Baba Yuki does, too. “Don’t insult me. I know what I see.” Before we can say a word, she hurries to the front door and turns the lock, pressing her back against the door and eyeing us with frenzied nostalgia, like an overgrown girl imagining the wicked teatime she’s going to have with old dolls.

I clutch Noni’s hand. “Call for help before we’re flayed and turned into skin dolls and our skin doll faces are mashed together.”

“What? What’s a skin doll? And call who? The car?” she whispers back, as I scrabble, one-handed, with my fanny pack clasp.

“I loved your mother,” Yuki interrupts, her glazed eyes two shiny grapes about to pop from her skull.

“You’re profiting from her disappearance,” says Nons.

“Skin dolls,” I hiss, elbowing her.

“The universe helps those who help themselves,” Baba Yuki quips, before looking to Nons. “Which one are you? Manon, the elder? She told me you were the perceptive one. A writer, she said to me. ‘She’ll be a great thinker someday, a wise soul, if only she can master herself.’”

Nons bites her lip.

“Please unlock the door, ma’am,” I say, finally pulling out my phone. No goddamn service. This island.

“Ma’am?” Baba Yuki snorts. “You. Thaïs. A star in the making. ‘My only hope is that she surrounds herself with kind people who tell her truth, that she doesn’t burn too bright and harm herself in the process,’ she told me.” Just like they said about Mama.

“If you don’t unlock the door, I’ll call the police. And they come extra fast for us.”

“Because your shit smells like flowers?” Baba Yuki rolls her eyes again. “I locked the door to keep the vile ones outside out. Little bastards. It’s not to keep you in. Now, come here, children.” She motions for us to sit on the stools across from her, because all of a sudden she’s a kindly auntie.

“I don’t bite,” she adds, and when we don’t move, her expression sours. “If you don’t sit, you’ll never know what I promised your dear mother in one of our final conversations ever. I’ve kept this from the press, from the police, from everyone, just like I’ve stayed mum on every conversation we ever had since we met at a florist’s shop in Limatra. Now, for the love of all things holy, sit.”

“So you are Katox’s old assistant?” Noni mutters, settling on a stool and pulling me down with her.