Maybe This Time

Thirteen

Someone rapped on the kitchen door, and Andie jerked back as Southie said loudly from the hall, “I think we should stay out of the kitchen. It’s really Andie’s turf.”

“Stop,” Andie whispered to North, and then she heard Lydia say, “Sullivan, I don’t know what your problem is, but I want a drink and I’m going in there,” and North pulled Andie down the counter and into the pantry, her jeans sliding off her hips on the way.

He kicked the door closed, and they were in the dark, and she thought about Lydia finding her bra and Bad Witch shirt on the floor, and then he touched her again, and she didn’t give a damn. She yanked his shirt up, wanting his skin on hers, wanting all of him, and he pulled the shirt off as she shoved her jeans the rest of the way down, tangling her ankles and almost knocking herself over in Crumb’s hallucinogenic pantry. He caught her the way he always did and boosted her up onto the pantry counter, and she wrapped herself around him, around all that muscle and heat and power and safety and sense, everything she’d lost ten years before, all of it focused on her, his hands and mouth urgent on her, teasing her, heating her, making her insane.

“What happened to sanity?” she said, gasping. “You were such a fan.”

“I saw you again,” he said in her ear as he slid his hand between her legs. “And I went crazy.”

“Oh,” she said, and then his fingers moved inside her and she said, “Oh,” and bit him hard on the shoulder, raking her hands down his back, and he grew rougher, too, making her moan and gasp, until she couldn’t stand it, until she banged her head on his shoulder and said, “Now,” and he pulled her hips to him and slid hot inside her, and she cried out because he felt so damn good after so damn long.

He moved with the old, familiar, deliberate rhythm that always made her mindless, touching her everywhere as she touched him, blanketing her mind with heat until she moaned, sliding against him, tasting the salt of his skin and feeling his breath on her neck, hearing him whisper low to her that she was beautiful, that she was everything, that she was his. His rhythm built inside her until she was sobbing from the tension, until it was too much and she arched up and bit down, her eyes closed tight, and felt it coming, now, now, now, and then he moved hard against her and she broke just as hard, crying out as he held her tight and the spasms took her. And when she was quiet and gasping, she felt him shudder, too, and held him as tightly as she could, leaning back to take his weight as he lost his mind.

After a while, he took a deep breath and eased out of her, and she said, exhausted and exhilarated, “Tell me again about common sense.”

“Fuck common sense,” he said, his voice husky, and then he got rid of the condom, and she thought, Where the hell did he get a condom? and realized he must have brought them with him. Pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you? she thought, but she didn’t care, and that wasn’t it, anyway. He’d have brought them just in case, to protect her. Because he was North and that was practical.

He cupped her face in his hands and said softly, “You okay?” and she kissed him, long and slow and deep, mindless with love again, and he said, “You’re okay,” and put his hands on her waist to help her down.

She stood next to him, breathing deep, her arms around his waist, her head on his chest, practicality coming back with sanity, knowing she should tell him that she didn’t want to make the same mistake all over again, that they were going to have to have a serious talk about the reality of their situation, that they were going to have to deal with the ghost of their old marriage, but all she wanted was to go upstairs with him and do that again, slower and longer this time.

We won’t even have to light the fire, she thought. May was a hallucination. We’re safe.

North kissed the top of her head and said, “Do you want me to get your clothes?”

“I can get them,” she said, lifting her face to his. “On my way upstairs. To the bedroom.”

“That’s it,” North said. “Play hard to get.”

He kissed her again, and she thought, I’m yours, and then she stopped thinking again and just loved him.

It wasn’t that simple, of course. She had to put Alice and Carter to bed, Alice protesting, Carter picking up a comic book without a word, and then she had to be polite to the guests in the sitting room, which she did on autopilot because all she could see was North, smiling at her. Southie pulled her aside and whispered, “You’re a little obvious there, tone it down some,” but she didn’t care. There weren’t any ghosts and she was back with North, even if it was just for tonight, she was back with North, so at the earliest possible moment, she said brightly, “Well, I should go check on the kids. You all have a good night,” and left to run up the stone stairs to the kids’ rooms, really meaning to check on them until she heard North’s step behind her.

