At this point, it looked like Mom was becoming overwhelmed by Verano’s forced proximity, and she stepped away from him—a move that he apparently took as an invitation to enter the house. I took some pleasure in the sour look on his face as he was forced to navigate the cloud of flies.

Raph followed just behind him, his shoulders hunched in discomfort at the whole scene, though I guess with Verano here, he was no longer too nervous to enter the house at all.

“These all yours?” said Verano, examining her assortment of dream catchers and ritual candles. Mom nodded. “Quite a nice collection,” he observed, which coaxed a smile out of her. “Many of these items could be picked up at any one of the innumerable and interchangeable New Age bookshops that dot this country, but a few of these are rare pieces.”

Verano’s accent was unplaceable. It sounded British to me at first, maybe by way of Swiss boarding school. Then, as he went on, his vowels became rounded in a much more American way . . . but every few words that hint of clipped, foreign speech would reassert itself for a syllable or two. I couldn’t decide if this meant that he had lived all over, or if it was meant to convey that impression. He was clearly someone who cared a lot about his image, so I didn’t rule that possibility out.

“Thank you,” said Mom. “I started collecting after the—”

But Professor Verano didn’t appear to be listening. He glanced over his shoulder at Raph. “Find me a trash bag, would you please.”

“Wait, what?” said Mom as Verano began pulling her trinkets down from the shelves. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I understand you have a problem with spirits.”

“You misunderstand, then. We don’t have a problem. Professor . . . Verano, is it? I appreciate your interest, but as I’ve explained to my daughter many times, it’s only human prejudice that makes people afraid of the spirit world. In this household we respect our neighbors, embodied or otherwise. We are not in need of an exorcism.”

“Mom!” I exclaimed. “Stop it.” Given his rude behavior, I wasn’t eager to take Verano’s side against my own mother, but I had to admit that his confident manner gave me hope that he might know how to resolve our situation. At the least, he was the first person who seemed willing to take it seriously. “Stop acting like this is all a cute little game,” I said to her. “Look what happened to Logan, look at what has happened to all of us. Whatever is in this house does not have our best interests at heart.”

Verano unceremoniously dropped a clinking armload of my mom’s ritual objects into the bag Raph had found. “Ms. Blanton,” he said, “you should heed your daughter. I don’t think you fully appreciate the nature of the forces affecting this house, and your family. Your trinkets have done more harm than good here. You have disturbed some very powerful forces, and you are now in a position of considerable danger. Your sage smudging, your altars and dream catchers and crystals and grimoires . . . It all seems quite harmless to you, but it may not seem so benevolent to . . .” He raised his eyes toward the ceiling, almost as if he could see a demon squatting there. “To others,” he finished.

Then, with barely a glance more in her direction, Verano proceeded to show himself around the first floor of the house, moving swiftly from room to room, stopping here and there to press his ear to the walls and tap the head of his cane three times.

“What—what are you looking for?” I asked.

“Amelia,” he replied in a hushed voice.

“Who’s Amelia?” I said, but Verano was in his own world, and showed no inclination to answer. Raph, luckily, was able to fill us in.

“Amelia was Williamson’s daughter. She shows up a bunch in Pronoica stuff when she’s a baby, but she disappears from the record when she’s around 13.”

“Exactly!” shouted Verano from the pantry. “An absence. A very significant absence.”

“What does that prove, though?” asked Mom. Verano came in through the kitchen and stood very close to her.

“Nothing,” he said with a strange smile. “Nothing at all. But it is suggestive, isn’t it?”

“Are you thinking that something happened with Amelia at the clinic?” said Raph. “That she saw something, something she shouldn’t have, and they needed to shut her up?”

“Yes,” said Verano, “yes, I believe . . .” But he stopped himself, and his eyes grew large with some sudden realization. “Ah yes, shut her up. Exactly,” he said. “Don’t you see, Raphael? She didn’t just disappear from the record, she disappeared.”

“You mean he killed her?”

“Possibly. But no. I think that he . . .” Suddenly he turned toward me. “Do you know of any unaccounted-for spaces in this house? A blocked-up door, or a room that seems too small for its place in the house?”

I glanced at Mom and Logan. “There is a blocked-up door, but it just leads down to Raph’s apartment. I don’t know any other—”

“The turret,” said Logan. “My room is under a turret, but the ceiling is flat. There must be some extra space up there.”

Verano said nothing, but his face lit up, and he dashed up the stairs, his cane clenched purposelessly in his fist.

We followed him up, but before I even reached the top of the stairs, I heard him emit a sharp cry. I exchanged a look with Mom before running up the remaining steps. “Professor Verano? Are you—”

As he came into view, I saw his face scrunched into a pained expression, one hand rubbing vigorously at his head. “That sound,” he said. “How can you bear it?”

“Oh,” I said. “You can hear it? It’s actually not so bad today. Some days it sounds like—”

“For God’s sake, child, how long have you been living with this? A room in your house produces noises like a direct portal to hell, and you . . . what? Put your headphones on?” I didn’t have a good answer to this, and he didn’t seem to expect one. Instead he gritted his teeth and went into the room, eyeing the ceiling with academic interest.

“Raphael,” he said. “In that toolbox of yours, do you happen to have a sledge hammer?”