“Good,” he told her. “You’re going to come with me to a party this weekend. Tell your mother you want to go.”

  “I’m not doing any sex stuff,” Charlie told him.

  Rand looked surprised, then insulted. “That’s not—”

  “Keeping my clothes on,” Charlie said, in case he didn’t understand what she meant. Her mother had told her that when guys asked you to keep a secret, it was usually sex stuff.

  “All you have to do at the party is tell lies,” he assured her nastily. “And you’re good at that, aren’t you?”

  Which was close enough to a threat. When her mother asked Charlie if she wanted to go with Rand, she insisted that she did.

  Much later, she would realize that her mother shouldn’t have been okay with that. Twelve-year-old girls don’t have any business gallivanting around with grown men they don’t know particularly well. But her mother worked a lot back then and was so busy that having Charlie out of the house for a few hours on a weekend was a relief.

  The party was being held in the Berkshires. Charlie sat silently in the passenger seat of his car, although he tried to talk her around. He let her choose the station on the radio. He took her through the McDonald’s drive-through and let her order whatever she wanted, which was fries and a milkshake. He told her a story about her mother that was a little bit funny.

  It didn’t make her hate him any less, but it did mean she enjoyed the drive more.

  Finally, as they drove along a tree-lined road, past mansions set acres and acres apart, she caved and asked him the question she should have asked before she ever got in his car.

  “What are you bringing me to this place to do?”

  “You’re going to sneak upstairs at the party.”

  Charlie gave him an incredulous look. “You want me to steal something? What if they catch me?”

  He laughed a little, as though her totally obvious conclusion was totally obviously wrong. “Nothing like that. Nothing illegal. You’re going to wear a nightgown under your coat. You go upstairs, third room on the left. Don’t let anyone see you. I want you to wait until I give you the signal, then stand in front of the window in the nightgown. And before you ask, it’s not skimpy or anything like that. Nothing to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

  He was making it sound easy, but that was a lot. “Why?”

  He kept his eyes on the road.

  She sucked up the last of the strawberry milkshake through the straw, the sweetness of it mingling with the salt on her lips. Sucked again, to make that sound adults hated. “If you want me to do it, you better say.”

  Rand glanced at her swiftly, as though he’d just realized how big a role he’d given her. “Think of it as playing pretend. Stand there for a few minutes like you’re a pretty princess, then sneak back out and wait for me in the car. You won’t have to say anything to anybody.”

  He must have thought she was seven instead of twelve. “Whatever.”

  He parked the car near a hedge, got out, and fumbled around in the trunk. When he returned, he had a Walmart bag containing a white cotton nightgown and a blond wig.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Don’t look,” she said, and got into the back where she’d have more room.

  “I don’t intend to,” he told her.

  “And stand guard so no one else sees.”

  He made an annoyed sound but stood with his back against the window and his arms folded over his chest.

  She scrambled into the nightgown, pulling it on over her clothes and then slithering out of her shirt. She tucked the nightgown into her jeans. The material bunched up weirdly, but it was the only way she was going to be able to fully hide it under her coat. Then she jammed the wig on her head and tried to tuck any stray pieces of her own dark hair up into it.

  When she climbed out, he began twisting the end of his mustache back and forth between his thumb and first finger, like a villain in need of someone to tie to some tracks. He frowned at her jeans. “You can’t wear those in front of the window.”

  “Okay,” she said. He was clearly getting more nervous the closer to his plan they got.

  “And you’re not wearing the wig right.”

  “I don’t know how to put it on,” she objected. “I don’t even have a mirror.”

  “Just…” He paused. “I don’t know either. Give it to me.”

  He tried to adjust it to hide more of her hair, shoving at her hairline until he got so frustrated that he gave up. Charlie had a memory of an elderly neighbor with a wardrobe of wigs and a lot of bobby pins, but she’d bet Rand had never even heard of those, much less thought to bring some.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

  She put back on her own coat. It was a pink puffer with ratty and somewhat matted fake fur around the hood. It had come to her secondhand, via one of her mother’s friends with a slightly older daughter. They were always dropping off clothes—all of them a lot cheerier and more colorful than Charlie would have chosen for herself.

  Nothing she had on was appropriate for a place like this. She was going to stick out like a sore thumb. She was suddenly filled with the terrible conviction that Rand had no idea what he was doing.

  It only got worse as they approached the gates. Stone walls led to wrought iron bars with cutouts of horses on both sides.

  He leaned over to the com on one side of the stone pilings, pressed a button, and gave his name. They waited as the wrought iron gates swung open.

  “Won’t they notice us being on foot? It’s weird,” she whispered to him, looking down a very long driveway at a gigantic mansion. Three stories, the top floor covered in painted shingles, and stone on the lower section. Ivy crawling around the windows and big white columns flanking the front doors.

  “Don’t worry so much,” he said, and pulled her off the road. “I am considered eccentric, which helps me be able to explain anything I do in terms of my eccentricities. Do you know what that word means?”

  “Yes,” she said, annoyed. Hadn’t she fooled at least some adults into believing she was a dead warlock? Maybe he should give her some credit.

