"I had just met Ruth, through one of my students—Ruth's niece Sara, who is Kara's older sister. Sara was the first of us to feel the influence that haunted that old house in Georgetown. It was a classic case of possession; the girl who had come to a tragic end in the same house two centuries earlier occupied Sara's body and spoke through her. I happened to match the—well, call them the emotional patterns—of another individual who had been involved in the same tragedy. On at least three occasions he took over control of my mind and my actions. Sara's lover, who is now her husband, was also affected, though not to the same extent she and I were. We came horribly close to repeating the old pattern, with its grisly ending, before we found out what had happened and how to resolve it." "You resolved it?" Adam repeated skeptically. Pat nodded. "So successfully that the house, which was the focus of the influence, is harmless. It's the same one Kara and Mark own now. Ruth sold it to them after my mother died and we inherited this place." "If I had heard a story like that from anybody but you ..." For once Adam's extensive vocabulary failed him.
