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you understand?”
    â€œWell, there isn’t really anyone to collect the rent … .”
    Wycherly took out his wallet and laid six fifty-dollar bills on the counter.
    â€œI expect this will take care of everything. All I want is a bed.”
    Evan shrugged, not meeting Wycherly’s eyes as he slid the money off the counter.

    Wycherly felt a black self-loathing well up inside him like bitter water from an underground spring. This was the way to get things done, his father said: Ignore all opposition. Crush it. But even on the occasions—such as now—that it worked for him, Wycherly drew no pleasure from it. It always seemed to him somehow like cheating, as if he’d stolen something that would have been freely given if only he had asked.
    â€œAnd perhaps you could have someone show me where it is?” Wycherly added. It wasn’t an apology, but he wasn’t very good at those. They’d have to take what they got.
    â€œLuned!” Evan’s voice was sharp. “You show Mister Wycherly up to Old Lady Rahab’s old place and get it cleaned up.”
    â€œBut it’s ha’anted— ” Despite her washed-out appearance, Luned Starking had spirit—enough spirit to sass her brother, anyway.
    â€œYou just shut your biscuit-trap, little miss,” Evan said. “Nobody’s asking you to sleep there, are they? And Mister Wycherly don’t give a fig for ha’ants. Now you take a broom and scoot on up there.”
    Rahab , Wycherly thought. The name sounded Biblical—or gothic—and depressing. His head had started to hurt again, and he desperately wanted unconsciousness, one way or the other. He wondered what the cabin would be like.
    It was easily a two-mile hike, and by the end of it Wycherly cared about nothing other than stopping. He hadn’t counted on having to walk there, and although Luned took him by what she called “the easiest way,” and carried the three six-packs besides—he couldn’t go cold turkey, of course, and tomorrow would be soon enough to really assess the situation. When Luned pushed open the door he shoved past her, looking for the bedroom. He had a vague impression of a brass bed and a bare mattress before he collapsed full-length upon it, ignoring his bruises.
    And he was asleep.

    The spacious kitchen was like something out of an Architectural Digest spread: terra-cotta tile floor, exposed brick walls and silvery paneling from a salvaged barn. Sinah had designed it herself; it was her perfect place, the one she’d fashioned through a decade of lonely daydreams in a succession of shabby New York apartments, waiting for that big break. There was a copper double sink and an institutional refrigerator and stove, their starkness warmed by the brick and wood. The center food prep island had a single burner surrounded by more red tile, and a working surface that was half marble, half butcher’s block oak. Well-used copper cookware—brought from Sinah’s L.A. apartment—hung on the walls.
    With the deft, economical movements of one used to working in confined spaces, she set out her tools and measured out flour, soda, yeast, and salt into an enormous stoneware bowl, added milk and eggs from her refrigerator, and began to blend the dough. Making bread was good for the soul, and she didn’t need some fancy automated machine to do it.
    She frowned, seeing how little flour was left in the sack. The contractor who’d rebuilt the schoolhouse had run in good heavy power lines for a big chest freezer, but with the best pantry in the world, people did still run out of things. Unless she wanted to risk getting thrown out of the Morton’s Fork general store again, she’d have to get out her keys and drive twenty miles to the IGA in Pharaoh.
    Why? What could her family have done to these people—even with the power to read minds?
    Somewhere in these hills there must be others like