“Of course,” Maureen said. Once again there were the greyhounds, the garden, the fire, and the roses. Shadows slicked the flagstones, blotted and clung to the tapestries.

“Better,” Sisi said. “Thank you. You went and found it online, didn’t you, Maureen? That was exactly the way I remember it. I went outside to think and have a cigarette. Yeah, I know. Bad astronaut. But I still kind of wanted to sleep with this guy. Just once. So he was messed up, so what? Sometimes messed-up sex is the best. When I came back inside the house, I still hadn’t made up my mind. And then I made up my mind in a hurry. Because this guy? I went to look for him and he was down on the floor in that little boy’s bedroom. Under the window, okay? On top of that stain. He was rolling around on the floor. You know, the way cats do? He had this look on his face. Like when they get catnip. I got out of there in a hurry. Drove away in his Land Rover. The keys were still in the ignition. Left it at a transport café and hitched the rest of the way home and never saw him again.”

“You win,” Portia said. “I don’t know what you win, but you win. That guy of yours was wrong.”

“What about the artist? I mean, what he did,” Mei said. “That Liam guy would have been okay if it weren’t for what he did. Right? I mean it’s something to think about. Say we find some nice Goldilocks planet. If the conditions are suitable and we grow some trees and some cows, do we get the table with the ghosts sitting around it? Did they come along with Aune? With us? Are they here now? If we tell Maureen to build a haunted house around us right now, does she have to make the ghosts? Or do they just show up?”

Maureen said, “It would be an interesting experiment.”

The Great Room began to change around them. The couch came first.

“Maureen!” Portia said. “Don’t you dare!”

Gwenda said, “But we don’t need to run that experiment. I mean, isn’t it already running?” She appealed to the others, to Sullivan, to Aune. “You know. I mean, you know what I mean?”

“Not really,” Sisi said. “What are you saying?”

Gwenda looked at the others. Then Sisi again. Sisi stretched luxuriously, weightlessly. Gwenda thought of the stain on the carpet, the man rolling on it like a cat.

“Gwenda, my love. What are you trying to say?” Sisi said.

“I know a ghost story,” Maureen said. “I know one, after all. Do you want to hear it?”