“You should have waited fifteen minutes,” she whispered over the railing to him. “People are going to notice.”

“People already noticed,” North said, gaining on her. “Also, I don’t care.”

She picked up speed, but when she got to the landing, she heard music coming from the nursery.

“Damn it,” Andie said as North hit the last stair, and went into the nursery to see Alice dancing to “Make a Move on Me” in the light of the gas fire.

“What are you doing, young lady?”

“I woke up,” Alice said, bopping around the room. “There were noises. So I turned on the music!” She flung her arms over her head and danced wildly, a little savage in her nightgown.

“Noises?” Andie looked around but there was nobody there except for North, standing in the doorway. Waiting. Not for long, Andie thought and said to Alice, “Back in bed, it’s way too late for you to be up.”

Olivia Newton-John sang, “I’m the one you want,” and North laughed in the doorway.

“What’s so funny?” Alice said, annoyed.

“I just recognized the song,” he told her. “Andie and I danced to this once.”

“Really?” Alice said, as Andie pulled back her covers.

“Get into bed,” Andie said to Alice, and Alice climbed in. “We’ll be right in the next room.”

“You and Bad danced to this?”

“Not that I remember,” Andie said, pulling the covers up.

“Arts Ball,” North said, his voice lazy with satisfaction. “The band was awful, and Southie got his boom box out of the car and set it up in the hall because the girl he was with-”

“Oh, yes,” Andie said, remembering the hall, and Southie, and North laughing with her, and how happy she’d been. “The little ballerina. The one who was so damn flexible.”

North laughed again. “That was her. Bridget?”

“No,” Andie said, thinking hard. “Brin. Short for Brinda.” She laughed, too. “Brinda. My God.”

“Right. And Southie said she must have had a dyslexic mother. And she got mad, and he got the boom box, and she wanted this song…”

“I remember now. I was wearing the skirt you got me, the green-blue one with the sequins. Alice loves that skirt.”

“I love that skirt,” Alice said solemnly.

“And I dragged you out-”

“And then you danced me down that hall,” Andie said, smiling as she remembered. “All those mirrors. We stayed out there for the rest of the ball. Remember, Southie went and got champagne…”

“And we sat on the floor while he fed Brin caviar,” North said. “Charmed the socks right off her.”

“Southie can charm the socks off anybody. That was a good time.”

“I should have been there,” Alice said from her bed.

“You weren’t born yet, monkey,” Andie said, and then the music changed to Jackson Browne, and the memories came pounding back.

“What’s wrong?” Alice said.

“Nothing,” North said, smiling at the little girl now. “This is our song, Andie’s and mine.”

“Why is it yours?” Alice scowled at him. “I like it, too.”

“When people fall in love, they get a song.” North didn’t look at Andie, just smiled at Alice. “This is the song that was playing when we met.”

“Did you dance?” Alice said.

“Oh, yeah,” North said.

“Show me,” Alice said, and North walked into the room and held out his hand to Andie, and she let him pull her against him because her days of saying no to him were gone.

He held her close and began to move, and she moved with him and the music, full of the memory of him and the reality of him, blanketed by all the satisfaction he’d released in her, feeling again the incredible, irresistible erotic pull he had on her, every cell expanding at his touch, back from the long, cold dead. He twirled her away from him and back to him, catching her the way he always had, holding her tight until the music slowed and then he stood, smiling down at her, heat in his eyes again, always.

“Hey,” Alice said, and North reached over and turned off the tape deck.

“Bedtime,” he said, and she grumped, but she slid back under her covers.

Andie let go of him to kiss Alice good night. “I love you, baby,” she said, “sleep tight,” and pulled the covers up over her.

“Good night, Bad,” Alice called.

“Good night, Alice,” North said.

“Tomorrow, you have to dance with me,” she said.

“Whatever you want, kid,” North said, and Alice nodded as if that was the way she thought things should be, too, and rolled over.

