On the third knock, a woman I didn’t know answered Lauren’s door. She had a pleasant expression until she appeared to recognize me. She looked from me to Will and then slammed the door in our faces. I jumped and stared at the closed door in shock. I knocked again. Two people argued in hushed voices on the other side before the door opened up a second time and Lauren appeared.

“Ellie, Will.” Lauren greeted us with an apologetic smile. “Great to see—”

The door opened wider and the woman returned with a disgusted look on her face. “You have to go. Both of you. Now.”

“Mom, please,” Lauren begged her. “They’re okay. They’re my friends.”

Lauren’s mother shook an angry finger at us. “You will leave my daughter alone. Do you understand? You are not welcome here.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and began to back away. “We’ll go. Come on, Will.”

We started toward the car, and Lauren’s mom disappeared behind the door.

“I’m so sorry,” Lauren said as she caught up with us. “My mother doesn’t like reapers. Hates them, actually.”

“I thought your grandmother was the other psychic in your family,” I said. “How did she know what Will is?”

“She knows who you are,” Lauren explained. “And she knows, from growing up with my grandmother and from raising me, that you have a reaper Guardian. Two and two, I guess. Please forgive her rudeness. Knowing about reapers her whole life and knowing what they do and being unable to see them hidden in Grim has given her a great fear of them. She doesn’t want anything to do with even angelic reapers and she’s always resented how I help you. She’s afraid of what she doesn’t understand.”

“It’s all right,” I said honestly. “We can come later if your mom is over. I don’t want her to be upset.”

“No, no,” she replied. “This is way too important. I’ll grab my things and head to the house. Let me say good-bye to my mom really quick.”

“Sure,” I said, and watched her disappear back inside.

Will crossed his arms. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I didn’t know her mother would be here.”

“It’s no big deal. She has her reasons for her feelings.”

“I’m glad you’re not upset,” Will said.

Lauren returned with an armful of books and files stuffed with papers, which Will promptly took from her and carried to my car. We drove back to Will’s house, where Marcus and Kate were going through boxes in the basement. Some were labeled DON’T THROW OUT and others CORRESPONDENCES. Papers were strewn across the floor as they leafed through each and cast all of them aside. They seemed too glad to see us trudge down the steps.

“Please don’t tell me you do this kind of stuff every day,” Kate said, sighing. “I had a very different impression of your Supergirl adventures.”

I laughed. “My adventures are usually a lot more dangerous than the threat of paper cuts. Have you guys found anything?”

“Not yet,” Marcus said, appearing entirely exhausted. He gestured to the armloads we’d brought from Lauren’s house. “Is that more of Nathaniel’s junk?”

“Yeah,” Lauren replied. “I haven’t gone through this stuff yet, so I brought it over.”

“Let’s get started then,” Will said. He grabbed a box and slid it across the floor to me. “Look for anything that might say ‘Ethan Stone’ or reference to a location on the East Coast.”

It took a few hours before there was any break at all in our search—and it was a pretty vague break. I came across a torn-open padded envelope addressed to Nathaniel from a P.O. box numbered 184 in Saugerties, New York.

“Here’s something East Coast-y,” I said, and tossed the envelope to Lauren.

It landed in her hands and she gave out a shriek before dropping it immediately. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at her and I jumped to my feet to cross the room to her.

“Are you okay?” I asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. I picked up the envelope and peeked inside. “Spider? Will is good at squishing them. Will!”

Her wide eyes were fixed on the tan paper wrapping. She reached for it gingerly and when her fingers touched it, she swallowed hard and trembled. Her eyes rolled up into white orbs and her head snapped back, mouth wide open to release a skin-ripping scream. The envelope went flying out of her hands and the lightbulb above our heads shattered in a blinding flash and shower of glass. In the darkness, the basement was suddenly silent.

From somewhere unseen, Kate’s disembodied voice said, “Guess we have a winner.”

The envelope, address side up, sat on the coffee table with five pairs of eyes fixed on it. Lauren and I had sat at the kitchen table until she stopped shaking and then we joined everyone else in the living room. She’d assured me that she was ready to talk about what happened in the basement, but I kept a close eye on her.

“This package came from and was directly handled by Ethan Stone,” Lauren said. “I’m positive. There’s no telling what Stone sent to Nathaniel, but his psychic signature is all over it. So is Ellie’s, for some reason, only hers is very faint. I can’t explain that, but there is something very, very powerful laced into this man’s energy, something terrifying. I believe there may be much more to him than you were told. He can’t possibly be just another psychic human.”