“I guess that those scarves with the knots in the ends were my connection to all those things. They were my talisman to recall what color looked like . . . and so much more.”

Magda felt tears running down her cheeks and dripping off her jaw. She tried to imagine eyes in the sunken hollows Isidore was left with. She must have been a beautiful woman, with big beautiful eyes looking out from a beautiful soul.

“I plucked up those scarves on the way to the door. I held them in a death grip, as if I could somehow hold on to color itself.”

Isidore cocked her head, as if recalling the scene. “When I opened the door, I was surprised to see that Merritt’s eyes were red. To this day, that, and not the scarf with one knot, is my memory of red.

“He told me in a quiet voice that he had figured out how to do what it was I wanted. He asked if I was sure, if I still wanted to go through with it. In answer, I took up his hand, kissed it, and held it to my cheek for a moment as I thanked him for what he was about to do. He nodded without saying anything.

“I was joyous for the lost souls that I hoped to be able to find. Merritt was miserable.

“He had a roll of papers he’d brought along with him. He unfurled them on the table and I saw then that each one had some kind of drawings all over it. He arranged them just so, putting various pieces where they belonged so that together they became parts of a larger drawing. When it was all arranged, I could see that he had drawn what looked to be a complex maze with odd symbols at various places.”

“A maze?” Magda managed to ask without the tears surfacing in her voice.

Isidore nodded. “I asked him what he thought he was doing. I told him that drawings for a maze had nothing to do with the new kind of sight that I needed.

“He straightened then—he is an imposing man—and asked what I thought I was going to do. Walk all over the New World looking for ghosts? Look in dark corners and under beds? He said that it wasn’t enough to be able to see such spirits as I was hunting. He said that I needed something more to help me find them.

“He said that he had not merely thought of a way to create a new kind of sight so that I could see them, but a way that might attract them, draw them to me.