A first-person visitor spends Christmas at a friend's remote water tower on the bluffed Lake Michigan shore and recounts an eerie encounter with a spectral presence visible only to him. The narrative mixes vivid winter landscape and farmhouse warmth with detailed descriptions of the tower's labyrinth of stairs and platforms, where pale luminous vapors, a chill between the shoulders, and the sound of a thin quiet voice build a sense of uncanny isolation. The account centers on the solitary interview between the narrator and the apparition and on his effort to make sense of the strange sensory impressions.