North took Andie’s hand and tugged her toward her open bedroom door. “Come here,” he said, and his voice went to her spine.

She followed him through the door, taking one last backward glance at Alice as he closed it, and when she turned back, he bent and kissed her, and it hit hard again, and she clung to him, shaking, drinking in that kiss as if she were dying.

“So,” he whispered when she pulled back, his voice husky, “I think we should take it slower this time-”

She pushed him back onto the bed and climbed on top of him, straddling him.

“Or not,” he said, and May said, You’ve got troubles, and Andie pushed North away and rolled off him to scoot back on the bed, saying, “No, no!”

“What?” North said, sitting up. “What’s wrong?”

May floated in the room in front of them and Andie realized they hadn’t put the fire on. Because ghosts weren’t real. “You’re not real.”

That Kelly woman is doing something down in the Great Hall. Sneaking around. I can possess her and stop her if you want. May smiled, helpful and eager to please. I don’t think she has a soul, so it wouldn’t matter.

“I’m hallucinating.” Andie slid off the far side of the bed. “Crumb fed us all salvia, and you are a hallucination.”

“Andie?” North said, alarmed, reaching for her.

Fine, May said, swishing her skirt and scowling. But you might want to look downstairs anyway because she’s got that camera guy and they’re filming. And I think Carter’s got trouble, too. Although he’s used to it.

“Carter?” Andie said. “What’s wrong with Carter?”

May swished her skirt again. That was good stuff you did down in the pantry, but it’s stirred things up. You better go look.

“Andie,” North said, putting his hand on her arm. “It’s okay. I’m here. Maybe it’ll take a while until the salvia’s out of your system, but whatever you’re seeing isn’t real.”

May swished her skirt again and said, I may not be real, but you’d better go look anyway.

“She’s not real,” Andie said to herself out loud.

“Right,” North said, trying to pull her back to bed. “Come on, you just need to sleep it off-”

I’m real, Andie, May said, and Andie knew it was true.

She pulled her hand free from North’s grasp. “Kelly’s filming in the Great Hall,” she said as she headed for the door. “And Carter’s in trouble. You go stop Kelly, and I’ll help Carter.”

She went through the nursery, where Alice was still sleeping, and out into the gallery, thinking, She’s not real, she’s not real.

Then she saw a flickering light from Carter’s room and ran.

North left the bedroom, trying to get some blood back to his brain. He almost followed Andie to Carter’s room, but he saw a glow from downstairs and looked over the railing to see lights and Bill the cameraman pointing his camera at something under the gallery.

Kelly O’Keefe really was filming again.

He hit the back stairs at a run.

“A little girl,” Kelly was saying into her microphone when he ran into the Great Hall, “in tears, terror-stricken, while her guardian ignores her and her nanny talks to ghosts,” and then North pulled the plug on Bill’s extension cord and flipped on the big chandelier overhead. “What the hell?” Kelly snapped at Bill, who nodded toward North.

Kelly turned on him angrily and then saw who it was. Her smile flashed back on. “North! We were just-”

“Finished,” North held out his hand to Bill. “Give me the tape.”

“That’s the property of the station,” Kelly said righteously.

“Give me the tape or I’ll take it,” North said, really wanting to hit something.

Bill pulled the tape out and handed it over.

“Bill!” Kelly snapped and then she turned to North. “You’re violating my First Amendment rights!”

“I hope it was as good for you as it was for me,” North said. “You’re out of here. Now. If you’re still here in the morning, I’ll call the police and have you arrested for trespassing.”

Bill nodded and began to break down equipment.

“You’ll be hearing from our lawyers,” Kelly snapped.

“That’ll be fun,” North said and waited until they were out of the house. Then he took the tape upstairs with him, trying to figure out how the hell Andie had known Kelly was at work again.

“What’s going on?” Lydia said, meeting him in the back hall on the second floor as he headed for the third. “I heard something.”

“Kelly and her cameraman are leaving. Andie’s checking on Carter. Alice is asleep. I’m going back to bed.”

