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perhaps in an effort not to betray unguarded thoughts.
    “She means that some of what you told us about your mother does not seem plausible or accurate,” I said.
    “What do those words mean?” Antinanco asked in a small voice. I had to make an effort to remember he was only eight years old.
    “It means they don’t make sense.” I looked at the game room entrance, where Melissa stood, school backpack still strapped around her shoulders. “And if you don’t tell us all the truth, it will make it much harder for us to help you.”
    “I don’t understand,” Antinanco answered. “Everything I told you is true.”
    “You said your mother’s name was Jaci, which means ‘moon,’” I reminded him. “That is not a word in the Unami language.”
    The boy would not make eye contact—it seemed almost a reflex with him—but even without a direct look at his face, it was obvious that wheels were turning inside that little head. “My mother was not of our people,” he said. “She was taken from another nation because she was a princess and a strong hunter. My father was a very powerful leader of the nation; he could take the woman he wanted.”
    Melissa looked shocked. “He could just claim any woman he wanted?” she said. “That’s terrible.”
    “What’s terrible?” Alison said. Everyone looked up, with varying expressions of panic, though Maxie mostly looked amused. She grinned at Alison, who was standing in the hallway entrance, her forehead wrinkled in thought. “What is terrible?” she repeated.
    “The Lenni-Lenape men could take any woman they wanted for their wives,” Melissa answered, still shaken by that information. “The girl didn’t even get a choice.”
    Alison smiled with the left side of her mouth. “Times were different back then, Liss,” she said. “How did that happen to come up in conversation? Are you studying them in history now?”
    Antinanco was only a few feet in front of Alison, and not obscured by any furniture in the room. But Alison was looking directly through him at Melissa, who had walked to his side.
    “Hey,” Maxie said, but I quickly turned toward her and gave her a disapproving look. That doesn’t always work with Maxie, but this time it had the desired effect—she stopped talking.
    Alison only began seeing and hearing spirits like me after she bought this house and had . . . let’s call it an accident, involving a blow to the head. Her skills are not as developed as Melissa’s or Loretta’s, who have both been seeing ghosts all their lives. That meant she isn’t always able to detect a spirit, even one in the room with her.
    Apparently, Alison couldn’t see Antinanco.
    “Um . . . yeah,” Melissa answered her mother. “We’re studying the Native Americans who lived in this area.”
    “I thought you did that in Mr. Barnes’s class last year,” Alison said.
    Melissa shrugged. “They do stuff more than once. This year’s more detail.”
    Alison put a hand on her hip. “Something odd’s going on around here. There’s been way too much secrecy lately. What are you three plotting?”
    Antinanco looked confused, but Maxie shook her head at him slightly.
    “We’re not plotting anything,” Melissa said. “You’re being . . . what’s the word?”
    “Bananas,” Maxie suggested.
    “Paranoid,” I said, although of course I did not truly think Alison was acting that way at all. She has a certain instinctive talent for understanding things outside her usual existence. In this case, she knew something was going on, she simply couldn’t see what was literally in front of her.
    “Is this about the sleepover?” Alison asked. “Are you all trying to figure out how to get me to change my mind?”
    Melissa looked irritated and started to shake her head, but I beat her to the punch. “Yes,” I told Alison. “We’ve been discussing it. We thought perhaps there was a way to change the plan so you might feel more comfortable