As expected, the inside was decorated as a stereotypical fortune teller's room with lots of trinkets and baubles. Unlit candles sat in silver holders, colored water filled fancy apothecary bottles, and a fake skull glared at them from atop a pile of books.

An electric lantern had been left on the circular table in the middle, throwing light on a Ouija board sitting on the red velvet tablecloth. Sarah gravitated straight to it.

"Let's contact the dead!" she exclaimed, positioning herself on one side and placing her fingers on the spade-shaped planchette.

"You don't believe in that stuff, do you?" Caleb asked as he reluctantly moved closer.

Honestly, Sarah wasn't sure. Because if she did, then all the weirdness she'd encountered recently could be real. And that terrified her.

But if she didn't, then she had no explanation for so many things that had happened lately other than the fact that she was going nuts. And that scared her even more.

Either way, she couldn't be completely honest with Caleb. No matter how much she liked him.

"Of course not," she said with a smirk. "But when in Rome, right? Or rather, New Bedford two days before Halloween. Come on. It'll be fun."

He sighed, but obliged. After standing across from her, he shook his hands out as if to warm up his fingers and then also lightly touched the planchette.

"Now what?" he asked, eyeing her intently.

She lowered her voice to better set the mood. "We'll close our eyes, and then I'll ask a question. If there are any spirits with us, they'll move this pointer thingy to spell out their answer."

"That's bullshit," he said with a laugh. "How do we know it's not just us moving it."

Sarah frowned. "Are you going to move it?"

He looked offended. "No."

"Well neither am I," she said. "Plus, how can we when we won't even be looking. Now come on, let's do this before we get kicked out of here."

"Okay, okay," he said. "I'm closing my eyes."

Sarah took a deep breath and also shut her eyes. Feeling the smooth wood of the pointer under her fingertips, she asked the first question. "Is there a departed soul in this tent with us right now?"

They waited in silence. The moments ticked by, and nothing happened. Sarah was about to ask once more, but the planchette forcefully slid to the top left of the board.

She jumped back and opened her eyes. "Did you do that?"

Caleb still had his fingers on the pointer, but his eyes were wide with shock.

"No! I thought you did," he replied, quickly drawing his hands away. "What the hell?"

"Something pushed it to 'yes,'" Sarah said, looking at the word printed on the board directly under the planchette. "There's a spirit here, and it wants us to know it."

"Oh fuck that," said Caleb, turning to leave.

"No, please. Just a few more questions," she begged, her heart racing from the sudden excitement. But feeling his reluctance, she appealed to his vanity. "Unless you're scared."

Caleb pursed his lips before shaking his head. "No, of course not. All right. Two more questions. And mine's next."

"Okay," Sarah agreed, stepping back to her spot at the table, repositioning the pointer, and closing her eyes again. "Go ahead."

He cleared his throat. "Uhm, mister—or miss—ghost. Hello. Uhm, I would like to know if you mean to do us any harm."

Oh my god, Sarah thought, immediately dreading a repeat of the prior answer and wishing she'd have given Caleb a quick primer on what probably not to ask.

But her worries turned out to be unfounded, as slowly but surely the planchette slid to the top right of the board.

"No. Whew," Caleb said, reading the results. Looking up at Sarah, he added, "One more question?"

She nodded and they pushed the pointer back into the middle.

"Why are you here?" she asked after closing her eyes once more, practically hyperventilating in anticipation.

There was a longer pause than ever before, so Sarah repeated the question. "Why are you here? Please answer me."

Under her fingertips, she felt the pointer move. Little by little it slid over the board until it finally came to a stop. They opened their eyes. It hovered above the letter "A."

"Good," Sarah said in encouragement. "Guide our hands again. Go on. Don't be scared."

They shut their eyes again and waited until the piece began to move again. Unlike before, it was more hesitant, sliding all the way right until it caught on the edge of the board before coming back left again.

Sarah's heart was about to jump out of her chest as she peeked between her lashes, but Caleb had beat her to it.

"R," he read out the next letter.

"Ar—," Sarah began, wracking her brain for what the complete word could be. "Armed robbery? Arrhythmia? . . .."

"Armadillo?" Caleb butted in with his own contribution, but Sarah just scowled.

"Did you seriously just say armadillo?" she asked. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It starts with 'ar' doesn't it? And how does armed robbery make any more sense?" he asked back. "As if this ghost was here for a stick-up or something."

She threw her hands up in the air. Apparently the dumb jock cliche wasn't so undeserved. "The ghost could have died in an armed robbery, duh."

His expression fell. "Oh, yeah. Well, we should probably ask for another letter just to make sure.."

You think, Sarah mentally shot back, but out loud, she just said deflated, "Yeah."

In their bickering, neither of them remembered to reset the planchette. But it turned out, it didn't matter. As soon as they repositioned themselves, the wooden pointer slowly scooted a bit to the right and stopped.

"Is it done?" asked Caleb in a whisper after a few uneventful moments had passed.

Sarah didn't dare open her eyes. "I'm not sure. It hardly moved."

"Should we wait?" he asked with continued uncertainty.

She swallowed hard. What the hell. "Let's take a peek," she said.

But when Sarah saw the pointer stopped above the letter T, she gasped. The shock made her world spin and in her sudden lightheadedness, she jostled the table so hard the planchette tumbled to the ground.

"Holy shit. Are you okay?" Caleb asked, running to her side.

Sarah didn't even realize that she needed to be propped up, but she gladly leaned on him for support.

"A-R-T," she spelled almost breathlessly as she tried to make sense of everything.

"Yeah, so?"

The boy had no clue what she was getting at. But then again, how could he? Sarah hadn't told him about the singular lead she'd found in the City Hall archives with Ever. It was just one name from over eighty years ago, and even her extensive googling afterward didn't give her any more of the answers she sought. But now . . . now that same name has popped up from the great beyond. Or did it?

"Maybe it's nothing," she said as she steadied her breathing. "But . . .."

"Go on," he urged as she trailed off. "You can't talk me into talking with the dead, freak out, and then say 'naw, I'm good.'"

He was right. She had to tell him the little she did know.

"Art can be anything like arthritis or artery, but it's also short for Arthur," Sarah said, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as she audibly validated her assumptions. "Arthur as in Arthur Tuffin, the name of the man who bought the Black House in 1939."

Caleb first looked annoyed and then puzzled. "Let's ignore that this topic is kind of turning into an obsession for you, all right? But your question was: why are you here? Saying Art doesn't make sense unless this ghost was looking for him—"

"Or," Sarah cut him off. "If Arthur was the reason she ended up as a ghost in the first place."