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“Not that one.”

Nate stopped, gripping a green stalk. “This is a weed.”

“That is a foxglove that hasn’t bloomed.” Leo sat down on the porch steps. “Do you know nothing?”

“Not much about foxgloves, no.”

“Clearly.” Leo paused as if debating with himself, but then he said, “Well, the first thing to know is that they’re poisonous. Very poisonous, so don’t go wiping your mouth. And wash your gloves when you’re done.”

Nate looked at the plant. Then at Leo, who was frowning at him with a look that said he wasn’t kidding. “Noted,” Nate said.

He pulled the next weed and considered.

Leo couldn’t remember his own name. He couldn’t say when his kitchen had been painted. But he knew enough to identify plants.

Had he been a gardener? Some sort of caretaker?

Nate glanced at Leo and immediately dismissed the thought. Leo’s hands were smooth. Fine-boned. No scars, no thick knuckles. Those hands had never dug into this dirt.

The rest of him matched. Slim shoulders beneath a blue hooded sweatshirt. He sat on the porch steps with a straight back, as if someone might take his picture.

Whatever Leo had done with his life, it hadn’t involved tools.

Nate could more easily picture him as a son of the quiet family—except that didn’t quite fit either. Leo wasn’t quiet. He wouldn’t have wasted his days staying at the manor. He would have been out in town, having spirited arguments, talking to people… maybe going on dates.

He was certainly handsome enough to have left a broken heart or two in his wake.

He would have been remembered.

“What?” Leo asked, and Nate realized he was staring.

“Nothing.” Nate went back to pulling leaves.

“That tall one,” Leo said, pointing. “Pull that one.”

Nate yanked it out of the ground, and the root came out with it, long and white. Leo made a sound of grim satisfaction. Nate smiled.

They worked like that for a while; Leo pointing and Nate carrying out his orders.

It was an efficient system. Nate couldn’t tell a foxglove from half these weeds, while Leo seemed to know every plant personally.

“So,” Leo said, after they’d been out there for a bit, obviously trying too hard to sound casual. “Your strangers. Did they have anything useful to say, or did you waste an entire evening?”

Nate sat back on his heels. There was the question he’d been waiting for. “The house had a reputation before you,” he said. “Ghost stories going way back. A workman died here during construction, apparently. Kids dared each other onto the porch. You know, the standard haunted house stuff.”

“Why do you think that was before me?”

“Getting there.” Nate pulled another weed. “The people who lived here in the seventies kept to themselves. They were a bit mysterious, apparently. People say cars came up the drive at night, but never the same ones twice. And then one day they were gone. No moving truck or anything, just gone. And after that, the ghost stories got serious.”

He watched Leo take it in. His frown deepened, but other than that, he showed no reaction.

“That’s when the town figures the house turned,” Nate said. “I think that’s when you appeared.”

“The seventies,” Leo said slowly, testing the words in his mouth. Then, with a scowl: “Never the same cars twice. What is that supposed to mean? Who were they?”

“Nobody knows.” Nate shrugged.

“What a useless town.”