Dr. Grant nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you know anything about the people who lived here before?” I asked.

She shifted where she stood. “They were a pretty private family. Rhinebeck is a small town. People like to talk. A bunch of foolishness if you ask me, but like I said, there were always complaints of strange people coming and going.”

“Strange people?” I asked. Her tone echoed what Mrs. Redmond had said to us before we left Brooklyn—colorful characters. It didn’t sit right with me.

“Rhinebeck is a community within a community,” she said, measuring her words. “Outside of the tourists, there are all sorts of people here. Artists, celebrities, people just trying to make a living.” She stopped on the verge of saying more. “I’m sure it’s just local kids. They probably thought this place was still empty. I know I did.”

“It’s not empty anymore,” Mom said.

“No, ma’am. And I’ll be sure to let police and fire know so there’s no further confusion.”

“So it’s all clear out there now?” Mo asked.

“I think so,” Dr. Grant said. “I’ll do a walk around the perimeter before I go. I suggest you make sure everything is locked up tight. I’ll give you a call in the morning to check in, if you’d like.”

“Not necessary,” Mo said. “But we appreciate the offer.”

Dr. Grant handed Mo her card. “If there’s any trouble, anything at all, call this number to reach me directly. I’ll come right over. Rhinebeck is unique, and I wouldn’t want you getting run off before you’ve even had a chance to settle in. I hope you’ll like it here.”

After she left, we walked through every room in the house and made sure all the doors and windows were locked. The house seemed more ominous as the night pressed in on us. The dark corners deeper, the hallways longer. I grabbed a blanket and balled up at the end of my parents’ bed, trying to pretend everything was fine. Mo said it was fine. Even Mom tried to tell me it was fine but Mo kept glancing toward the window and Mom put her Taser on the nightstand in a way that would let her grab it at any moment.

Strangers in the driveway, a house that was mine and not mine at the same time, my friends back home probably not thinking about me at all, and a dead woman thinking about me so much she’d left me a house and all the stuff that went with it.

Everything was not fine.

As soon as the sun lit the room through a crack in the curtains, Mom got up and stood in the shower for half an hour trying to relieve her itchy skin. I was still rash-free. Mo ran out to get breakfast and came back with griddle cakes, fruit, and coffee that we ate in the front living room.

The morning light and delicious food had blunted the unease from the night before. Mom was still on edge, but had put her Taser away, which was a good sign.

“I say we start cleaning at the top and work our way down,” said Mo. “We can use that dumpster on the side of the house. There’s a number on it. I’ll call and see if they can come switch it out when it’s full.”

I preferred a plan that involved napping, Netflix, and maybe ordering a pizza but that would have been too easy. We made our way up to the turret with trash bags and empty boxes we’d salvaged from the first floor. I avoided looking at the painting on the wall. I didn’t want to worry about what was in the letters stashed in that safe.

We filled bag after bag with old newspapers and magazines. I organized empty plant pots into stacks and swept up the dust and mouse droppings. I helped Mo carry out a broken chair then turned my attention to the bookshelves.

I pulled collections of poems and stories by people with names like Euripides, Eumelus, and Pausanias off the shelves. Every single one was worn, their pages dog-eared and marked up with pencil in the margins. I dusted them off and reorganized them on the shelf in alphabetical order.

“I think Circe had a thing for Greek mythology,” I said.

Mom picked up a copy of The Metamorphoses. “I remember reading some of this in college,” she said. “It didn’t really stick. I know the Orpheus myth, though.”

“Seeing Hadestown doesn’t count as knowing the Orpheus myth,” Mo said.

Mom put a hand on her hip. “I paid a hundred dollars apiece for those seats. It counts.”

“Check this out.” Mo pulled a beige drop cloth off what I thought was another stack of boxes, but underneath was a book the size of a poster, sitting on a waist-high pedestal. Mo studied its proportions. “This thing’s gotta weigh fifty pounds.”

I grabbed a rag and dusted off the leather cover where the title had been pressed in crimson. Venenum Hortus.

“Latin?” Mom asked.

“ ‘Venenum’ is poison,” I said in a whisper. My skin turned to gooseflesh under the sleeves of my shirt. A tickle at my ankle drew my attention downward. One of the plant pots wasn’t empty after all. Something I didn’t recognize at first was wrapping itself around my leg, turning from brown to green while turtle shell–shaped leaves with thin white veins crisscrossing their surfaces sprouted by the dozens.

“Peperomia prostrata,” I said.

“There was nothing left of that thing,” Mom said, her voice tight. “Those pots were empty. There was only dust inside. I’ve—I’ve never seen you bring something back that was that dead.”

I tried to think of a time when I’d done something like that, either purposely or by accident, but she was right. I’d never brought back a plant from its dusty, decayed remains. Avoiding her worried gaze, I gently untangled the tendrils from my leg, pushed the pot back against the wall, and turned my attention to the massive book.

“Plants are classified in Latin,” I said. “So I recognize that part. I think the other word is—” I took out my phone and Googled “hortus.” I wanted to be sure. “ ‘Hortus’ means ‘garden.’ It’s ‘poison garden.’ ”

We huddled around the book as Mo pulled open the front cover. The spine cracked like a set of aching knuckles. The first page was a semitransparent piece of paper. Through it, I could make out the outline of a plant. Mo gently uncovered the picture underneath. The details were sharp, the colors vivid, like a photograph. The only clues that it was hand-drawn were the hints of pencil where the artist had painted over their sketch.