“Hello?” he said, his voice clear and loud. “My name is Samuel Moore. I intend you no harm. If you’re there and you can understand me, a sign of some kind would be invaluable.”

Nothing happened. The room remained still and quiet, except for the dual chimes of his machines. Slowly, Sam reached down for his notebook.

After two alerts, attempted to make contact. No response from first attempt. Possibly the ghost can’t hear me—do ghosts have a way to receive sound?

He took a piece of chalk from his supply box and began to write on the floor in bold, large letters. My name is Samuel Moore, he wrote. I intend you no harm. If you understand this, please signal.

He waited two minutes and made another note:

No response from second attempt—written communication. Can they see? Can they read?

He eyed the two machines, still happily chirping. Electricity was the key here. If they were measurable in terms of electricity, maybe they were reachable with electricity.…

Sam seized one of the unresponsive boxes and quickly opened the back of it. If he could cut and restore the power from the battery in some sort of pattern they could understand, a code of some kind.… He tested different patterns in his head, quickly rejecting those based on language, since he couldn’t be sure what language, if any, the entity spoke or read. Numbers were the most universal method of communication.

He cut and restored the power once, waited two seconds, did it twice, waited two seconds, did it three times, waited two seconds, and so on to five. He stopped, cutting the power entirely and stepping away from it.

The machines stayed silent. It was as though nothing had ever happened.

“Damn it,” he said, and repeated the process. “Come on. If you’re there, if you can respond…”

But there was only the whistle of the winter wind far in the distance, and the sound of an old, decaying house settling and rotting around him.

He sat back on his heels, wiping his dusty hands on his pants, and made a face. “Well, that was a lot of fuss for nothing,” he said, and started the process of measuring all over again. Such was the glamorous life of a scientist.

It was almost dark when Alva arrived at Liefdehuis—she’d timed it so Sam would be gone for the day. Her coachman—coach boy?—grimaced when she told him to come back in an hour, but he seemed to foresee how the argument would end, and so she was left alone under slowly drifting snow.

She was going to walk through the door. On her own, as many times as she needed to, in order to remind herself she could. The plans for the renovation were tucked under her arm for motivation.