“So everything’s all right?” Lydia said.

“Yes,” North said, and went upstairs to talk Andie down from her ghost fixation again.

Andie stopped in Carter’s doorway.

The boy was sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring at the door, looking thin in his flannel pajamas, his wrists dangling over his knees, his head lowered so that his eyes were dark and shadowed under his brows.

He had candles burning on tables on both sides of his bed, a dozen of them at least.

“Carter? What the hell are you doing?”

He ignored her, and she felt a chill rise as she saw that he was shaking. Whatever was going on, he was concentrating hard on not being terrified, and not doing very well at it.

She walked over to the bed and sat down beside him. “Carter?” she said softly, and reached for his hand.

“Get out,” he said, staring at the door. “Get out.”

“What-why?”

His breathing quickened and his eyes widened, staring at something beyond her, and Andie felt cold air on her back.

When she turned, an icy blue fog was taking shape in the open door.

“Smoke?” she said, her heart kicking up, but she knew it wasn’t, the cold in the room was growing, crystallizing the night air on the windows, chilling her through and through.

Carter shivered beside her in his pajamas, and the fog rose up clumsily and took the rough shape of the man in the old-fashioned coat, stronger, more solid than ever before, his face a blur with holes for eyes.

He leaned forward and his face became sharper, grinning at them, blocking the door.

“No!” Andie said, scrambling onto the bed in front of Carter.

“Get out,” Carter whispered to her. “He comes for me. Get out.”

“No.” She knelt on the bed between the thing and Carter, facing it down over the foot of the bed. “Go away. You can’t have him.”

The thing moved closer, losing definition as it moved, re-forming into the man as it came closer, giving her vertigo again.

Andie scooted back against Carter, spreading out her arms to shield him. “No. This kid is off limits. Go haunt somebody your own age, you pervert. No.”

The thing arched over them, and Andie felt the cold in her bones, and then something went sailing over her shoulder and another and another, and she realized that Carter was throwing lit candles, the old singed carpet igniting again, flames shooting up. She swung her arm through the thing, tearing through its definition yelling, “This kid is mine!” her arm searing with cold. She grabbed Carter by the back of his pajama collar and dragged him around the icy mist that was re-forming above the flames, through the door and the halls to the nursery where she slammed the door behind them both.

She shoved the boy in front of the fireplace. “You stay here.”

Then she grabbed the small fire extinguisher from the mantel and ran back down the gallery and into Carter’s bedroom, terrified that the flames would have ignited the bed by now, but the fire was out and the room was empty and cold, cold beyond anything natural, so she slammed the door and ran back to the nursery.

Carter was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.

“Oh, baby.” She sank down next to him on the hearth and pulled him into her arms. “I’m so sorry. I should have been there.”

He was rigid in her arms, unyielding the way Alice used to be, but Carter didn’t scream, he just endured.

“I’ll take care of it,” Andie told him, holding him tightly. “I’ll get rid of them. I’ll get you out of here-”

“What’s wrong?” Alice said, from her bed, sitting up, groggy with sleep.

“There was a ghost in Carter’s room,” Andie said.

Alice slid off the bed. “Is he okay? Was it Peter?”

“Peter,” Andie said, thinking, Fucking hallucination, my ass.

“The ghost who wants the house,” Carter said.

“Why didn’t you keep your fireplace lit?” Andie said. He was still so cold in her arms, and she rocked him a little bit, just because she was so guilt-stricken about leaving him to handle his ghost alone.

“It doesn’t work,” Carter said.

“Jesus Christ,” Andie said, thinking, Why didn’t you tell me?, thinking, Crumb knew that fireplace didn’t work and still put him in there, thinking, I let him down so badly. “I’m so sorry, Carter, I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything,” he said, still stiff in her arms.

“That’s why I’m sorry.”

He pulled away from her, and she let go, almost in tears because she’d done so badly by him.

“I’m okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”

She nodded. “We’ll move your stuff in from your room later. You’re never going back there.”

