“So she goes to bed that night, and she’s just falling asleep when her cell phone rings. She doesn’t answer, just rejects the call. But an hour later, it rings again. This time, she’s annoyed, so she silences the phone, tries to go back to sleep. An hour later, it rings again, and she finally looks to see who’s calling her in the middle of the night.”

Adan lets the question hang over the table. And then he smiles, just a little, the way Mom does when she hits the best part of a story.

“It was the landline in the house,” he says. “Where she’s the only one home.”

The table erupts into noise.

Jenna says, “OH MY GOD,” and Mom applauds, and Dad laughs and shakes his head, and chills run across my skin, the kind I love, no danger, no fear, just the thrill that happens when you hear a good story.

“Well, on that note,” says Mom as we stand to leave, “who’s up for a séance?”

If you’ll follow me …”

The voice belongs to Alistair Blanc, the Hotel Kardec’s resident Spiritist.

“The proper title is Master of Spirits,” he said when he met us in the lobby tonight. Apparently Lucas called to schedule a séance for us earlier today, after Mom and I offered our enthusiastic yes at Café du Monde.

The Master of Spirits is a small white man, with short silver hair and a sharp goatee, deep-set eyes, and a long thin nose topped by a pair of little round glasses. And he’s currently leading us through a door near Kardec’s copper bust and into a narrow hall, so dark we practically have to feel our way to the end. He picks up the edge of a velvet curtain, and holds it aside.

“Come in, come in. Don’t be shy,” says Mr. Blanc, ushering us through into a dimly lit space. “Your eyes will adjust to the dark.”

This séance room is nothing like the one at Muriel’s. There’s no clutter, no tinny music, just a stuffy quiet. There’s velvet everywhere, the space draped like a tent, so it’s impossible to tell what size it really is. But it feels too small for six people and a ghost.

Lucas came along with us, and Jenna, too, but she left her camera supplies in the lobby with Adan, who seemed a little too eager to stay behind and watch their stuff. (“He’s not a huge fan of small spaces,” she whispered as we walked away, and I couldn’t help but think, Good thing he wasn’t with us down in the Catacombs beneath Paris.)

A chandelier hangs in the center of the room, an elaborate sculpture of hands, each holding a candle in a foggy glass jar. Six high-backed chairs sit like thrones around a table covered in black silk. A large black rock, like a giant paperweight, sits in the center. The rock seems more ornamental than functional, but I can’t stop looking at it. And the longer I look, the more my eyes play tricks on me.