At least during the first half, with Dad asking Lucas leading and uncomfortable questions like “Were you two paired for this project at random, or did you choose to work together?” and “Where are you planning on going to college, Lucas?” and, my favorite, “Do you have a job, Lucas?”

To my amazement, Lucas dealt with each inquiry with graciousness and an odd finesse I hadn’t expected. He’d been fumbling and awkward during our first meeting in the library. Tonight, though, his air had become that of a congenial scholar. Sherlock Holmes meets Peter Parker. All business but with a bit of warmth and wry wit thrown in.

Also, I couldn’t help but notice that, whenever possible, Lucas took pains not to lie to my dad.

He’d thankfully also taken the lead on my “school project” angle. But each time the subject came up, Lucas had—after supplying some polite though evasive answer—steered the conversation back to my father’s plans for the house. A smart move on Lucas’s part because Dad loved to talk about his work to anyone who’d listen. And as Lucas asked question after question, my father’s stern demeanor finally started to crack.

“And this is going to sound weird,” Dad said at one point in the conversation, “but at least once a week, I have a dream about how this place used to look. Y’know. Back in the day.”

Wait. Dad was having dreams, too?

Lifting one plaid-flannel-sleeved arm from the table, Dad pointed in the direction of the parlor. “The fireplace in the front room, for example. In my dream, it had decorative glazed tiles surrounding it. Painted with sparrows and flowers that matched the wallpaper. There was the carved figurehead of a deer, too. Antlers and everything. That’s all gone now. But I can see in the framework on the iron facade where there had once been tiles. I must have glimpsed that detail before and my brain just . . . filled in the rest during REM. The subconscious is one heck of an organizer, isn’t it?”

“Y-yeah,” Lucas stammered, his smile uneasy.

“You didn’t mention the dreams to me,” I said.

Charlie, who had rushed through her dinner so she could get in her tablet time before bed, sat in the hall outside the kitchen, the device propped on her knees.

“Because you’re always wrapped up in some textbook,” Dad scoffed.

“Since you’ve been here,” prompted Lucas, “have you seen . . . y’know, anything out of the ordinary?”

I froze. Oh geez. He went there.

Dad grinned at him and wagged his eyebrows once. “You mean like a ghost?”

“Dad doesn’t believe in ghosts,” I interjected quickly, in case Lucas needed another reminder that this was territory that need not be tread upon.

“I am aware, though,” Dad countered, “that this place has a history of ghosts. I’m assuming, Lucas, that since you’re from around here, you know something about that?”

Dad chewed his next bite of roast in expectant silence. This time, I held back from swooping in to offer Lucas an out. Because he’d been the one to bring it up. And because the proverbial can had so already been opened. Also, there was the little fact that Dad hadn’t asked anything I didn’t want to know myself.