“You sure your six-year-old sister wasn’t in the next room when you were watching the documentary?”

“I don’t know anything about a documentary,” I said, officially starting to hate her. “She’s been talking about this Zedok guy since the night we moved in.”

“Okay, yeah,” Wes said through an uneasy grin. “Can we not . . . say that name? I think we’ll all have a far more pleasant afternoon if we refrain from invoking the infernal.”

“What are you all talking about?” My blood started to race again, both with fear and mounting agitation.

That’s when Charlotte veered on me. “Oh, come on. You got the name off of that TV special Paranormal Spectator did on the house six years ago. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that you watched the ‘Phantom Fury’ episode over the weekend. And now you’re messing with us. Or Lucas. I’m just not sure why.”

That last bit she aimed at Lucas while I gawped at her, still too stunned by the invoking-demons remark to formulate a coherent thought.

“Charlotte.” Lucas leaned forward to prop his folded arms on the table. “Chill for a second, okay? Let’s just hear what she has to say.”

“I didn’t watch any stupid documentary,” I snapped. At all of them. “This . . .” I hesitated before saying the name again, strictly for Wes’s sake. “My sister started talking about this . . . ghost thing or whatever right after we moved in. I thought she was making it up. But now . . .”

I trailed off, suddenly unable to articulate anything more. Because how could I tell them about the dream with Erik without sounding crazier than I already did?

“But now you don’t think she’s making it up,” Lucas finished for me.

Okay. So at least he believed me. That I wasn’t fabricating this as a way to get back at him.

Right now, though, I still didn’t know what I believed.

Before yesterday, I’d believed that dead people were dead and that if there were such things as spirits, they didn’t stick around on earth to haunt the living.

Maybe, I had wanted to believe, souls transformed into angels.

Because Mom had believed in angels.

“I don’t know,” I said finally. “I just thought that, since you seemed to know so much about the house, you might be able to tell me something useful.”

“Well,” said Wes, “something must have happened. Or else you really are pulling our chain. On a side note, chain-pulling is a pastime I, too, enjoy.”

“Quit being a creep, Wes,” snapped Charlotte.

“Just creepin’ it real,” replied Wes.

“Please forgive my asinine ass-ociate,” said Patrick, holding up a hand to block Wes’s face from view. “His mom forgot to staple his tact to his shirt today. Not to worry. He and I are going to have a talk about it later. But, in the meantime, give it to us straight. Did you see him?”

No one moved or spoke for several seconds. Not even Charlotte. Their waiting on tenterhooks made me want to give them something. But all I had was the truth.