There was something missing, and it was mandatory. Asking the question would be difficult, but Adja couldn't go on forever in the dark.

'You're talking about a disease, but what happened? What were the symptoms?'

'A curse,' Alphonse answered, then Sylvana sharply interrupted him.'

'Do not dare! I did nothing wrong!'

'I want to know the truth, you'll fight later!' Adja snapped. 'Did you cough? Did you turn blue?'

'I dried up until my skin turned flaccid. It stuck to my bones... Then, I do not remember how it felt. It was absolutely terrible.'

Alphonse Dormeaux closed his eyes, unable to go on. Sylvana took the lead.

'I saw the same thing for the rest of my family, as a ghost. They threw up until they had no strength left, even when their stomach was empty.'

'Sylvana, do not say such sordid things.'

'She has to know! She and Léon could help us figure out what wiped our family out! Another detail that will not please Grandfather... They continually had to be cleaned up... somewhere. I will not say more, you will try to guess what it implies.'

'Alright,' Adja said, even if she wasn't sure she understood Sylvana. 'I will report that to Léon when he will come back, and he will research it for us.'

'It was not normal.' Alphonse declared.

Adja turned to him, already exhausted. Respect people from other eras, Adja. If they had an illness that wasn't diagnosed in 1884, their gut feeling about it is logical. It's not their fault they believed it was a curse.

'Why?' she asked, as politely as possible.

'It happened way too quickly for it to be a real illness. And, furthermore... Sylvana did not catch it! Why would she have been spared? Sidonie was right, something was protecting her. Something evil.'

'Or benevolent,' Sylvana added.

Adja tried to stay rational, but she hadn't thought of that possibility.

'Something would have protected you? But just you? Why?'

'Because I am extraordinary,' she said sarcastically. 'But, to be more serious, there was never another spirit than Grandfather in this house with me. I did not catch this illness for two reasons.'

She held her thumb in front of Alphonse.

'One, because I never approached you when your body started deteriorating.'

'I remember you were always scared of infections. You did not come to see me even once.'

'I am sorry, but I was terrified of ending up like you. I could hear you moan back in the forest, sometimes!'

'And the second reason?' Adja asked.

'When Aunt Sidonie arrived and started insinuating that I had killed Grandfather to receive his inheritance, I became suspicious. I waited for a few days, and then...'

She inhaled deeply.

'My father, Jules and Elisa started having stomach cramps. I locked myself up in my bedroom with food, I did not want to see anybody. I ate fruit that were less and less ripe, I did not drink enough water... One day, I went to the hall to take more food, and Aunt Sidonie accused me of every curse possible. She said it in front of them three, all sick and gathered in the living room to pretend they had a normal life. They looked at me with such hatred... with glassy eyes...'

Adja shook Sylvana's shoulder gently.

'It's over, now. No one will ever hurt you again.'

'I have enough pain just thinking about it,' she sighed. 'So... They looked at me, I took some food and went back to my room as fast as possible. I destroyed the floor for planks and barricaded the door with them – and it was repaired a century later –, and I stayed here until I died. I did not live with the sick,' she concluded.

'I watched you install the planks,' Alphonse muttered. 'I did not think you could be so perceptive, guessing what was going to happen. You had understood everything from a single remark of Sidonie.'

'And where did that Sidonie go, by the way?' Adja asked. 'Did she catch the disease?'

'She left in the middle of the night, without a warning,' Alphonse replied. 'The day after, Georges...'

The old man rubbed his forehead nervously.

'During years, I used the term exorcized when I thought about these terrible events. Now, I have to call it what it is: murder. My son murdered Sylvana, my poor Sylvana...'

She rushed to him to stop his tears. Her own grandfather crying in front of her... This is what I'll witness when Grandma will come and pick my body up... Adja sniffed until her chest moved by itself with each sob. The lack of tears on her cheeks made it even worse – she didn't even feel real. She imagined them roll to her chin and drop to the floor, and it finally happened. When her face was wet with sadness, a strange relief overwhelmed her. It feels nice...

'I cannot comfort everyone at once!' Sylvana said. 'Stop suffering!'

Alphonse laughed nervously, but it broke the negative atmosphere. When they heard a car engine outside, Adja realized they had talked until the morning. She ran to the ground floor, putting her feet through the stairs without noticing, and she ended up in front of Léon's desperate face. Of course. To her relief, he immediately took the spirit box and turned it on.

'Adja?' he called. 'Sylvana, Alphonse Dormeaux, anyone?'

'It's Adja!' she shouted, taking Sylvana's strange low voice so he would hear her better.

'I was scared I would never find you,' Léon sobbed, wiping his tears away.

'Please don't cry, everyone is already crying here.'

'I can hear you pretty well, it's already something...'

'Alphonse and Sylvana have made up!' Adja announced suddenly, to start with good news.

'Ah, that's nice.'

The young man looked lost. He was on the verge of a panic attack and had most likely not slept, but she had to give him tasks.

'Listen to me, Léon, it's important.'

'Hm... Yeah, tell me.'

'Alphonse, Georges, Jules and Elisa all had the same illness, they–'

'Wait, wait, I don't understand anything!' Léon stopped her, shaking the spirit box like a milk bottle. 'Start over more slowly, and don't put too many words in the same sentence.'

Léon's cheeks gained more color when Adja explained him the whole story from the beginning. He seemed interested by the illness and the curse created by Sidonie Dormeaux. When she described the symptoms, Sylvana and Alphonse joined her.

'Did the disease have intense dehydration as one of the main consequences?' Léon asked, taking notes on his smartphone in plane mode not to disturb the spirit box. 'I will ask my mother.'

'Yes,' Alphonse said, making Léon jump in surprise. 'Elisa injected water in my veins to try and make me drink. I could not do it by myself, I vomited too much for that.'

'In the veins,' he repeated, raising his eyebrows. 'That's a weird technique, it's not supposed to do anything... Oh, I'm sorry, obviously it didn't work. Something else, Adja? Are you having fun?'

'Well...'

Am I having fun? No, not really. Do I have a choice? Not really either.

'If you find the name of the disease, everything will be over. Alphonse Dormeaux will rest in peace, Sylvana too, and I...'

Adja hesitated.

'I will leave when I will communicate with my family to explain what happened, not before.'

'Let's do this quickly, alright? I'm calling my mother.'

Before anyone could protest, Léon turned the spirit box off and went outside. Adja turned to the Dormeaux. They looked relieved.

'I waited for this moment every second since my death,' the old man said, sighing with glee. 'No one was ever coming, and I could not approach those families a few decades ago...'

'You could not approach me, Grandfather,' Sylvana said. 'I communicated with those people by moving objects around them, but they all fled. No one else came.'

'And the construction workers and cabinetmakers? The ones who repaired the floor and beds?' Adja asked, inquisitive.

'They never saw that I was moving the furniture! They were so concentrated on their work that they did not care. And it was so noisy...'

Sylvana's eyes wandered in the void, and Adja could only imagine what she went through. So many people not caring about her existence must have been painful, after a century of silence. When Léon came back, he displayed a mixture of pride and sadness.

'I know what you had,' he announced, and he turned the spirit box on.