  He pointed across a stretch of sparsely wooded lawn that led toward the side of the giant mansion. “Go that way.”

  “Go where?” she asked.

  He sighed and pressed a phone into her hands. “Go in through the side. Then, I told you—second floor, third door on the left. Go quickly, but don’t run. Don’t draw attention to yourself and don’t get distracted. No matter what happens, this phone is not for you to call me on. This is for me to send you a signal. When it buzzes, you get into position and you take off your jeans.”

  Charlie’s heart was racing and her fingers had gone cold with anxiety. “I don’t want to go in there alone.”

  “I’ll meet you by the side door. How’s that?” He glanced toward the gate. They might be hidden from the front of the house, but if another car came through their little conference would look extremely suspicious.

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  He put his hand on her chin, tilted her face up. “Too bad,” he said impatiently. “Mess this up, and I will have a long talk with your mother. You decide which is worse.”

  She shook off his grip. What he wanted her to do—sneaking into the mansion, playing some trick on the people inside—felt impossible, but losing her mother would be worse. Mom would never forgive Charlie, not just for the deception, or costing her a marriage, or making her act like a fool in front of her friends, but for ruining the magic. Charlie would get sent to her father and his off-the-grid experimental homestead with chickens and a composting toilet that wasn’t installed right. And his new wife would never let her stay. “I’ll say you’re lying.”

  “You got your sister in on it, didn’t you?” Rand smirked. “She’s still a little kid. You really think she wouldn’t admit everything if your mother pressed her?”

  “Posey hates Travis,” Charlie said. “More than me, even.”

  There was something in Rand’s face, some calculation that hadn’t been there before. Maybe he hadn’t guessed why she’d played the part of Alonso; maybe he’d thought it was for fun, to mess with people, or even to get something from her mother: Alonso says you better buy me a brand-new Xbox. The spirits demand it!

  Charlie wasn’t sure if she was in more trouble or less.

  “Travis was a dick,” he said finally.

  She gave him a half smile, not a real one, but not nothing either.

  And so Charlie walked across the grounds, hands in the pockets of her coat, head down. Above her, the sky was overcast. As she walked, she realized that to be really convincing she should have put on the wig upstairs. But she didn’t trust herself to get all her hair into it again. And besides, it was better for her to be disguised the whole time. That way if Rand got in trouble later, she wouldn’t get in trouble with him.

  She put her hood up anyway.

  The side of the house where she’d been directed had been taken over by caterers. They had a tent up and a grill going. Whole cookie trays of puffs and shrimp and other things Charlie had never seen before were being prepped and then sent inside, presumably to be put on some fancier plate.

  Near the door was a small stone patio where some of the staff, in their black-and-white server outfits, were sitting and smoking. One drank coffee out of a paper cup, their breath and the hot liquid clouding in the air.

  Another spoke Spanish in a low voice to a coworker. She didn’t understand all the words because she didn’t pay enough attention in class, but she thought he was complaining about a guy who was hot but also terrible.

  Even though they were distracted, she didn’t dare walk right past them. They would take one look at her and know she was in the wrong place. Her sneakers were muddy from the walk, and they were sneakers. With glittery laces.

  But as much as she couldn’t walk past them, she couldn’t stay where she was either. They’d notice her lurking around the bushes eventually and then she’d have no chance. Her feeling that Rand had no idea what he was doing returned. Maybe she should take the cell phone and call her mother. If she got Rand in trouble, maybe Mom wouldn’t believe anything he said.

  “Hey, kid?” His voice startled her. “C’mon. Quick.”

  She found him holding the door open. She could see distant movement in other rooms, but no one close by. Ducking her head and not looking at anyone else, she hurried into the house.

  For a moment, she was so startled by the fanciness of it that all she could do was look around. Polished wood. Cream-and-gold-striped wallpaper. Paintings in heavy antique frames with no glass protecting them.

  He steered her toward the staircase.

  “Remember the job.” His voice was low and intense. “Third door on the left. A little kid’s room. Take off everything but the nightgown. When I give you the signal—not before—you stand in the window. Behind the filmy curtain, so your face is blurry, okay? Got it? Not before the signal. Stand there for one minute, then put back on the coat and get the hell out of the house. Your job is not to be seen and to leave no trace.”

  Charlie nodded, feeling clumsy and afraid. She was sure she was going to be caught and then he would tell her mother everything anyway.

  “Okay, well, don’t just stand there. Go!” He turned his back on her, heading toward the party.

  Charlie hurried up the steps.

  The air in the upstairs hall was hushed. Crystals hung from sconces, gleaming, spilling rainbows onto the wooden floor.

  Her hand turned the knob on the third door and she found herself in a massive room, the whole thing done up in pink with a bed in the shape of Cinderella’s carriage at the center. The walls were muraled in vines.

  Unlike in the hall, though, there was dust covering the furniture.

  As though whoever had once slept in this room had been gone a long time. As though someone didn’t want it disturbed.

  Charlie took off the coat, placing it gently on the side of the dresser, next to a music box. At the vibration, it gave off a few eerie notes. She toed off her sneakers too, since they were muddy and there was an expanse of pale pink carpet between her and the window. Then her jeans.