“I’m okay,” he said again, that flat look back in his eyes.

She grabbed his arms, as if she could shake some response into him. “Carter, it’s going to be different, I swear. I’m going to get you out of here. I know Miss J killed May because she was trying to take you away-”

“That wasn’t why,” Carter said.

Andie waited.

He swallowed and then he started to talk and it was as if once he started, he couldn’t stop. “Alice was screaming in the hall by the bathroom because we’d been alone all night while Aunt May was out, and Alice was scared. Aunt May came home and went up on the tower and yelled at her friends, and then she came down and said, ‘Shut up, Alice,’ but Alice couldn’t stop crying. Aunt May put on her prom dress and swished around and said, ‘See, Alice? See how pretty?’ but Alice couldn’t stop, and Aunt May was drunk, and I tried to get Alice to stop, but she couldn’t, and Aunt May slapped her…”

He took a deep shuddering breath, his eyes bleak, and Andie thought, Fucking May.

“I grabbed Alice, and Aunt May said she was sorry. She said she was just so lonely, she talked about some guy who wouldn’t pay attention to her. She said she was doing a good job, but he wouldn’t come back, he wouldn’t love her, and I didn’t care.” His voice hardened. “She’d slapped Alice.”

“Right,” Andie said. “You were right.”

“Then she started to cry and went out into the gallery, and Alice followed her, crying, telling her not to cry, and I heard them both scream.” He swallowed hard. “When I got out there, Alice was by the gallery rail, screaming, and the railing was broken, and Aunt May was… down in the hall.” He looked sick for a minute. “I looked over the edge and she was all… Her neck was wrong and there was blood… under her head. A lot of it. Alice said it was Miss J, that Miss J had come up out of the carpet, but then Crumb came out and saw me. She told me to shut Alice up and to keep my mouth shut and go back to bed.”

Andie put her arm around him again and pulled him close, and this time he leaned against her. “Crumb’s gone, your uncle North threw her out of the house this afternoon. And you’re not alone anymore. I’m here, I know there are ghosts, and I’m not leaving you. You never have to go through that again.”

He looked at her with eyes as flat as ever, a twelve-year-old who’d seen too much. “The police said Aunt May fell into the moat, but Crumb dragged her body there and then washed up the blood. After that, the nannies came.”

Andie nodded. “And that’s when Alice started to scream all the time.”

“She’s afraid somebody else will die. That’s why we get rid of the nannies. The ghosts aren’t going to kill Crumb, she’s been here forever. It’s the new people who try to change things…” He lifted his chin. “You should get out of here.”

“Not without you.”

“They’ll never let us go,” Carter said.

“The hell they won’t,” Andie said, and then North came in.

“I just threw Kelly O’Keefe and her cameraman into the storm,” he began and then he stopped. “What happened?”

“They’re not hallucinations, they’re ghosts,” Andie said.

“Andie,” he began, and she shook her head, slowly.

“Do not fuck with me on this one,” she said. “There are ghosts.”

Andie asked North to sit with the kids while she went to find Isolde, so he stayed, watching Alice fall back asleep and Carter stare into the fire.

Carter looked like Southie at twelve, the same flop of brown hair, the same blue eyes, the same gangly, growing-in-all-directions body. The difference was that Southie had laughed all the time when he was twelve. Carter looked like he’d never laughed in his life.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” North told him.

Carter nodded, evidently not surprised.

“But I believe something bad is going on here, and I believe you’ve been handling it on your own for too long.”

“Andie’s good,” Carter said, and then when North didn’t say anything, he added, “It’s been better with her here.”

“I’m here now, too.”

Carter nodded, not impressed.

North studied the boy’s face, the circles under his eyes, the exhaustion that wasn’t just from this night, the kind of tiredness that came from never letting down your guard. “My dad died when I was twelve.”

Carter gave him a “so what?” look.

“My mom had a hard time with it. She felt guilty about a lot of things. So I covered for her. I had to. I had a little brother, and he was really scared. But I got really tired of handling it.”

Carter nodded.

