess. I look like a rodent, I feel like a rodent - who are you telling me I'm not a rodent, you ugly old witch? ”

Selwyn saw a flash of annoyance in Elswys' eyes. He retracted his hand and let the bat try to escape, but it held on to its place, wobbly but defiant.

Ellswis lifted the bone, and it was big enough to send the bat - or Farrow, or the Farrow inside the bat - back to where she had just summoned him. But she took pity on his little man and hit Selwyn instead.

"No wonder someone killed you," Selwyn said to Farrow as she rubbed his legs, but did not dare to complain that the latest attack was unfair. "You're a very annoying little snippet."

The bat stood motionless. "That's right," it finally said, in a very soft tone. "I was murdered. That's how I died. I remember hearing you call me, so I came back. ”

"Okay," Selwyn said, glad to get back to the topic they needed to discuss. "We called you here so you can tell us who did it."

The Farrod Bat said, "I thought you called me here to tell me. ”

"What?" Ellswis snapped.

"You don't know who killed you?" Selwyn asked, horrified.

"I'm asleep, you idiot. It was the middle of the night, it was dark, and" — the bat flapped Selwyn's hand with its wings, as if forgetting that it had wings, not hands" If you had started it all, you would have seen me stabbed in the back. ”

Selwyn placed his forehead on the palm of his hand.

Elsweith threw down the bones, so disgusted that he didn't even dare to hit him.

"As amusing as it is," Farrow declared, "seeing you play dumb again, Selwyn, and meet the old witch here, I think I'm going back now." The afterlife is more meaningful than you. ”

"Wait!" Selwyn cried. Six years. He had just given up six years of his life - insulted by Farrow, hit by Ellswys, and turned out to go further than it had been at the beginning of it all. "But you do want to find out who killed you. That's why you're back, you say. ”

"As far as I know, it could be you," Mr. Farrow said.

Ellswis snorted in exasperation. "What's that—something in the water that makes everyone in Penrith stupid? If he's the one who killed you, why did he pay to bring you back? ”

Farrow didn't ask him how much he paid. "I think," he agreed.

"So the real killer is at large, and I'm blamed," Selwyn said. "Bowden sentenced me to die in this cave with you."

"I don't think Bowden will let you go as I say," Farrod said, flapping his bat wings. "He would be convinced that it was some kind of ruse. Either that, or he will prosecute you for witchcraft. ”