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the interviews, Jo. But we’re going to see Mrs. Falkner together, okay?”
*
    3:00 a.m.
    The display on her alarm clock has a strong red light. She hears a whisper, turns onto her side, and closes her eyes again. Her roommate, Paula, must have come home and brought a visitor. Paula … suddenly she remembers: Paula was going to spend the night at her boyfriend’s place!
    Johanna opens her eyes, sits on the edge of the bed. She is alone in the apartment. She listens. It is quiet. Back then, they flipped for the room facing the courtyard and she won. The window is open and it is quiet outside. The whisper came from inside the apartment.
    “Paula?” she calls and hopes to hear Paula’s voice. The whispering goes quiet, but no one answers. Burglars , pops into her head. She reaches for her cell phone.
    “Hello?”
    She turns on the light. Nothing. The light shines into the hallway, but there is nothing there. She thinks of rape. Of a runaway sex offender. She storms into the hall and turns the light on there. Throws open Paula’s door. Throws open the kitchen door. The bathroom door. Nothing. She is alone in the apartment. She hears a thud, as if someone had taken off his shoe and dropped it. Then the whispering again.
    A thought shoots through her head. Psychic phenomena are bound to locations and/or people. And if not? If Henning was right to be worried? She listens, concentrates until her head hurts. She can hear the whispering clearly, but she can’t locate it. It’s all around her. If she were mentally unstable she might assume it was in her head.
    Then she can make something out: Johanna . And she can hear something else. An emphasis that is tantamount to a threat. And a voice that she knows from the interview with Mrs. Falkner.
    “Are bound to locations and/or people,” she gasps and struggles with her surging panic. Her heart races, she is sweating, and a short stream of urine escapes her: She can’t help it.
    What made that noise? Where is the voice coming from? She runs through the apartment and turns on every light. She opens the window and stops in the middle of Paula’s room. Can it force me to do something? She looks at the open window. The passing cars calm her, the view from the fourth floor doesn’t.
    She repeats the phrase like a mantra. Her breathing returns to normal.
    Suddenly, she has an idea. She goes into her room, gets her voice recorder from her desk drawer, and turns it on.
    “Johanna Ebeling, August 29, no, August 30, 3:06 a.m.” STOP.
    Can she actually still hear the voice? Cars from Paula’s window, the wind rustling through the chestnut tree in the courtyard. No voice.
    She doesn’t trust the peacefulness. She keeps listening in the night. 3:11 a.m. She goes through all the rooms, turns out the lights, closes Paula’s window. She pulls on a new pair of underpants and goes to bed. Turns out her light.
    “Psychic phenomena are bound to locations and/or people,” she whispers. She lays the voice recorder on her night table like a weapon.
    3:16 a.m.
    Johanna falls asleep.
    Excerpts from the interviews from 08/31-09/02 in Naherfurth
    Method: Door to door questioning by Henning Lambertz. Basic opening text as follows: Hello, my name is Henning Lambertz. I am a researcher at the Ethnological Institute in Hamburg. We are working on a project and need information about the Kreuziger Farm, which is located near your home. Do you know anything about it?
    “I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know anything about that farm. Get out of here!”
    “We haven’t lived here very long, so I can’t say much about it, but one of our kids has a friend over in Wakendorf. The shortest way there would be through the bog, but we won’t let him go that way because he would have to pass the farm. Weird, right? But for some reason, my husband and I just don’t like it.”
    “At the time, the Kreuzigers were newcomers. Note: the Kreuziger family is first mentioned in the parish registry in