  In her mind, she challenged an imaginary Rand. See? You didn’t have to tell me to do that.

  When she was done, she crossed the room. But instead of going near the window, she opened the interior doors. The first led to a bathroom painted in pink as well, with a crown gathering cloth above the bathtub. A bar of pink soap rested in a little dish by the sink, but it was dried and cracked.

  The second led to an enormous closet, so big that there was a sitting area with a vanity. Photographs of a blond girl were stuck to the frame around the mirror with rainbow tape. Hailey. There was her name, on the back of a pink soccer jersey. And there she was, arms around her friends. In another picture, riding an enormous chestnut horse. She looked happy. She looked alive.

  But obviously, she wasn’t.

  Charlie sat down at the vanity. She understood what Rand had brought her here to do.

  She imagined what he was going to say to Hailey’s bereaved parent: Look at your daughter in the window. Want to keep talking to her? Well, I’d love to help, but I am going to require a financial contribution. Yerba mate and mustache wax ain’t free.

  Inside the drawers she found a comb, a hair tie, and two sparkly barrettes.

  Charlie pulled off the wig and used the tie to pull her hair back so that when she put the wig back on properly, strands weren’t constantly falling out. Then she took the comb to try to arrange the wig like the girl’s hair in the photos.

  She stared at someone who was herself and not herself. She felt a little giddy at the thought of sliding into a different life. Of trying on a different self, one that had been loved so completely that her bedroom had become a tomb, missing only its mummy.

  Rand still hadn’t signaled, so she went through the girl’s things until she found the most nondescript t-shirt and a bag big enough for the wig and nightgown. She placed those near the door just as the phone buzzed. When she looked down at it, the screen had one word.

  Now!!!!!

  Charlie moved to the window, careful to keep the gauzy drape between her and the glass.

  She expected to see Rand outside guiding the action, but she couldn’t spot him. For a long moment she thought nothing was going to happen, that no one was going to look up. But then a woman did, and she screamed.

  It wasn’t a scream of horror or fear, but pure agonized grief. Charlie had never heard a sound like it.

  She was glad the curtain was between them. She didn’t want to have to see the woman’s face too clearly.

  But when she collapsed, face still upturned, Charlie lifted one hand and pressed her palm against the glass.

  Better Hailey’s mom believed her daughter could see her, right? Better to give her some resolution. Something.

  Then, realizing it had probably been more than a minute, she stepped away from the window and raced across the floor to her things. Get the hell out, he’d said. Of course, because if you saw a ghost, the immediate thing to do would be to visit the room where you saw it.

  Charlie yanked off the wig. She ripped off the nightgown. For a moment, clad only in her bra, Charlie had the terrible feeling that she was going to get caught like that. Then the inside-out t-shirt was over her head, her coat was back on and zipped, and she was moving toward the stairs.

  But before she could go down, she heard the sound of voices coming from that direction. Turning, she moved the other way down the hall. It was a big house; there had to be a bathroom she could hide in.

  She found another set of stairs, grander ones, and hurried down them to a marble-floored foyer. It was extremely exposed, and the last place that she ought to be spotted.

  Darting through the closest doorway, Charlie found herself in a music room. A patterned carpet in greenish tones covered the floor, running up to a sofa that looked both too stiff and too small to be comfortable. Beside it was a stringed instrument that looked a little like a guitar and an upright piano. She was not too old to have a child’s longing to press the keys, even if she had no idea how to actually play. Instead, she contented herself with running a finger over the glossy black lacquer that covered it.

  “There you are,” Rand hissed, grabbing her by the arm. “What’s wrong with you? Please tell me you didn’t steal anything. Never mind, don’t tell me anything. Just get out of here.”

  “You’re hurting me,” Charlie complained, pulling against his grip.

  But he held on, squeezing her arm more tightly as he pressed his keys into her hand. “Wait in the car.”

  “I would have gotten caught if I did what you said,” she told him, angry that Rand hadn’t realized she’d been clever. And angrier at herself for expecting him to be fair.

  He pushed her toward the front door. “Get gone.”

  Charlie took a deep breath and walked out. Past the giant white columns. Down the stone steps. She kept her gaze only on the ground in front of her, so if the woman whose child she’d pretended to be was there, she wouldn’t notice her and panic.

  She passed the valets, feeling conspicuous. There were a few couples heading out. She overheard a man say to his wife, “He’s a swindler. Why doesn’t she see that?”

  Charlie’s face felt hot, but she kept going until she came to the gate. There, she waited for a car to pass and darted through. Another thing she’d been able to figure out on her own.

  When she made it to the car, she climbed in and slammed the door. She wished she knew how to drive. She would leave him there. Maybe she’d pick him up eventually; maybe not. What could he do, call the cops?

  In that moment, she felt very young, and as though she didn’t want to have to be this grown-up yet.

  When Rand came out to the car, she expected him to be mean, like he’d been inside, but instead he was jubilant.

  “You were incredible!” he said as he pulled onto the road with a whoop. “What a rush, right? Seriously, you were a natural. I knew you had it.”