The Whispering Hollows by Lisa Unger

that no one here can help her.”
    He sighed. “This is toxic,” he said. “Stay away from my family, Ms. Montgomery. I’m telling you to leave. No one here can help you .”
    She didn’t generally let people get to her—but she rankled a little at his words. She mostly just felt sorry for people—so fragile, so afraid, so desperate. She had an endless well of compassion for the suffering of others, having suffered so herself. She searched for something to say but finally just stayed silent.
    â€œWe don’t have any money,” he said. “If that’s your angle.”
    But she was human, after all. Sometimes she got mad. She stopped at the threshold and looked at him. She tried her best to be withering. And she was gratified to see him bow his head in shame.
    â€œYou think I want your money?” she said. “I came here to help you.”
    â€œI don’t want your help,” he said softly. “Miriam’s too fragile for this. I’m just barely hanging on to her.”
    She wanted to tell him that that’s precisely why she was so vulnerable to The Burning Girl. But he was a closed door. The girl in the woods had never been able to get to him. And Eloise wouldn’t get to him either.
    â€œStay away from us,” he said when she crossed onto the porch. He closed the door softly.
    Eloise walked to her car. She looked up to see Miriam and Ella in the upstairs window. Miriam waved a hand, offered a wry smile. The Burning Girl smoldered beside them.
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    Eloise went home and called Agatha. Agatha’s personal assistant, Amber, told Eloise that Agatha had “her meetings” this week. Meaning that Agatha was seeing the people who were waiting to speak to their departed loved ones—looking for closure, forgiveness, to finish what was unfinished, all the things of which sudden death had robbed them. Some people were looking for lost things, answers to questions, to unbury secrets. Once a man was looking for money he knew his father had hidden in the forest. According to Agatha, he’d found it and given her a 10 percent finder’s fee, as per their arrangement.
    Agatha had encouraged Eloise to get into this area of the business, as it was very lucrative. But Eloise had zero interest in money. She’d made enough to meet her needs, leave money for her family when she passed on.
    Furthermore, Eloise couldn’t imagine constantly sitting across from so much suffering. It was hard enough working with Ray, who handled most of the client interface. She was still unsettled even from her brief visit with Tim Schaffer. And it was hard enough dealing with visions, which were getting more and more draining every day. She didn’t want to look into the face of grief over and over again. She saw it enough when she looked in the mirror.
    â€œIs it an emergency?” Amber asked now. “I can have Agatha call you between sessions.”
    â€œNo, no,” said Eloise. “It can wait.”
    â€œOkay,” said Amber. Agatha said that the girl was an empath, someone very attuned to other people’s feelings. And Amber sounded unsure that Eloise was being truthful. “Call me if you change your mind.”
    Eloise promised that she would. Eloise didn’t think it was an emergency. Or was it?
    She went upstairs to her bedroom to lie down. Her encounter with Nick had drained her. She was tapped into the family in some weird way, and this experience was different than any other she’d had. She didn’t like it. For some reason, as she lay on her bed, it made her think of her first conversation with Agatha.
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    Agatha had just turned up at her doorstep one day. Eloise had watched as the chauffeur-driven Lincoln Town Car pulled into her driveway. She’d thought, “Oh, God. Now what?”
    Eloise had had a hard couple of weeks as she approached the second