So instead, I braved the library, and found that it was pretty easy to tell which books were the priceless first editions (steer clear) and which ones could be held and read without fear. There were novels, cookbooks, gardening books . . . nothing remotely current, but they passed the time.

After a week, I felt almost at home. Agatha and I had achieved a wordless truce—at least, I assumed we had, since she hadn’t messed with me since that second day. Instead, she seemed to think of me as another piece of furniture that had, for some reason she didn’t care about, been dragged into the nursery.

At first, I’d thought she was basically a zombie. But it didn’t take long to figure out that Agatha, while being completely different from whoever her old self had been, still had a shadow of a personality. She had likes—the window, orange juice, listening to music on my phone, even though the tiny speaker was terrible. She also had dislikes—blueberries, stuffed animals, and the way her mother clapped to get her attention. She was calm in the mornings and anxious at night. She always looked up when her father came into the room, and she enjoyed shoving things off the table near her chair by the window (as I learned when I set a completely full glass of water there for her on the third day and spent the next hour sweeping up shards).

Was this a glimpse of her old personality or something completely new? I had no clue. But she definitely wasn’t the ghostly blank slate I had initially taken her for.

One day, while Agatha sat in her chair and I read on the extra bed—“quality time”—I happened to glance up and see a bird land on the windowsill.

“Look,” I said, setting my book down. “A bird.”

The bird was scratching in the accumulated dust, and it didn’t notice as I came over and stood next to Agatha.

Maybe this was what she was waiting for, every day, for hours on end. A little peek at wildlife.

“See the bird?” I asked, bending down next to her. “Is that what you do when you’re sitting here, Agatha? Look at the birds?” Ideas began forming: maybe I could talk to Laura about installing a bird feeder, or one of those birdhouses that has a suction cup so it sticks directly onto the window.

Then I looked at her eyes, and saw that the bird hadn’t even drawn her notice.

“So what is it, then?” I asked. “What’s out there that you like so much?”

Her eyes didn’t move, but to my infinite surprise, her lips did. They parted, and she made a soft sound—“Kah.”

“What?” I asked, trying to stay calm. I didn’t want to spook her, but I was desperately eager to know what she was trying to say. This could be huge.