“I don’t mean a religious witch, you silly child. I mean that you’ve got shining. Everyone knows you talk to ghosts. You and Leslie both. Probably Louise too. All of you. And there’s a smell to you. Avery told me, he said, ‘You can always know one by her smell.’ And boy, was he right.”

I tried not to sound too interested when I pounced on the implications, but it was hard to keep the curiosity out of my voice. “I didn’t know you ever actually met Avery. Why don’t you tell me about his book. Lulu said something to me once about a book, but I don’t remember what it had to do with anything.”

She ignored me, or she didn’t hear me anymore. “I might think that’s why Rachel settled on you so hard. She knew your mother was a witch. And Malachi’d heard about you and the ghosts and he figured the worst. That might be it, right there. It’s not such a far jump for a mixed-up head to make. Hey—do you hear him?”

“What?”

“I asked you, ‘Do you hear him?’ He’s coming up now. He’ll be here soon.”

“Tatie?” I asked, using the title again because I didn’t know what else to refer to her by.

Despite her prior admonition, she didn’t object.

“Huh?” Her eyes were still closed, as if she were on the very verge of sleep. I’d never reclaimed my chair, but was still standing by my father’s photograph. I left it on the shelf and approached her, crouching down almost as close as she’d first come to me. This sad bundle of wrinkles and bones was my only real link to the truth, and she was passing out before my eyes. But there were things I still needed to know. The aerosol smell of her Aqua Net hairspray made my nose itch, but I drew even closer, until my mouth was almost at her ear.

“It’s not true, is it?” I asked, balancing on my toes and listening hard.

She sighed and shook her head just slightly. “Sure it’s true. He killed them all three, and the baby girl with them. His boy, by one of the other women, that was your granddaddy. That’s why there’s still this whole line of you, coming after my money. But your other aunt, she’s got no children, does she?” Eliza cracked an eye open and stared at me from it.

“No. No children.”

“Good. Then you’re the last of them.”

But she’d answered the wrong question. I asked it more directly while I still had her attention. I wanted to draw my face away from hers but I couldn’t. It might have broken the spell, and the right question had not yet been aired.

“Tatie,” I tried again, “It isn’t true, is it? I’m not Avery, am I?”