It took me a moment to realize that this meant I couldn’t even go into my own bedroom.

“Perhaps you can spend a little time in the garden,” she suggested. “Get some fresh air, and then you and I can have a nice lunch before Mr. Albright brings the weekly papers.”

“Okay,” I said. “Do you want me to make something?”

“Oh no,” she said, heading for the stairway. “You enjoy your free time while it lasts.”

I nodded and headed for the garden, where I wandered for a miserably hot half hour. I had my phone, but not the key to the graveyard, so I couldn’t reach the signal.

Back inside the house, I popped my head into Laura’s morning room, and she glanced up. “Yes?”

“Is it okay if I go shower?”

She took off her pearly-pink reading glasses and held them in the air. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Earlier, you said you didn’t want Agatha interrupted.”

“That won’t be a problem,” she said, waving me off. She put her reading glasses on in a gesture that dismissed me handily.

I hurried up the stairs and into the nursery, expecting to see Agatha asleep in her bed.

But she wasn’t there.

The bed was empty, the mattress stripped of its bedding.

I looked around in a panic. Where was she? Where did she go?

I was on my way out to the hallway to search for her when I happened to notice the door to Agatha’s old room. It was closed, as usual, but there was something different: a new lock. Someone had added a shining metal dead bolt to it. The kind you needed a key for, only there was no key in sight.

Just like the one on Lily’s door.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Laura said, gliding up toward me like a wraith. “That isn’t to keep us out—it’s to keep Agatha in.”

From her pocket, she pulled a small key, and turned it in the lock.

“Weren’t you going to take a shower?” she asked. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Then she opened the door only as much as she needed to slide through. I craned my neck to see past her, and two images burned into my brain: First, that the bedroom had been cleaned. Second, that Agatha lay unconscious in the bed, looking small and utterly defenseless.

AFTER MY SHOWER, I set the table, and Laura brought out two bowls of soup. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but the food smelled good, and I could feel her eyes on me. The thought of a discussion about whether I was eating enough—and why not, and what else might be wrong—was too much. So I swallowed bite after bite, trying to look as if I was enjoying it enough to make Laura happy.