Ben may be a skeptic, but he’s curious enough to be at my house Saturday afternoon when Maeve arrives along with her ghost-hunting team.

“This is Todd and Evan, who’ll handle the technical aspects tonight,” she says, introducing the two burly young men who are unloading camera gear from a white van. They are brothers with identical red beards and they look so much alike that I can only tell them apart by their different T-shirts. Evan’s is Star Wars, Todd’s is Alien. I’m surprised that neither is wearing Ghostbusters.

A VW comes up the driveway and parks behind the white van. “And that’ll be Kim, our team sensitive,” says Maeve. Out of the VW emerges a stick-thin blonde with cheeks so hollow that I wonder if she has recently suffered an illness. She takes a few steps toward us and suddenly stops, staring up at the house. She stands motionless for so long that Ben finally asks, “What’s going on with her?”

“She’s fine,” says Maeve. “She’s probably just trying to get a feeling for the place and detect any vibrations.”

    “Before we unload everything, we’re going to take a look around the house, film some baseline footage,” says Todd. He’s already filming and he slowly pans his camera across the porch, then steps into the foyer. Glancing up at the crown molding, he says, “This house looks pretty old. There’s a good chance you’ve got something still lingering in here.”

“Is it okay if I just wander around?” says Kim.

“Of course,” I tell her. “The house is yours.”

Kim heads down the hallway, followed by the two brothers who continue to film. When they’re out of earshot, Maeve turns to Ben and me and confides: “I haven’t told Kim any details about your house. She’s coming in to this assignment blind, because I don’t want to influence her reactions in any way.”

“You called her your team sensitive,” says Ben. “What does that mean, exactly? Is that like a psychic?”

“Kim has the ability to sense energies that still linger in a room, and she’ll tell us which areas need special monitoring. She’s been amazingly accurate.”

“And how exactly does one judge accuracy?” This time, Ben can’t keep the doubt out of his voice, but Maeve smiles, unruffled.

“Ava tells me you’re a medical doctor, so I’m sure this sounds like a foreign language to you. But yes, we’re able to confirm a great deal of what Kim tells us. Last month, she described a deceased child in very specific detail. Only later did we show her the child’s photo, and we were blown away by how every detail matched what she’d described to us. Everything, right down to the lace collar on the little boy’s shirt.” She pauses, reading Ben’s face. “You’re doubtful.”

“I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

“What would it take to convince you, Dr. Gordon?”

“Maybe if I saw a ghost myself.”

“Ah, but some people never do. They’re simply not able to. So what can we do to change your mind, short of having the ghost materialize in front of you?”

    “Does it really matter what I believe? I’m just curious about the process, and I wanted to observe.”

Kim reappears in the foyer. “We’d like to go upstairs now.”

“Have you sensed anything yet?” Ben asks.

Kim doesn’t answer, but simply starts up the stairs with Todd and Evan trailing behind her, their cameras recording the ascent.

“How many of these investigations have you conducted?” Ben asks Maeve.

“We’ve visited around sixty or seventy locations, mostly in New England. When people experience disturbing phenomena, whether it’s just creaky floorboards or full-body manifestations, they don’t know where to turn. So they reach out to us.”

“Excuse me?” Evan calls down from the upstairs landing. “There’s a door at the end of the hall up here. Can we look inside?”

“Go right ahead,” I answer.

“The door’s locked. Can we have the key?”

“It can’t be locked.” I head up the stairs to the second floor, where Kim and her colleagues are standing outside the closed door to the turret.

“What’s behind this?” asks Kim.

“It’s just a staircase. It’s never locked. I don’t even know where the key is.” I turn the knob and the door creaks open.

“Hey man, I swear it was locked,” Todd insists. He turns to his brother. “You saw it. I couldn’t get the thing open.”

“It’s the humidity,” says Ben, providing a logical explanation as usual. He leans in to examine the doorjamb. “It’s summertime, and wood tends to swell up. Doors get stuck.”