“And then about six months after my dad died, my uncle Merrill came back from this long trip he’d been on, and bought the house next door, and took over the family, and everything got better. Not back to normal because my dad was still dead, but… better. Because somebody had my back.”

Carter sat very still, and North remembered how it had been, how he’d just stared at his uncle when he’d finally said, “Sorry, boy, I let you down. I’ll take care of things now.” Even though Merrill had screwed up the firm, he’d taken damn good care of the family. You could forgive a lot if somebody was there to take care of things until you grew up.

“I’ve got your back now,” North said. “The ghost thing, I don’t believe in that. But you are not the only one taking care of your sister now. It’s not just Andie taking care of Alice and you. From now on, I’ll be here.”

“Here,” Carter said.

“I’ll stay here with you until I can get you out of here,” North said, having no idea how the hell he was going to do that and keep up with his cases. “And then you’ll come to Columbus and live with us. Your rooms are ready now. I’ll be there for you. I will be there for you as long as you need me. And I’m sorry as hell that I didn’t say this two years ago.”

“Wouldn’t have done any good,” Carter said. “We can’t leave.”

The boy sounded hopeless, not obstinate.

“Why?”

“People die when we try to leave.”

“Who?”

“My dad. Aunt May. The last governess almost. They want us here.”

“The ghosts?”

Carter nodded. “I know you think we’re crazy, but we see them. Andie does, too. I didn’t think she did, I thought she was just trying to make us feel better, but she yelled at Peter, she saw him. And she talks to Aunt May.”

“She thinks she does, anyway. Look, we can protect-”

“No.” Carter shook his head. “It was bad enough before Andie, when Aunt May died. Alice is scared to death that Miss J will kill somebody else. And it’s not just that.” He stopped and looked over at his little sister, sleeping like a ghost under her sequined comforter. “Alice loves Andie. Aunt May, we liked her fine, but Andie… If Andie dies, Alice really will go crazy. We can’t leave.”

“Andie’s not going to die,” North said, chilled by the resignation in the boy’s voice.

“You can’t stop them,” Carter said. “You don’t even believe in them.”

“If I take you to Columbus, will you be all right?” North said, grasping for something logical. “Will they follow you? These ghosts?”

“I don’t know. Miss J kills people to keep Alice from leaving, so I don’t think she can go. But they’ll never let us go. You don’t get it. We can’t leave.”

“You’re right, I don’t get it,” North said. “But I’ll figure it out. I know a lot more than I did when I got here, and I’ll figure out the rest. And then I’ll end it, and I’ll take you home to Columbus. Your life will be normal again, Carter. I’ll see to it.”

Carter looked back at the fire again. He wasn’t shaking anymore, he was warm again, but he didn’t believe anybody was going to save him.

I couldn’t have screwed this up more if I’d worked at it, North thought.

Carter looked up. “Thanks.”

“What?” North said.

“For trying to help.” He hesitated a minute and then he said, formally, “We appreciate it.” Then he climbed up into the other twin bed and settled in, his back to North.

“You’re welcome,” North said and thought, I’m getting you out of here, kid, and began to think things through, methodically and thoroughly, wishing he had a legal pad and his pen.

“There are ghosts upstairs,” Andie said to Dennis when she found him still working in the dining room.

“Which one?” Dennis said.

“Peter. They’re getting stronger. Where’s Isolde?”

“She went to bed,” Dennis said, shuffling through his notes. “Peter. Right. A man named Peter was murdered here. The official report was that he was found on a path, but gossip at the time was that it happened in this house, which is why he walks here.”

“Other people knew he was here?”

“I can’t find much,” Dennis said, pulling a very old book toward him. “But this was in the library here. It’s a journal from a governess who was here then. She admires him, but she says he’s very proprietary about the house. I’m assuming now that he’s dead, he still thinks he owns the place.”

“Wait a minute,” Andie said. “You believe in ghosts?”

“I saw them,” Dennis said.

Andie sat down beside him. “What did you see?”

