It was almost six months ago when the woman came to our door. She looked like a film student, and at first I took her for a fan. Neil’s work wasn’t the sort to attract adoring masses, but occasionally admirers would find their way to his home. Usually he’d send them away, but sometimes he’d have them wait in the atrium while I positioned him in his studio, ready for a short meeting or Q-and-A session.

As he told it, she was young, rail-thin underneath an oversized brown hoodie, which she kept pulled up, trying to cover up a network of pale stitches that stretched over one side of her head.

parapsychology