“I bet this tea was laced with something,” Stephen said, but they could both hear the lie.

She waited for him to talk about the levitating or the way the objects had moved. Ayanna knew she had not imagined it. They looked at each other. His eyes were very shiny.

“This is going to sound like a joke, but have you considered having an exorcism done?” Stephen was not smiling. “That was one of the most fucked-up things I’ve ever seen.”

He told Ayanna once when he was a child, he had gone with his dad to tour a cabin. Stephen had been only seven at the time. It was fun to go somewhere alone, just him and his dad. But everything about the cabin had felt wrong. While his dad had followed the realtor, Stephen had walked into the study. It was a beautiful room, still filled with old books, a beautiful rug, and this glistening desk with roses carved on the legs. It felt like being in an illustration, he said. But every time he pulled a book from the shelf, Stephen saw a man’s face with large pink eyes. His teeth were long. Nothing the man said made sense. His face was in the desk. His face was reflected in the window. He kept saying nonsense words and making noises. “I was sweating so hard, my shirt clung to me,” Stephen said. “I ran out into the living room and barfed on the floor.”

“Did your dad buy the cabin?”

“No. He was so busy making sure I was okay, someone put in an offer within hours, and things just felt right.”

“Please don’t tell anyone about this.” Ayanna wasn’t sweating. Everything felt mostly normal except that she was so thirsty. The first Gatorade had already been slammed. She was halfway through the second.

“You should talk to Felix,” Stephen said. “I think you were doing automatic writing. He’s obsessed with it lately.”

Ayanna ran her fingers over the drawings in her notebook. Felt again the force she had used to make the eyes and lips. She turned to Stephen. He smiled at her, relaxed as always.

“Oh. And who’s Olivia?” he asked. “You talked to her for about ten minutes.”

Ayanna refused to look up and meet his gaze until she was sure her face would be still and relaxed. When she spoke, Ayanna was relieved her voice was only slightly higher than usual. “Did she say anything back?”

Stephen raised his eyebrows; he was more uncomfortable than she had yet seen him. “Ayanna?”

She tried to say it was a joke but knew by the way Stephen and Jane were looking at each other that they did not believe her. The room still had a pink cast to Ayanna. She took a breath, let out another, the easiest way to ignore the spirits was to focus on the living.

“Are you okay?” Jane asked.