“Let’s go,” she hisses, and I can tell from the barb of terror in her eyes that she heard what I heard, too. It wasn’t imagined. I sneak a look at a small staircase we passed, tucked like an afterthought among the animals. Several large machíkíl cleavers and axes are pinned to the wall above the stair. My mouth goes dry: I know they have these in every house, but I don’t like how these glint at me, so sparkling clean.

But I’m probably just hearing the noises an old house makes, especially an unhappy one like this. People say—Mama said—that Viloki demons were born from energy blockages—pent-up negative emotion, unfulfilled longings, lives cut too short. But they couldn’t hurt us on this plane. Not really. And I can’t let this go. Not when we’re so close to answers.

The carved fox winks at me, and I know Mama was here.

“It would have been many years ago,” I say quickly, my heart thrumming under my ribs. “Ten or more.”

The woman’s hands, those withered claws, contract. “Impossible.” She rakes at the holes in her clothing with long, deliberate scrapes. Her eyes narrow at Tai, who is staring at the corner of the desk, where a rare personal effect sits among the vast assortment of creatures: a faded photograph of a woman and a scowling, heavyset hooded younger man, standing stiffly beside each other.

My pulse skips.

The lumberjack?

Just then, I hear a creaking upstairs, the sound of someone stepping on a loose floorboard. The woman’s shoulders pulse upward, and her eyes dart behind us.

“Does anyone else work in the shop?” I ask, as Tai pulls on my arm so hard I think it’ll be yanked out of its socket.

The woman doesn’t answer, instead observing us both with the melancholic longing of someone who, despite a grave and oppressive loneliness, desires nothing more than to be alone again. “I must insist,” she says hoarsely, “that no such woman ever entered into my shop.”

We hear a noise somewhere up the rickety stairs, something like a spiteful deep chuckle, and Tai and I whip around. “What the fuck was that?” she asks, frantic.

The woman blinks repeatedly, then picks up a figurine that sits next to her desk. “So they don’t have money?” she whispers to the creature, like it’s a dear friend.

I hear a rustling, whispering, again, somewhere above us. Insistent. Knuckles dragged across a wooden door.

“There’s someone else here,” whispers Tai. “I want to go.”

The woman caresses the figurine. “He is a quite lovely raccoon dog, he is. A beautiful male. A fine dog, who aims for no trickery, no. Not like some of the others,” she adds, glancing around at the other animals with something akin to nerves.

“Do you have a son?” I ask again, desperately, pointing at the photograph.