I went to the second bed, knelt, and lifted the bedspread. This time, I had no doubt that when I bent down and got my face near the floor, Agatha would come flying at me like a bat out of a cave.

Nope.

Some companion I turned out to be. I surveyed the room, wondering if Laura and John would simply send for the car and load me right back up.

I walked over to the open bathroom door and looked inside. The walls were tiled with shining squares of pale blue, the floor a spotless retro checkerboard of white and black. The toilet squatted in the corner by the bathtub—

And as I looked at it, the shower curtain rustled.

Okay, I told myself. This is good. She’s in the tub. She’s waiting there for you to find her. This might even be her idea of a joke—like she’s hazing you. If she was capable of playing a joke, maybe we could communicate. Maybe it wouldn’t be a creepy one-way friendship. It could be a creepy two-way friendship.

I walked over to the tub, paused, and said, “Agatha?”

I gently pulled the curtain back, trying to figure out what I was going to say to convince her to return to the chair.

But the bathtub was empty.

Then I heard a low bump, the sound of an elbow or knee thudding against something solid.

I waited.

Bump.

It was coming from the nanny’s room. My room. My stomach clenched and I felt an indignant flare of temper. Was this how it was going to be? Would I not be entitled to even a little bit of privacy?

I expected to find her in there, but still somehow the sight of her startled me—her slender form, held stiffly with mannequin-precise posture, standing in front of my small dresser.

As I watched, she removed the last of my clothes and dropped them carelessly to the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She looked over at me silently through owlish, indifferent eyes. I felt almost as if we were in a staring contest, but apparently that was just me, because a few seconds later she shifted her blank contemplation to the door of the small cabinet behind me.

“What are you doing?” I asked again. But even then, so early in our acquaintance, I knew better than to expect an answer. “Why don’t you go sit down?”

Without so much as the involuntary twitch of a muscle in her jaw, she wandered out of the room. I followed her as far as the doorway and watched her return to her chair.

“Are you trying to make me feel like I don’t belong here?” I asked her. “Because if that’s it, you don’t need to waste your energy. I could never belong in a place like this.”

I know she heard me—she must have. But she didn’t react.