Candy Brownapple had come to the green mansion to steal a dead woman's story, and the dead woman kept refusing to tell it straight. Candy was a reporter. She wanted one true thing: how music had pulled this cursed town back from the dark, so she could write it down and make it last. Her notebook lay open on the dusty floor. Across from her glowed Evelyn Greenwood, the ghost poisoned in this very house years ago. "Someone handed you the drink," Candy said. "Who?" "A party." Evelyn's voice went flat. "Noise. A glass. That's all I keep." She looked away. She did not come back to it. Candy had chased this for weeks. Every answer stopped at the same locked door. Evelyn knew the shape of her own murder but not the name. The one who held the name watched them both from inside these walls. So Candy stopped asking the ghost. She crossed to the forbidden study and lifted the record off the rune-carved player. She set the needle down. The room cooled. Light bled silver across the ceiling. A woman stepped out of nothing, tall and pale, her hair moving like smoke with no wind. A dark halo hung behind her head. Lady Moon. She ruled this house. She saw everyone in it. "You play my record to summon me," Lady Moon said. "Bold. Reporters usually knock." "Evelyn won't finish her story," Candy said. "You hold the end of it. Who poisoned her?" Lady Moon smiled without warmth. "Knowledge costs. Evelyn paid by following me. What will you pay?" Candy thought of the notebook, the empty pages, the memoir that meant nothing half-true. "Not money," she said. "A trade. You tell me the name. I write it down where everyone can read it. The town learns what this house did. Secrets are your power here. I'll end that power for the truth." The silver light shivered. For the first time Lady Moon looked uncertain. A watcher needs things hidden. Candy was offering to drag it all into daylight. "You would unmake me," Lady Moon said slowly. "I'd set her free," Candy answered. "Say the name." Evelyn drifted close, glowing brighter now. "Say it," she whispered. "Please." Lady Moon stared at the ghost a long moment. Then she bent and spoke one name into Evelyn's ear, too soft for Candy to catch. Evelyn's whole form flared green. Her mouth opened. She remembered. "The front door," Evelyn breathed. "I can picture the hand now. I can leave." Lady Moon turned to Candy. "You have your trade. The name lives in her, not me. Get it from her, and write it, and I fade. Keep it hidden, and I stay." Her figure thinned to mist. "Choose fast. She means to walk out that door tonight." Candy snatched up her notebook. The true story was finally breathing. And it was already heading for the exit.