“I see reference to nerves,” Sam said. “And here: ‘patient is inordinately terrified of her surroundings.’”

Alva’s frown deepened. “Is it possible to be ordinately terrified of an insane asylum?”

“And there’s something about occasional fits. But—no. I don’t see anything in here that amounts to a good reason for someone to be imprisoned for her entire life. If I had to guess, I would say she was exactly what Mrs. Kay described, a sensitive child prone to frequent fits of extreme nerves.” He sighed, shutting the file.

“You think it’s her.”

They were getting back into the city, and the sounds of a busy metropolis began to bleed through the windows.

“I think our ghost is fractured, desperate not to be seen, and deals almost entirely in fear. If we assume that ghosts in death retain some relation to their living selves, I cannot imagine a life more likely to result in those characteristics than that of a woman shunted off to a mental hospital as a child and basically just … forgotten … until her death. After her death, even. The life lines up; the dates line up.” He nodded. “I think it’s her.”

“But she didn’t die at Liefdehuis,” Alva said. “Her death wasn’t violent, either. Isn’t that usually part of a ghost story? Rose died of pneumonia, it says here.”

“The folklore on hauntings does usually focus on the death,” he agreed. “It’s always seemed strange to me. Why should a death be so much more important than a life? Rose spent fifty years in what we can assume, looking at these papers, was daily torment. If we set aside what we think we ‘know’ about ghosts, what could be more worthy of a haunting?”

“Liefdehuis too,” she said. “That’s where it all began.”

The last of the pieces slid into place. “That’s right. That’s where everything went wrong, for Rose.”

“So … what do we do?”

He closed the file. “I have no idea,” he said. “The stories suggest naming the ghost can release it. Of course, so far the stories have been almost entirely wrong, but it’s worth a shot. It’s certainly worth finding out where she’s buried, too.”

As he turned the question over in his mind, the familiar pattern of investigation calmed him. “We do what scientists should always do,” he said more surely. “We gather information and experiment.”

“Somehow I knew you were going to say that,” she replied, the little smile accompanying her words fading swiftly. “I was so eager for answers, this morning. All I could think was I might be able to finally solve my problems. It seems so selfish now.”

He reached across and took her hand. “You didn’t do this to her, Alva,” he said. “And maybe these answers can help both of you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

They were almost back at the hotel when Sam suddenly leaned towards the window.

“Wait!”