I open the cabinet just above the coffeemaker, pull my mug from its usual spot on the shelf, and fill it before sitting on the couch. Usually, I'd take the chair, but today it is already occupied.

Porter has his own coffee, in one of the disposable cups, and has already finished most of it. I'm late, and they both look at me reproachfully.

"Sorry," I say. "Fridays are always busy, and the girl who was supposed to relieve me at the deli arrived late, so I missed the first bus." It's true, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I rushed getting here. It's taken nearly a week for Molly to convince me that this appointment is something that even approaches a good idea. There are many places I would rather be than in the same room with a man who, despite his repeated denials, I still suspect of paying someone to aim that van at me and Deo.

Dr. Kelsey also had reservations about the meeting, and she doesn't look any more pleased with the situation now that she's been alone with him for ten minutes. I couldn't care less about inconveniencing Porter, but I feel bad for keeping Kelsey waiting and give her an apologetic half smile.

Kelsey rolls her eyes slightly but smiles back, and I feel more at ease. "Okay," she says. "I'm glad you're finally here, Anna. As I've told Mr. Porter, I'm not comfortable talking about your case unless you are present."

Porter nods at her and then looks at me, his eyes wary. "And, as I've told both of you, I'm not convinced that your doctor will be entirely honest and open with you sittin' here."

Kelsey and I discussed this, at length, at my previous appointment, and we've already come to an arrangement. I debate whether to toy with Porter for a few minutes, to show him that I don't have to put up with his demands, but I hate to waste more of Kelsey's time.

"Fine. I'll wait in there," I say, nodding toward the door to the reception area.

I grab my backpack and coffee and go into the hallway, closing the door behind me. But instead of going into the reception area, I open a door on the left and slip quickly into a small observation room. It's dark inside, but I leave the light off so that I can see through the two-way mirror into the office.

Using the observation room was Kelsey's idea. Let's just say I have control issues. It's my life. I have a right to know what they're saying.

And it's not a lie. Neither of us actually said that I was going into the reception area.

Is too a lie. You know that's what he thinks.

So now I'm responsible for his assumptions?

I twist the small knob on the speaker in front of me to hear what they're saying. Then I move the chair back and tilt it against the wall, so that I can prop my feet up.

Porter is talking. ". . . already know the basics, Dr. Kelsey. She's been in psychiatric hospitals, what, four different times?"

"I believe it's five, actually," Kelsey answers. "The last hospitalization was in 2012, however. Nearly seven years ago. Anna is stable now. She attends school, works fifteen to twenty hours a week, and manages most of her affairs on her own."

"Do her normal affairs include harassing people?" he asks. "I did her a favor by not reporting this harassment to the authorities. She seems to be under the delusion not only that she's in contact with my dead granddaughter but also that I hired a hit man or something . . ."

"Well, to be fair, Mr. Porter, she has some support concerning the van. I'm not saying you had anything to do with it, but she wasn't alone-"

"Yeah, but the other person she says was there is the same kid who was taggin' along behind her last week when she was stalking me."

"And," Kelsey continues, ignoring the interruption, "someone did call her and warn her to stay away from you. I'm sure she played you the message?"

Porter huffs and rearranges himself in the chair. "Yeah, I heard it. She doesn't file a report after this so-called hit-and-run attempt, and then she gets a friend of hers to leave a message on her phone. I'm supposed to buy that as some sort of evidence?"

"She also received this," Kelsey says, pushing a folded sheet of paper toward him. "Someone left it in the mailbox at Bartholomew House on Friday evening."

He unfolds the paper and reads the two short sentences-Mind your own business. Do not contact Porter again-and shakes his head. "Again, isn't the most likely scenario that Anna or a friend wrote this? The only reason I'm taking time out of my day to be here, Dr. Kelsey, is because I'd like to see the girl get some help. At best, she's desperate for attention and, at worst, she's involved in some sort of scam."

Kelsey takes a deep breath and leans back in her desk chair, her hands crossed in front of her. Her two pointer fingers make a little tent that she rests against her lower lip. She always does this when she's thinking about what to say next.