“A beautiful woman.” His face lit up as he spoke. “Lots of curly dark hair, big eyes, beautiful smile.”

“That’s May,” Andie said. “She’s the kids’ aunt.”

“Another woman. And a man. Is this them?”

He pulled out three more papers, rough amateur sketches, but Andie recognized May in all her curly-headed glory, Miss J in her flounced skirt and hollow eyes, and Peter in his coat, standing with his hands on his hips, looking like he did own the place. Dennis had drawn them not with great skill but in great detail.

“That’s them, all of them.”

“I’ve seen ghosts,” Dennis said, wonder in his voice. “I was so afraid I was just hallucinating.”

“Well, there’s a chance,” Andie began and then looked at the drawings again. Lots of detail.

“These are really the ghosts?” he said. “Does May have those earrings, does the other woman have that locket, the man with that coat, that watch? I got the details right?”

“Yeah. You saw ghosts.”

Dennis closed his eyes, smiling. “All my life I wanted to see ghosts. This is wonderful!”

“No, this is awful. They’re dangerous, Dennis, they want the kids and the house and they kill people who get in their way.” She looked at the sketches again. “They might not be happy about this. I think you’d better leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Leave ghosts?” Dennis said, incredulous. “No, I’m here to help you. In fact, I might stay and study them after you’re gone, if that’s all right.”

“The housekeeper’s gone,” Andie said. “And it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t need a housekeeper,” Dennis said. “I can be the housekeeper, I’ll take care of the place for you, just let me study them. Can we have another séance tomorrow? I know Isolde is against it, but if I can just talk to them this time, like you do-”

“No,” Andie said, standing up. “If you see Isolde before I do tomorrow, tell her I need to talk to her before she leaves.”

“She can’t leave,” Dennis said. “There really are ghosts here.” He sounded as if he were saying, “The circus really is here!” with all the happiness and wonder of a little kid.

“Good night, Dennis,” Andie said, and went back upstairs to North.

“The kids are asleep in the nursery,” he said when she went into the bedroom where the gas fire was now burning. “I put the fire on in here, too.”

“I know you don’t believe, but the ghosts are real,” Andie said. “Dennis saw them, too.”

“Dennis was drunk on doped brandy,” North said.

“They’re real.” Andie sat down on the edge of the bed, too tired to be open-minded.

North pulled back the covers, and she fell back against the pillows as he climbed in bed beside her. “Let’s just get the kids out of here,” he said, putting his arms around her.

She curled against him, grateful he was there, even if he was clueless about what they were facing. “Yeah. Let’s do that. Do you have a plan?”

“I’ll have a plan tomorrow.” North kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep. You’ve had a rough day.”

“Tomorrow,” Andie said, wondering what the hell she was going to do tomorrow that was going to make any difference as she fell asleep in his arms.

The next morning, Andie met Isolde at the bottom of the stairs on her way to make breakfast.

“Dennis saw the ghosts,” she told the medium.

“I know, he told me,” Isolde said. “Fucking amateurs.”

“He wants another séance.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Don’t say that here,” Andie said. “Just help me exorcise the dead we already have.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Isolde said. “Did you see Dennis’s drawings? The woman had a locket.”

“Yeah,” Andie said, trying to remember.

“I think it’s the locket Alice is wearing.”

Andie stopped at the foot of the stairs. “She told me it was a treasure. Maybe that means she found it. Are you sure it’s the same one?”

“Dennis has the drawing.”

Andie picked up speed and went into the dining room where all Dennis’s work was still spread out. She sorted through the papers until she found the drawing of Miss J.

The drawing wasn’t great, but that was Alice’s locket.

“It’s the same one,” she said to Isolde and then realized Isolde wasn’t with her. “Isolde?”

She went out into the Great Hall and Isolde came out of the sitting room to join her, pale as death.

“What’s wrong?” Andie said.

“We have to call the police,” Isolde said, and Andie thought, Oh God, no, something really bad has happened this time, and tried to go into the sitting room.

Isolde stopped her.

“It’s Dennis,” she said. “He’s dead.”