Familiarity with his lover’s post-séance condition had trained Charles well. He removed the tea towel from a plate of cheese, bread, and chocolate. He pushed the plate toward August.

“Eat,” he said. “I’ll get you some coffee.”

The two men sat and talked until dawn, for even though August had successfully ensnared the ugly entity that had been plaguing the ghost girl who called herself Celeste, he still felt that this work was not yet completed.

“What’s left to do?” Charles asked him.

August rubbed his face, sighed. “That first Sitting we did, the one right after I had the dream about Celeste and that awful spirit-possessed Mother travelling across the water from the spirit world, Celeste said something about a family vault on an island somewhere, that she and her sister had released something that had been stored inside that vault.”

“The malevolent spirit?”

“It’s possible. Once I banished the evil spirit, I saw a clear image of a woman standing behind Celeste, like a protector, a mother. Maybe whatever the girls freed from the vault possessed this woman and now the woman is free.”

“Yes, but it’s doubtful that the woman that Celeste referred to as Mother was her actual Mother,” Charles said. “Remember, Celeste appeared consistently as a girl in an antiquated-looking dress, whereas the woman was wearing modern clothes.”

August nodded. “I know. I don’t believe she was Celeste’s actual mother, even though from what Celeste has told us, she certainly filled the role. And there’s something else I didn’t fully comprehend until just now: when I was under and trying to purge that harmful spirit, the woman, Celeste’s quote-unquote Mother, was helping me.”

“Helping you how?”

“She knew the gestures, the words of purging.”

“You think that in life this woman was a pellar?”

“Or a medium, a spiritualist. I think she became a caregiver to Celeste’s spirit long after Celeste had died on Earth.”

Charles sat back in his chair. The wood popped. “That’s interesting…a very interesting observation indeed. But where does that leave us?”

“I have a theory,” August said after a long pause. “It’s a long shot, but it’s the only way I can see truly putting this matter to rest.”

“I’m listening.”

“We dig through local history books, old maps, anything. I believe Celeste is a local spirit of place, a genius loci. So we look for a private island somewhere in the province; a private island with an old mansion and a family vault.”

“You’re right, that is a long shot,” Charles returned. “But let’s just say for the sake of argument that we find such an island, assuming of course that Celeste’s messages and your visions haven’t all been purely symbolic, what then? What’s the next step?”

“We travel there. We bring the spirit bottle with us, then we secure it back inside the family vault.”