"I don't agree, Mr. Porter," she says after several seconds have passed. "Anna debated whether or not to contact you for the past few months. She finally decided that it was the right thing to do."

"Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that this wasn't an attempt to con me. My point still stands. If she's sincere, then she's lost her grip on reality. Either way, somethin's gotta be done before she hurts herself or someone else."

Dr. Kelsey takes a deep breath and walks over to the counter to refill her cup. "You want more?" she asks.

He shakes his head, looking impatient as Kelsey takes her time adding the milk and sugar.

"Mr. Porter," she begins, once back at her desk, "I've worked with Anna since she was five years old. She was in the child welfare system for about two years prior to that. Someone dropped her off in a shopping mall food court just before her third birthday. Pinned to her dress was a note with the name Anna, a date of birth, and the words, This child is possessed."

My chest tightens and my pulse speeds up a bit. None of this is new. I don't really remember being abandoned, but Kelsey and I have spent hours unearthing my early childhood and staking every psychological demon we could dredge up. I've dealt with all of this before. I just don't like Porter hearing it.

"The state never located her parents, I take it?"

Kelsey shakes her head. "Only a first name on the note-someone assigned her a middle and last name later on. Either she was born outside the state of Maryland under a different first name or she was born on a different day, because there's no record of anyone giving birth to a baby named Anna on December 3, 2001. Once the search came up empty, they put her into the foster program. She was a prime candidate for adoption-an adorable toddler, blonde hair, blue eyes, sharp as a whip. But a few weeks later, they get strange reports from the first foster parents. Talking in her sleep. Not toddler talk, either. Fully formed adult sentences, and the tone of voice was different from her usual speech. And then it starts happening when she's awake. So Anna was placed in a children's psychiatric ward where they observed similar behavior. She gets an official diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder."

"I've heard of it," Porter says. "Usually called multiple personality, isn't it?"

She nods. "At any rate, Anna was hospitalized for a few months. And then it disappeared completely. No symptoms, no unusual behavior. A new set of foster parents was rounded up and things were going really well. They knew about her previous problems, but everything seemed fine, so they chalked it up to the trauma of desertion. They even started the initial paperwork for adoption."

This part I do remember. The memories are even clearer because of the hypnotherapy I've done with Dr. Kelsey over the years. It was the best house I've lived in. A small fenced yard, a sandbox in the back. A yellow pail and orange shovel with a handle in the shape of a crab. Sesame Street every morning. I can't remember the foster parents' names, but they had a little black Yorkie named Dorothy, who licked my hands when she sat in my lap and shared my Goldfish crackers when I left the bowl on the floor.

"I'm guessing Anna had another relapse?" Porter asks.

Kelsey shrugs noncommittally. "If you want to call it that. They took her up to Pennsylvania to meet her prospective grandparents. She was sitting on their porch swing when, according to their report, she started speaking in a different tone and calling the foster father's dad by his first name, asking him about people he went to high school with. Asking about them by name."

"How's that possible?"

"The house had been in the family for several generations. The older guy's sister died when she was in her teens, back in the late sixties, while he was serving in Vietnam. She never got to tell her brother good-bye. Anna . . . picked her up . . . when she touched the swing."

"Picked who up?" Porter asks.

"The sister's ghost. Her psychic echo, I don't know. In Jewish mysticism, they call it an ibbur-when a spirit takes over a host to finish some task, something incomplete that keeps them from moving on. There are similar concepts in other faiths as well. Anna thinks that, in most cases, the spirit . . . the consciousness of someone who can't move on to whatever comes next, eventually returns to the last place or the last thing that made them feel happy. Or safe. For the sister, it must have been that porch swing. And she couldn't let go until she told her brother good-bye."

The brother is vivid in my memory. A chin that needed shaving, the strong smell of cigarettes and motor oil on his shirt. His sister's name was Lydia and the old guy was Paul. Lydia wasn't pushy. She just said, I never got to say good-bye. Please, would you let me say good-bye? I could feel how important it was to her, that it was everything in the entire world to her, so I let her take control. I was too young to think about consequences, about whether I could fight her if she decided she didn't want to leave. I was still hugging him when she went away. Everyone was crying and a bit freaked out. But Paul smiled behind the tears. And Lydia was happy. She went away happy.

