Evelyn watched Robert sleep on the chaise longue, his face buried in the tufting. Suddenly squeamish about getting too close to him, she tossed the silk throw in his direction and withdrew to the hallway, where she stood with her back pressed against the staircase. What was she supposed to do? Telephone for a doctor? A minister? His hair had been cut that morning, and it was a little too short. It made his cheeks seem overly full, lending him the smug air of someone who'd recently placed a winning bet on a horse. But still, he looked normal; he didn't look like a man who had just announced that he could speak to the spirits of the dead. The reflection of her face stared back from the windowpane on the far side of the parlour. Her lips were almost white, a smudge of grease on the collar of her blouse. As she put a finger to the stain, the curtain fluttered, and Evelyn jumped, pressing herself even harder against the staircase.

Robert had always been open-minded, the type to chat to a peddler at a tram stop, to accept a leaflet from a street-corner fakir, but this? She pictured Robert's expression of hectic excitement, the dampness gleaming at his temples. "And the voices give me messages," he had said, his eyes jittering. Evelyn was waiting for a joke that hadn't arrived. "I don't understand." "Well, they aren't really voices. More like a sort of swirl." "A swirl?" "A swirl of suggestions, symbols. At first, I thought I was losing my mind!" He laughed, and Evelyn shrank back.

"But it's not so unusual after all. There's lots of ways spirits communicate--returning lost items, butterflies, special numbers. I've been researching." "What do you mean, researching?" Evelyn's voice was strained, the back of her neck prickling. "Researching my gift." "Gift?" "The gift of understanding the spirits." He turned to stare at the curtains. "The spirits of those who have died.

".