“It’s never been stuck before,” I say.

“Well, if it is your ghost at work, why is he trying to keep us out of the turret?”

Everyone looks at me. I don’t answer. I don’t want to answer.

Kim is first through the doorway. She climbs only two steps and abruptly halts, her hand frozen on the banister.

    “What’s wrong?” says Maeve.

Kim stares up at the top of the stairs and says softly, “What’s up there?”

“Just the turret,” I tell her.

Kim takes a breath. And takes another step. It’s clear she does not want to ascend, but she keeps climbing. As I follow the others, I think of the nights I so eagerly climbed these same stairs with the captain leading me by the hand. I remember silk skirts swishing at my legs and candlelight flickering above and my heart pounding in anticipation of what awaited me behind those velvet curtains. Ben touches my arm and I flinch in surprise.

“They’re putting on quite a show,” he whispers.

“I think she really does sense something.”

“Or maybe they just know how to amp up the drama. What do you really know about these people, Ava? Do you actually believe them?”

“At this point, I’m ready to turn to anyone who can give me answers.”

“Even if they’re frauds?”

“We’ve come this far. Please, let’s just hear them out.”

We climb the last steps into the turret and watch as Kim paces to the center of the room, where she suddenly stops. Her head tilts up as if she’s listening for whispers from beyond the curtain that divides the living from the dead. Todd’s camera is still rolling and I can see the blinking record light.

Kim takes a deep breath, releases it. Slowly she turns toward the window and stares out at the widow’s walk. “Something terrible happened here. In this room,” she says softly.

“What do you see?” Maeve asks.

“It’s not clear to me yet. It’s just an echo. Like the outer ripples after you’ve cast a stone into water. It’s the lingering trace of what she felt.”

“She?” Maeve turns to me and I know we’re both thinking of Aurora Sherbrooke, who died in this turret. How long did she lie here, still alive? Did she cry out for help, try to drag herself to the stairs? When you keep your friends and family at arm’s length, when you cut yourself off from the world, this is your punishment: to die alone and unnoticed, your body left to decompose.

    “I feel her fear,” whispers Kim. “She knows what’s about to happen, but no one can help her. No one can save her. She is all alone in this room. With him.”

Captain Brodie?

Kim turns to us, her face alarmingly pale. “There’s evil here. Something powerful, something dangerous. I can’t stay in this house. I can’t.” She bolts for the stairway and we hear her footsteps thump down the stairs in a panicked tattoo.

Slowly Todd lowers the camera from his shoulder. “What the hell just happened, Maeve?”

Maeve shakes her head, bewildered. “I have no idea.”

* * *

—

Maeve sits at my kitchen table, her hand trembling as she lifts a teacup to her mouth and takes a sip.

“I’ve worked with Kim for years and this is the first time she’s ever walked away from an assignment. Whatever happened up there in the turret must have left powerful traces. Even if it’s just a residual haunting, the emotions are still there, trapped in that space.”

“What do you mean by a residual haunting?” Ben asks. Unlike everyone else, he appears unmoved by what we witnessed in the turret, and he stands apart from us, leaning against the kitchen counter. As always, the detached observer. “Is that the same thing as a ghost?”

“Not exactly,” explains Maeve. “It’s more like an echo left over from a terrible event. Powerful emotions triggered by that event get trapped in the place where it happened. Fear, anguish, grief—they can all linger in a house for years, even centuries, and sometimes the living can feel them, the way Kim did. Whatever happened upstairs left its mark inside that turret and the incident continues to play and replay, like an old video recording. Plus, I noticed the roof is slate.”

    “What does that have to do with anything?” Ben asks.

“Buildings with slate or iron or stone are more likely to retain those distant echoes.” She looks up at the decorative tin ceiling in the kitchen. “This house almost seems designed to hold on to memories and strong emotions. They’re still here, and people like Kim can feel them.”