Porter just snorts. "And you believed this story?"

"I didn't," Kelsey admits, with a quick apologetic glance toward the mirror. She thinks I don't know this, but I do. Even five-year-olds can tell when someone doesn't believe them. When they think you're making it up or crazy or whatever. She was always nice about it, though, and most people weren't, so I didn't really mind.

"I didn't start working with Anna," she says, "until the second hospitalization in 2007. That was a few months after the incident in Pennsylvania. The couple was still considering adoption, you see. It was just that one time-and once the sister said her good-bye, Anna was perfectly normal. But then, a double whammy. The couple finally conceived, after seven years of trying. Even still, they were planning to go ahead with the adoption, but then Anna was on the subway with the foster mother and she picked up another . . . echo, ghost, whatever. Not a very friendly one this time."

Myron. I would remember Myron even if I'd never spent a single minute in hypnotherapy. He was very strong when he was angry, and Myron was almost always angry. I've spent a lot of time trying to forget Myron and keep his voice and his face out of my dreams. Trying to forget the nightmares that followed after Myron was finally gone. Trying to seal his file shut and wall it off in the most remote corner of my mind.

All of the others I've hosted fit the label of ibbur. They've been needy, but not malevolent. They asked for my help. And in cases where I couldn't help, they eventually went away. Myron, on the other hand, was a dybbuk. He didn't ask. He simply took.

I don't want her to talk about Myron.

And she doesn't.

"Let's just say her foster parents decided that it was better not to risk the welfare of an infant with a child who was so volatile. Who might be dangerous. So Anna lands back in the hospital. I started working with her when she left the hospital and was assigned to a group home. I accepted the diagnosis of the previous doctors. Officially, I still accept that diagnosis."

"But unofficially?" Porter asks.

"Anna changed my mind about a year and a half after I started working with her. One of my clients died that winter. Bruno was an elderly man, homeless much of the time. He had issues with kleptomania and substance abuse. I guess the chair you're sitting in was the last place he felt safe."

Porter glances down at the chair and his eyes widen. I stifle a laugh.

"Anna knew things about my client that I simply couldn't explain away. Including where he'd hidden the very nice ballpoint pen my daughter had given me the previous Christmas. I was pretty sure he'd taken the pen from my desk, and I'd been working with him, trying to get him to trust me enough to admit it. Then they found his body in Layhill Park, not too far from the homeless shelter that took him in from time to time. Later that week, I'm talking to Bruno again-through Anna-and he tells me that he stashed his treasures, as he called them, in a plastic bag that he hid in the bushes near the bleachers at the baseball field in the park. And that's where I found my pen, along with a bunch of other stuff he'd collected, including an earring I'd lost two years earlier. Guess he found it in the carpet and decided to keep it."

"He could have told her that in your waiting room, Dr. Kelsey. Maybe she read your file. Or maybe she followed him."

"Anna was six at the time, Mr. Porter. Their appointments were on different days, and she was accompanied to and from her appointments by a social worker back then. Believe me, I tried to think of a rational explanation. But there wasn't one, so I finally had to accept that Anna wasn't just telling me what she believed to be true, as I'd thought. She was telling the actual truth. And while many of my colleagues would still disavow any claims of psychic abilities, I consider myself a realist. We have mapped the human genome, but we still understand very little about the human brain. There are some sections for which no scientist, no psychologist, can pinpoint an exact purpose. The fact that I cannot tell you why Anna has this ability and others do not, the fact that I cannot quantify it, doesn't make it any less real."

Porter is quiet for several moments. "So you don't think she really has this dissociative identity thing. But you go on treating her a few times a week anyway? Is that ethical?"

Kelsey leans forward and her eyes narrow, a faint red flush creeping up her cheeks as she stands up. It takes me a moment to realize that she's angry. I've seen her annoyed in the past, pissed off about some bit of bureaucratic insanity, but never angry.

"If you think I'm in this for money," Kelsey says between clenched teeth, "take a good look around you, Mr. Porter. Yes, I kept Anna as a patient despite the fact there's no category for her actual condition in the diagnostic manual. How would you like to walk around each day with one or more visitors in your head? Dead people you don't know, didn't invite, and have to struggle to evict? Dead people who leave behind their memories, whose deaths you dream about in vivid detail for weeks after they finally leave? Anna needs at least as much help dealing with the effects of her condition as anyone I have dealt with in thirty-six years of practice, so I have absolutely no qualms about the ethics of keeping her as a patient."

Your grandpa might want to watch his mouth, Molly. Kelsey may be little, but she's fierce. I think she could take him.

Molly sniffs derisively, no comment.

"I'm still not convinced what you're saying is true," Porter begins, "but if it is, are you the person best equipped to help her? This talent you say she has sounds like something that should be studied, verified . . ."

"If I was primarily concerned about my own self-interest, I certainly would have written Anna's case up in a psychiatric journal. But do you really think she could have remained anonymous? That there wouldn't have been a constant battery of tests and trials to convince skeptics like yourself? Anna would have been turned into a sideshow. She had no one to protect her interests. Personally, I didn't think throwing a six-year-old child to the wolves was ethical." She puts a decided emphasis on that last word as she sits back down, her eyes still locked on Porter's.

He breaks the stare by glancing to the right, pausing for a few seconds when his gaze reaches the mirror. His shoulders tighten and his mouth twitches slightly on one side. It feels almost as though he can see me. I sit forward, ready to bolt into the reception area, but then he looks back toward the desk.

Kelsey lets him sit in uncomfortable silence for a moment longer and then continues. "I know you expected me to say something very different this afternoon, Mr. Porter, but I'm not going to lie to you. Anna made the decision to approach you, and she didn't make it lightly. Most of the spirits she picks up plead with her to get a message to their spouse, their children, somebody-it seems that only those who have some sort of regret or quest stick around. Anna was pretty certain how you'd react, but she felt she had a moral obligation to at least try, given what Molly told her about the circumstances of her death."

"She's going to have to give me something more to go on here, Doctor. You might be convinced, but I'm sure as hell not. If Molly's in Anna's head, why wouldn't she let me talk to her?"

Kelsey shrugs one shoulder. "Anna's a smart girl. It would have been beyond foolish to let Molly surface in a downtown cafe, without anyone she knows as a witness. Strong emotion is a very powerful motivator, and Molly's been an exceptionally determined guest. This wouldn't be the first time that Anna's had to fight-and fight hard-to get her own mind back from a hijacker, so you can hardly blame her for wanting some control over the circumstances of your . . . conversation."

Porter nods once and then looks pointedly at the mirror, a smug smile on his face. His eyes sweep past me and settle a few feet to the left of my chair. It's a good guess-that's where I'd have been if I hadn't tilted my chair back against the wall. "Anna, you can turn off the speaker and join us in here now."

Molly's not happy with the names I'm thinking about her grandfather as I sit up and grab my backpack, but I ignore her. Even though I have nothing to be embarrassed about, that doesn't stop the blush from rising to my cheeks as I walk back to the couch.

"I was a detective for over twenty years, ladies. I've seen more than one observation mirror in my time." He swivels the chair in my direction and crosses his hands on his belly, leaning back.

Face it, Molly. Your grandfather is an insufferable jerk.

I kick my black flats under the end table and toss my backpack on top of them, then sit on the couch, legs tucked under me.

My eyes dart over to Kelsey, whose expression is sympathetic and a bit nervous. She has a pretty good idea how much it costs me to give up control. But there's no sense putting it off. I suck in my breath and wait for the slide, the slipping, slightly sick sensation that marks my demotion from driver to passenger.

You have ten minutes, Molly. Make the most of it.

I can still see the office, still hear the slight whirr of the heating system. I feel the handle of my coffee cup against my palm as Molly puts it on the end table, sloshing a few drops of warm coffee on my skin. My legs unfold, at Molly's command. I feel the carpet under my sock-clad feet, and the slight thump as my knees land in front of Porter's chair. I feel the tears begin to run down my face and the polyester fabric of Porter's pants when my cheek touches his knee, his body going rigid as he tries to pull away. I feel all of these things, but it's as though I'm dipped in plastic and there's a barrier between my mind and the sensations.

