"Now, full disclosure, there is one little thing you should know about the bedroom."

The realtor opened the door carefully. The room was an explosion of teenaged angst, wallpapered in concert posters, shelves covered with albums and beatnik literature, the bed just a blue blow-up mattress covered with a single white sheet.

"Well, we could get some hardwood floors in here," Alan said, tapping the stained, cigarette-burned carpet with his foot.

"Oh, God, no, Alan - look." Sarah held his arm as if afraid she might fall, and stretched out a finger to the vapour trail in the corner of the room, no longer than an arm's length from the head.

"Oh," was all Alan thought to say.

"Now, this is why this house is such a great deal." The realtor walked over and stood in front of the trail so that they didn't have to see it. "And it's really why you have to act now. Some people have silly superstitions, and because of that, beautiful homes like this one can go for unbelievable prices to a smart buyer. I hope you aren't the superstitious type."

"Well," Alan said, "It's not like we believe in ghosts or anything like that."

"Oh, but this couldn't be Stacy's room," Sarah said. "Every time she'd see it..."

"Of course not. I wouldn't even dream of that," the realtor said. "Just because the current owners used it as a bedroom -- Wha I see here is a perfect office. Mrs. Peterson, you said that you write for the magazines, isn't that right? