Kelly stopped, her mouth open.

“Oh, crap,” Isolde said.

“I don’t remember anything like this in the literature,” Dennis said.

“I slept with a ghost?” Southie said.

“Twice,” Andie told him.

“Wish I’d known,” Southie said. “I’d have paid more attention.”

“That’s insane,” Kelly said. “They were dreams. This is crazy.”

“Welcome to my world,” Andie said.

“Can we get started?” Isolde said. “Harold’s really enjoying this, but he can turn on a dime.”

“Sure.” Andie sat down and a visibly upset Kelly joined her.

“I didn’t sleep with them,” she said to Andie, and she sounded more distressed than angry now.

“You did, you just didn’t know,” Andie said. “And then when you woke up, you were freezing, and then you threw up.”

Kelly’s face was pale.

“There really are ghosts, May really did possess you, and it really would be better if you left before she comes back for more tonight. I’m sorry, I really am. The best thing is for you to go before she tries again.”

Don’t run her off, May said. We need her.

Andie jerked her head up and saw May, twirling in the open space beyond the table, blue and lovely and treacherous, and beyond her two shadowy forms, Miss J and the man in the old-fashioned coat.

Dennis squinted in their direction.

“Hello, May,” Andie said, tamping down her anger. “We need to talk.”


“What are we looking for exactly?” Gabe said when they were in the truck.

“Videotape of the kids, the house, anything.” North looked at the racks of equipment. “You start at that end, I’ll start down here.”

Ten minutes later, they’d found tapes marked with dates, not names.

“This one’s yesterday.” Gabe slid it into a VCR slot and pushed play.

The tape flickered and then the camera focused on Carter, sitting in the window seat, reading.

“So you live here at Archer House!” Kelly’s voice came from off camera.

Carter ignored her.

“What’s it like living in a haunted house!”

Carter ignored her.

“All alone with just a nanny.”

Carter ignored her.

“I like this kid,” Gabe said.

“I do, too,” North said.

Kelly evidently didn’t because after three more questions, she quit. There was snow on the tape and a shot of Alice, sitting on a chair in the dining room, looking fairly depraved, her hair sliding down one side of her head, pizza stains on her shirt.

“So you live here at Archer House!”

“Yes,” Alice said. “You have a lot of teeth. Andie says you have to brush your teeth every night or they’ll rot out of your head.”

“What’s it like living in a haunted house!”

“I don’t like nuts,” Alice said. “But I eat them in the chocolate chip cookies and banana bread because Andie says, if you don’t like nuts, don’t eat the cookies.”

“Andie is your nanny, right?”

“No. Andie is my Andie. She says you’re a hag from hell.” Alice smiled serenely as if she were just a cute kid, repeating what some adult had said, but North could see the glint in her eye.

“We’ll edit that out,” Kelly said to somebody, and then asked Alice, “Aren’t you scared to live in this haunted house?”

“Guess what?” Alice said. “Andie says bananas have to be brown before you can bake with them.”

“Alice,” Kelly said, her voice stern. “Tell me about the ghosts.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “There aren’t any such things as ghosts. I can tell you about butterflies. I have a butterfly garden. Andie says I can have a hummingbird garden, too.”

“Alice, people say this house is haunted!”

Alice grew still, and the look in her eyes wasn’t pretty. “Kelly,” she said, and the pitch of her voice was so much like Andie’s that North started to laugh, “people will say anything.”

“Forget it,” Kelly said to somebody off camera, and the tape ended.

“You might as well leave that one,” Gabe said. “The kids defeated her.”

“No.” North held out his hand and Gabe ejected the tape and gave it to him. “She’d find a way to cut it or overdub it. I want anything she filmed here.”

“Fine,” Gabe said and picked up the next tape.

“And we should hurry,” North said, “because I don’t know how long Southie can stall a séance.”


“This time I want you to tell me everything that’s happening,” Southie said. “Like where is May standing?”

“Right there,” Andie said, pointing behind him. “May, what the hell were you doing last night?”

“Can she really see them?” Flo said to Dennis, but he was frowning, squinting in May’s direction.

I was taking my second chance, May said, floating closer. It wasn’t fair that I died at nineteen, I wasn’t even-

“It’s not fair to steal bodies, either,” Andie said. “You don’t get to take our bodies because you got a bad deal. That’s rape, May.”

“Steal bodies?” Southie said. “Could you explain that?”

“Yes, that would be good,” Kelly said. “Explain that fully. I mean, rape. Wow.”

May drew back, scowling. It is not rape. I can’t make you do anything you wouldn’t do anyway. Look at you, you wouldn’t go to North no matter how hard I tried.

“Kelly didn’t-”

“What did she say?” Southie said.

“She’s talking about me?” Kelly said. “The ghost is talking about me?

Kelly was going to sleep with them all anyway. She’s been doing the guy with the camera to get him to bring the satellite truck down here. She’s doing Southie to get her story. She went along with Will because he’s famous or something and to find out about you. I was trying to seduce him and she kept asking him questions about you. She was there, Andie. She might be telling herself it’s a dream, but she was there. You were there, remember?

“Does this rape have anything to do with North Archer?” Kelly said.

“It’s not rape,” Andie snapped. “Because May says you would have slept with all of them anyway. And since you were already doing two of them, I think she’s right.” She looked into the camera. “That’s right, Columbus, your reporter here nailed three guys in one night, sixty percent of the adult male population of this house. Let’s give the little lady a hand.”

“That’s not fair,” Kelly said, pulling back.

“Neither is what you’re doing to North.” Andie turned back to May. “So she’d have done it anyway. Let’s talk about me.”

“Or we could talk about Kelly some more,” Southie said, checking his watch. “What do you want to know?”

“Sullivan!” Kelly said.

“You shouldn’t have gone after my brother,” Southie said, before turning to the camera. “She fakes her orgasms, and she’s not very good at it.”

“If you were any good at it, I wouldn’t have to,” Kelly snapped.

“She fakes ’em?” Bill said from behind the camera.

“Nobody makes sounds like that naturally,” Southie told him.

“Do you mind?” Andie said. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation here?”

“There’s way too much emotion in this room,” Isolde said quietly. “Dial it down, Andie.”

Andie nodded and turned back to May. “You were out of line,” she said calmly, and thought, You body-snatching bitch.

That was a mistake and I’m sorry. May smiled at her. I thought you’d want to go to him. I mean, North Archer. Who wouldn’t?

“You can’t ever do that again.”

I don’t want to, May said. It was interesting for a night, but you’re mad at me, and that Kelly was awful. At least in you I was warm. She’s just cold clear through. I’m not sure there’s a soul there.

“There is, and you can’t have it.”

“Can’t have what?” Southie said.

“Southie, be quiet,” Andie said.

Okay, okay. May swished again. What’s he looking at?

“Who?” Andie followed May’s eyes and saw Dennis, frowning in May’s direction. “Dennis?”

“Is there something moving over there?” Dennis said. “Or am I tipsy?”

“Yes,” Isolde said. “There’s something moving and you’re drunk.” She turned back to the table. “Harold, find out what the hell is going on.”

Oh, hell, not Harold, May said. He keeps hitting on me. I don’t know what the hell he thinks we can do. We’re both fucking dead.

He thinks you can do dead fucking, Andie thought. “You have to go.”

Where? I’m tied to this place, I can’t leave. You think I’d stay here if I could haunt someplace else? My best friend scattered my ashes at the Grandville Grill, but do I get to haunt there? No. I’m stuck here with Crumb.

“Ashes,” Andie said with a sinking heart. If May had been cremated…

“Harold says she says she was cremated,” Isolde told Andie. “What about the others, Harold?”

I don’t know about the others, May said. Harold, get the fuck off my leg, I am not interested in you. Jesus, men. They don’t listen.

“I know,” Andie said. “May, you have to move on. To the other side.”

May stopped dancing. You mean, DIE?

“You’re dead,” Andie said. “It’s over. Move on.”

It’s not over, May snapped. I’m here. I’m staying.

“Harold says you’re making her mad,” Isolde said to Andie.

“Yeah, well, she pissed me off first,” Andie said.

“I can see two people,” Dennis said, a little pompously. “Early nineteenth-century dress. I don’t think they belong here.”

He’s loaded, May said, not judgmentally.

“Harold says their names are Peter and Miss J,” Isolde said. “But they’re not communicating much else.”

“Tell me how to get rid of the other two,” Andie said to May. “Okay, you can stay”-The hell you can-“but you must know how to get rid of them.”

I don’t know anything about them, May said. Keep the fires going and you’ll be fine.

“I had a fire going in the nursery. Somebody turned it off.”

May stopped dancing. I made Crumb do it. I just wanted to be with North Archer. He liked me when he came down that first time. He was so beautiful and expensive, and he liked me, he told me he really appreciated everything I was doing with the kids, like I was doing him a favor…

That was North, Andie thought. All that cool charm, and there was nineteen-year-old May-

… and I thought he’d come back and then he’d love me, and I waited but he never did.

“May,” Andie said.

So I wrote him and asked for things, but I always got his secretary, and that’s when I decided it was time to take the kids to live with him. We’d all live with him. She swished her skirt again. And once I was there, he’d love me. I’m lovable.

“Yeah, you probably were,” Andie said.

I’m lovable NOW, May said, her face contorting for a moment, and Andie saw the empty eyes she’d seen that first night, the skull beneath the phantom skin May clung to.

“All right,” Andie said.

And then that bitch KILLED ME.

“Harold says things are not good,” Isolde said. “I’m ending this.”

“She killed you,” Andie said, talking fast, “so let’s return the favor. Let’s get rid of her. How do we do it?”

May hesitated.

“She stole your life,” Andie said. “For no reason, she took your life. Let’s end hers. Tell me something that will get rid of them.”

There might be one thing, May said.


• • •

“Somebody’s been doping people here with salvia,” Gabe told North when they’d locked the satellite truck and were in the pantry with the tapes.

“Salvia.” North shook his head. “Red flowers?”

“Wrong branch of the family. I called Chloe and had her look it all up to make sure, but I remember this stuff. We caught Riley growing it out behind the agency once a couple of years ago. You know teenagers.”

“I will very shortly. Carter’s twelve. What’s salvia?”

“Salvia divinorum. Very old natural high, not dangerous, produces visions.”

“Hallucinations,” North said, everything dropping into place.

“Yep. It’s not illegal, it’s not addictive, and it doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s not a crime to grow it. I still kicked Riley’s ass, though.”

“So how-”

Gabe pulled the jug of tea out of the lineup of decanters. “I tasted this. It’s not tea.” He jerked his thumb at what North had thought was a bundle of dried herbs. “Somebody’s drying Salvia divinorum, steeping the dried leaves and, I will bet you anything, spiking your booze with it.”

“Andie told me she drinks tea with a shot of Amaretto at night to sleep,” North said.