A voice very much like my own is coming from my mouth, but the words are a jumble at first, exploding like they've been pent up under pressure. A deep breath, and then her speech becomes more coherent. "Pa, it's me. It's Molly. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I wanted to come back to you and Mimmy. I was scared, but Mama needed me with her. She was better when I was there. And she said Lucas would never hurt us-you know how she was about him. She loved him even after she found out what he was into. She thought he was good underneath, that she could change him. But she was so wrong about him, Pa."

Porter opens his mouth, but no words come out. His face is ashen, his eyes glued to my hand, which is clutching the leg of his pants.

"And now it's too late for Mama, too late for me, but maybe you can stop him."

Porter just sits there for a few seconds. Then his eyes narrow and jerk back up to meet mine. "Where did Mimmy keep her wedding rings when she scrubbed pots?"

Great, I think. He wants to play twenty questions. But Molly's answer is instantaneous. "In the bunny cup, the one by the sink, with all the paint chipped off."

"What song did you play for her sixty-fifth birthday and why?"

Molly pauses, then says, a bit more tentatively. "'The Little Old Lady from Pasadena.' 'Cause she grew up near Pasadena. And 'cause you say she drives too fast."

"How about the year before that?" he asks.

"Jeez, Pa! I think it was 'Copacabana.' And I played it 'cause she likes it, but if you want to know why she likes it, you'll have to ask Mimmy."

Porter starts to speak again and then closes his mouth. "You-your grandma . . ." He stops, swallows, then starts again. "You don't know about Mimmy, then?"

I feel a streak of pure joy run through Molly.

He knows it's me, he knows, he said "your grandma."

Then my heart stops. Molly is neglecting to breathe for some reason. I struggle to shove her aside, to suck in the air on my own, but she ignores me. A long moment later, she asks in a tiny voice, "Know what, Pa?"

He moves his hand as though he's going to touch my hair, before catching himself and putting the hand back in his lap. "She's gone, Molly. She died about a year after you and Laura. It was awful tough on her, losing the two of you like that. I thought maybe she'd snap out of it. We bought that camper, traveled around a bit, but she-her heart just gave out. Told me she was ready to be with you and your mama. Though I guess maybe that didn't work out quite the way she thought . . ."

"You're all alone now, Pa. You and Mimmy were going to travel, and-"

"I'm okay, baby. Ella stops in every day or two, and Phyllis and the kids come down now and then. An' I went back to work-not much point in retirement and just sittin' around all day. But yeah, I miss her a lot."

Molly pulls my arms tight around my body and sits there, rocking back and forth, making a soft keening sound, almost like a teakettle coming to boil. Tears stream down my face, and in that second, I know Molly is right. Porter is a believer now. He's seeing Molly, not me. Seeing her grief, her anguish. There's a look I can't quite place in his brown eyes. Pain, bewilderment, helplessness-and something else. He loved her so much. His expression scares me a bit with its intensity, but I'm also envious. And yes, the irony of being jealous of a girl who was brutally murdered has not escaped me. It's just that I can't remember anyone ever looking at me that way.

Molly is still rocking, digging my nails into my upper arms. It hurts.

Molly! Time's up.

But she's not responding. I try to push back to the front, but Molly's pain is so strong that I can't break through.

It's my body, damn it! Give it back!

Kelsey has been watching quietly from behind the desk. I don't know if she can see fear in my eyes or maybe she can just sense my panic, but she moves quickly and kneels next to me, her arm around my shoulders. "Anna? Anna? Molly, I need to speak to Anna now, okay? Molly? I'm so sorry about your grandmother, but I need to be sure that Anna-"

"No," Molly says, wrenching away from Kelsey, her tone flat but adamant. "I'm not done."

"We can finish this another time. You need a chance to process what your grandfather has told you, and I think Anna is a bit overwhelmed."

"I said no! Anna can wait." Molly still has control, but at least Kelsey's words have snapped her out of the emotional pit she was falling into.