“Not at all.” He slurps the tea noisily. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs.…?”

She lets the question dangle in the air like a loose thread. The stranger stares shrewdly, waiting for an answer or perhaps a confirmation. In either case, she does not give him the satisfaction.

“Agnes,” she says, crossing one leg over the other. “Does it need lemon?”

“No, it’s fine, thank you.”

“Nathaniel, do you believe in ghosts?”

The tea chokes him on the way down, and he subdues a cough in the crook of his elbow. “Say again?”

“Ghosts, I said. Do you need to clean your ears out?”

“That’s … that isn’t … Look, I’m a skeptic when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“You believe in the resurrection of Jesus but not ghosts?” I ask.

“Well, that’s … the thing is …” He takes another sip of his tea.

My mother keeps her gaze fixed on him. “What made you decide to stop here today?”

As he fidgets, he looks at me from the corner of his eye, wanting to look at me but not, wanting me to help him regain control of the conversation. You’re on your own, I want to tell him, but he keeps trying to look at me, so I ask how come I haven’t seen him in town before.

“In town?” he says blankly. “Oh, you mean Shadydale? I’m from about forty miles west, as the crow flies.”

“Legends travel that far?”

He sets down his mug, slides the camera strap from around his neck to hold the device in his lap, and shrugs. “Legends travel pretty far.” Now he looks about the room, admiring it openly. “All right, so you got me. I’m not a believer—that’s my parents’ deal. They make me do this door-to-door stuff. I am a bit of an architecture aficionado, though. This house has been on my bucket list for years, but as it’s a private residence, I never dreamed I would set foot inside. I was only stopping by to take pictures of the front, and, well, I thought I’d try my luck.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know very much about architecture,” my mother drawls. “But I don’t think I’m quite done talking about ghosts.”

His smile falters. He looks at me again for help, but I offer him none. “If you’d just let me take a peek around, maybe snap a few photos for my blog, I’d happily get out of your hair. There’s no need—”

“Nonsense,” says Agnes. “Sit, enjoy your tea. We’re only having a conversation. You know, we don’t often get visitors out here. Most folks think to stay away. I can’t imagine why.” She smiles over her mug. “So forgive me, but I like to talk. While I have you here, I’d like to get your take on it. Do you feel any particular energy in this old house?”

“Well,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t know.” He looks around. “I guess there is a kind of electricity in the air. Old wiring, you know. I’ve visited a number of nineteenth-century buildings that have the same problem, and I’ve blogged extensively about it for my column on East Coast Victorian architecture.”