I looked at Juan. We had stolen Eddie’s hair so we could learn his story. Maybe he had realized. Juan looked back at me and I understood the instruction in his eyes: not a word. I tried to compose myself, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how the doors of the house weren’t locked.

What can he do, exactly? Tara finally asked. Eddie can’t have power over anything or anyone, he can’t control his actions. That’s not true, said Juan.

You’re not going to find me. There are always methods to change how a person feels, I only have to find the words. I can write them on my skin. Does the lion have scars? All your children have scars. I never wanted to die, because there’s not so much difference between death and life, mother, you taught me that in this house and I learned it from the pits, the deep holes, something living died and it wasn’t so different. The pregnant one knows, that’s why she visits me. She was taught wrong. You all teach wrong. You should stop teaching us like that, with the hands, with the night and the pain.

The pregnant one is Encarnación, said Laura, but not everyone listened. A lot of Initiates don’t know the medium was pregnant when she killed herself, they only know about the massacre and the suicide. Sandy stood up: my distress had spread to her. We have to search the house, she said. We all understood. We had to find Eddie if he was hiding there. Juan took me by the waist and whispered into my ear: Don’t worry if they open the door. All they’ll see is a bedroom. The key to the Other Place is mine.

This house isn’t safe anymore, said Stephen. Let’s get out as fast as we can. We have the cars, we have our passports. We have the bodyguards. The needle lifted off the record and we were left in silence. We divided into groups to scour the house. The kitchen, every one of the drawers, and the cupboards. I heard someone lifting the loose floorboards on the stairs: it was Laura, the only one who knew about that defect. I don’t know how much time we spent like that, drugged, jumping in fright, uselessly checking every corner, sometimes rolling with laughter, sometimes shrieking in fear because at the back of a drawer we felt the squeeze of a ghostly hand. We performed a ritual to find him, but we couldn’t concentrate and Laura annulled it. I don’t remember it clearly, either. I drew the circle, as always.

We slept with the house locked up using all the keys we found. We were sure there was no one else inside, but we were scared anyway. I don’t know why we didn’t leave. We were too high to hold on to a decision. We all shared beds: I remember five of our friends settled into one. Stephen managed to get hold of Florence in the early morning. She was already in Cadaqués. He read her the letter and she ordered us to get out immediately. Eddie couldn’t leave England, he didn’t have a passport and there was an all-points bulletin out for him at the borders. We didn’t listen to Florence.