Chapter 31

It’s late afternoon on Friday when the wall phone rings in the kitchen. Saoirse steps over Pluto lapping water from his silver dish to answer it.

“Saoirse, hi, you’re there,” Emmit says. “I called your cell a few times, but you didn’t answer, so I figured I’d try the house phone.”

She suppresses a sigh. Why had she given him the house number? “Sorry about that. My cell must be upstairs.” It’s not a lie; she’s been avoiding her phone, dreading the inevitable moment when a message appears from another unknown number, and Aidan is that much closer to telling her what he knows, to relaying what was in Jonathan’s final text.

On top of this, Saoirse’s exhausted, having expended most of her energy over the last twenty hours or so wondering what to do about Emmit. The whirlwind ups and downs of the past week play on a loop inside her head. She’s too uncertain of his motives, too undecided as to whether she should throw herself into the relationship even harder or tell him she needs a break.

“No worries,” Emmit says. “I understand. We’ve seen a lot of each other this week.” He chuckles, and she imagines the half smile flashing across his face. “But, as usual, I can’t stop thinking about you. Do you want to get together tonight?”

So you can mine my soul for dark shit to write about? “To do what?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Dinner. A movie. Whatever you’d like.”

“I need to take it easy on drinking and eating out,” Saoirse says. “You know, watch my salt intake, monitor my fluids.”

“Of course. We could stay in. I’ll cook for you.”

A quiet night in with him does sound nice, but it is Friday, after all. “I’d like that, but I actually have plans this evening.” She’s not sure why she didn’t say this to begin with, but something about denying Emmit outright felt ... not dangerous—of course not anything that extreme—but unpleasant. Anxiety-producing.

“Oh?”

“With Roberto, Lucretia, and Mia. We ...” She hasn’t told him about the séances, but after her admissions the night before, it seems silly to lie. Still, she laughs, trying to downplay the strangeness of what she’s about to say. “We’ve sort of been holding séances in my basement.”

There’s silence on the other end. Then Emmit says, “Wait, you’re kidding. Whose idea was this? Has anything ever happened at one?”

Saoirse laughs again. “No. Well, not really. I had a bit of a strange experience—I’ve only been to one, mind you—but that was probably because I convinced myself beforehand something weird was going to happen.” She’s not admitting to the microdose of LSD hidden in Lucretia’s cupcakes; Emmit would never want her seeing the three writers again.

“What happened, exactly?” He sounds breathless with excitement, the way he did in the Shunned House when they discovered the length of the basement exceeded the perimeter of its walls.

Through the phone, Saoirse hears the sliding sound she associates with an opening drawer and the telltale click of a pen. Is he writing this down? Her earlier suspicions return to her. She swallows but says nothing.

“Saoirse? Come on, you have to tell me.”

“I actually need to get going, Emmit. Another time.”

“Wait, hold on a minute. I know this is forward of me, but I can’t help it. A séance in the basement of Sarah Whitman’s house when she herself was a spiritualist? I have to come. If you told your friends you invited me, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

Forward is an understatement, she wants to say. Out of line is a much more apt description. “I can’t, Emmit, sorry, but these séances are totally Mia’s thing. She barely let me into the circle, so I don’t want to overstep.” Before he can protest, she continues, “I’ll call you when we’re finished. If it’s not too late, maybe you can come over then?” She bristles at her weakness, at keeping open the possibility of seeing him, of softening the blow of denying him. She realizes, too, that in the week since they’ve been seeing one another, he’s never invited her to his place.

“Sure, okay,” Emmit says, but it’s clear from his tone he’s annoyed. “I should get back to the novel anyway. I do hope you call, though. I miss you.”

“I miss you too. Bye, Emmit.” She hangs up before he can say anything to change her mind. The way, last night on the balcony, he pushed her to speak of things she’d have been happy to never speak of again weighs on her mind. She does miss him; she’s felt more alive with Emmit this last week than she has in the last five years. But even as she craves his touch, a quiet voice inside her head—not Jonathan’s—warns her that she cannot trust him. And to pay more attention to those flutters of fear she’s experienced several times over the past few days.

He is not who he says he is.

Saoirse walks upstairs to get dressed for the séance but is drawn to the balcony by the twilight mist swirling around the lichen-covered gravestones. Fingering the coffin-shaped charm around her neck, she steps outside and recalls how Emmit looked last night, standing in this very same spot. It occurs to her suddenly that she recognized the expression that had come over his face when she’d shared those terrible details from her past. It was the same way he looked when she found him in the basement of the Shunned House. All glinting eyes and a mouth hardly able to keep closed around the secrets—or squirming insects—it held.

It was the way he appeared to her on the ceiling of her basement, in the vision she had of him during her first séance.