Their bathroom was a pretty no-frills place, just two toothbrushes, two towels, two razors. I scrubbed my skin with a bar of hand soap, turning the makeup to a gray runny mess that stung my eyes and took ten minutes to rinse off. I left big gray streaks all over the towels. When I looked at myself in the mirror, my skin was pale and raw, my eyes were red, and my hair was wet and streaked with makeup and soap. The sight of my reflection almost brought me to tears for some reason. I had to sit on the edge of the bathtub and take a few deep breaths. Then I stripped off the costume and picked up the things Stephen had given me. One turned out to be a pair of sweatpants that said ETON down the leg. The lettering had been broken up from lots of washings and wearings; the words were cracked. Eton was a name I knew. There was also an oversized and overwashed polo-neck shirt from some event called the Wallingford Regatta. Stephen was well over six foot, and I just about made it to five foot four, so I had to roll up the cuffs of the sweats in order to walk.

As I picked up my clothes, I felt my phone in my pocket. I removed it and found that I had several messages from Jazza and Jerome, wanting to know if I was all right. I would answer them later. When I emerged, Stephen was in the kitchen, staring at the kettle as it boiled. He was staring at it so intently, in fact, I wondered if he wasn’t controlling the boil with his mind.

“I’m making tea,” he said, keeping his gaze on the kettle.

The kitchen was as plain as everything else in the apartment, but the appliances that were built in were high quality—all stainless steel and sleek. The counters were made of a sparkling granite, and the cabinets were smoked glass. The surroundings didn’t match the small card table that served as a dining table, or the plastic folding chairs, or the mismatched mugs.

“I spoke to someone at the hospital,” he said. “She’s awake. They’re x-raying her now. She seems to have several broken bones. They’re not sure of the extent of it, but she’s awake. That’s something.”

I took a seat at the table and pulled my feet up onto the chair. The kettle rumbled and clicked off. He dropped two tea bags into mugs.

“This is a nice place,” I said, just to make it less quiet.

“We got it at a steep discount.” He brought the mugs over to the table. Mine had a chip on the rim. “We could never afford to live around here, but . . . there was another inhabitant who was giving all the other tenants trouble. No one wanted to live here. We sorted it out.”

“A ghost?”

He nodded.