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“As he should,” Mia says. “He’s an obstetrician, for goodness’ sake. I would think his code of ethics would have bound him to dosomethingwhen he realized how hell-bent Jonathan was on having a baby regardless of the danger to you.”

“Though, coming to check on you after realizing there was something weird about Emmit was sweet too,” Lucretia chimes in. “Who knows ... if we hadn’t stormed the Shunned House, maybe Aidan would have been the one to save the day.”

Mia shrugs, and Saoirse bites her lip to keep from smiling. She knows Mia is wary of Aidan, isn’t keen on his simple promise to keep Saoirse’s secret. But Saoirse doesn’t fear Aidan any longer. Aidan’s shared things with her, things about his relationship with her late husband, things that spoke to the imbalance of power between the two men. The secrets Jonathan forced Aidan to keep, from cheating to get into law school to siphoning money from the charity organizations he oversaw.

She looks to where Benefit Street intersects with Church and says softly, “It wasn’t much of a surprise to find out Jonathan’s manipulation extended well beyond me, into his relationship with Aidan.”

There is silence, and then Roberto asks, “Wasn’t the restoration crew here last week, working on the, um, grave Emmit disturbed?”

She nods. “I came out to see what they were doing. I guess part of me wanted to see the place I’d dug myself out of again. To view it in the light of day. A man started speaking with me. Mostly small talk—he had no idea who I was. Until he saw the pendant around my neck.”

Saoirse reaches up to finger the metal coffin. It’s never felt strange to continue wearing it. On the contrary, she likes what it reminds her of: Security. Resourcefulness. Escape.

“It was Levi Leland. Emmit’s contact from the historical society. He told me the pendant I was wearing, the one Emmit”—Saoirse makes air quotes—“‘found’ there?” She points to the rosebushes. “It had been part of the Athenæum’s Sarah Whitman collection since her death in 1878. Emmit made an appointment to see it with a member of the library’s staff, then supposedly never showed. When the librarian returned to the Art Room, the pendant was missing.

“A staff member reported the theft to the police, but there were no leads, and of course, no one thought to suspect Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Emmit Powell. He was questioned as a formality—why he hadmade the appointment, why he hadn’t shown up, that kind of thing—but was quickly dismissed.”

Saoirse pauses. “I thought Levi would ask for the necklace back, and I put my hand to my throat, ready to unclasp it, but he stopped me. ‘I read about Emmit,’ he said. ‘What he did to you.’ I nodded, surprised, and told him the pendant was how I escaped. ‘You should keep it,’ he said, and winked at me. ‘Sarah would want you to have it.’”

“I still can’t believe Emmit stole it in the first place,” Lucretia says. “And pretended to find it in your rose garden to convince you that the two of you were manifesting magic, possessed by the spirits of Sarah Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe.” She pauses, staring at Saoirse from under her long, dark lashes. “Did you believe him?” she asks gently.

Saoirse is quiet for a long time. Roberto pours her a cup of tea, adds a generous spoonful of honey, and pushes it across the table. She smiles and sips from it. Finally, she says, “I think a small part of me did.” She waits to have to defend herself, to say she knows how stupid it sounds, but no such demands come.

“Why Poe, do you think?” Lucretia asks.

“What do you mean?” Roberto says.

“I mean, why did Emmit fixate on Poe’s life and career for his authorial road map and cast Saoirse as his Sarah? Why not Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes? Or Mary and Percy Shelley?”

Saoirse bites her lip. “Who knows? Pure chance? Bad luck? But whatever was inside him that made him believe this path was the only way to success, it was kicked into overdrive by his arrival in Providence, by his proximity to this house.”

“It’s hard,” Mia says, “because therewasa residual haunting that was happening.”

Roberto looks from Mia to Saoirse and back again. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it wasn’t a coincidence Saoirse came to Providence. Sarah’s energy called her here. Residual hauntings don’t have to be negative.”

Saoirse considers this. “She did get me writing again,” she admits. “I knew all along it was her. It was never Emmit.”

They are silent for several minutes until Lucretia starts riffling around in her purse. She comes out with a deck of tarot cards and slaps them onto the patio table.

“Who’s up for a reading?” she asks. A glint of mischief lights her eyes behind the thick-framed glasses.

Roberto and Mia exchange glances. “Saoirse?” Roberto says. “I think it should be you.”

Lucretia looks at Saoirse, and Saoirse nods. She watches the mesmerizing flick of Lucretia’s fingers as she shuffles, the glint of her rings, then allows her gaze to wander, up the red siding of Sarah Whitman’s house, along the boughs of the trees lining the graveyard, to the gold statue atop the statehouse, floating among the clouds.

She ponders what she will ask the cards. How long she’ll live here? How long she’ll call the people before her friends? Or should she ask whether the voice in her head will remain hers and hers alone? She’s not sure. But she doesn’t worry about it. In a moment, when Lucretia asks her to pose her question, that question will come. Because the voice inside her persists, crafting stanzas, forming paragraphs. Telling her story.

Hers, and hers alone.