Summary

In Part I, “1997, The Law of Ellipses,” 50-year-old Thomas Hart lives in Aldleigh and writes for the Essex Chronicle. At the office one day, Thomas’s editor, Nick Carleton gives Thomas his late father’s planisphere, or star map, and encourages him to write about astronomy, the moon, and the forthcoming Hale-Bopp comet in his column. Thomas promises to consider the topics.

That night, Thomas receives a letter from James Bower at the Essex Museum Services. The museum is renovating the local Lowlands House. “Some interesting documents” that might relate to the 1996 Lowlands ghost story have been found which Thomas wrote about in his column (8). Thomas sets the letter aside and takes a walk through town. He passes his church Bethesda Chapel and the Lowlands House, momentarily convinced the ghost is following him. Unable to see the moon, he returns home...