Lois looked at Judy and giggled, but Lorraine was serious. She walked sedately up the steps to the circular pool and peered over the edge.
“You can’t wish,” Judy called, “unless you shed a tear. The spirit said so.”
“The spirit is gone, and so is most of the water,” declared Lois.
“All the better for exploring. I would like to see what’s over there. Do you think I can make it?” asked Judy.
“You can try,” Lois told her. “We’ll follow you if you don’t get your feet wet.”
“I won’t. I wore my rubbers. Anyway, there’s a thin coating of ice over what little water there is left in the pool. I’ll just skate over to the center fountain and have a look.”
It was not quite as easy as it sounded. Judy had some difficulty climbing over the edge of the pool and sliding down into its nearly dry bottom. The ice turned out to be nothing but melting slush from an earlier snowfall. She waded through it to the smaller circle of cement immediately surrounding the pedestal which was ornamented with cupids. At their feet she found a pool that had not been drained. A cap that looked like the nozzle of a watering pot covered another rusty waterpipe that seemed to be clogged with dead leaves. Judy peered into a cave behind the cupids, trying to see what was there.
“What have you found?” called Lois, seeing something in Judy’s hand.
“A sprinkler, I guess. There’s a cave that seems to go down underneath the fountain. I can’t see anything in it but rusty pipes. Could the spirit voice have come from there?”
“It seems logical, doesn’t it?”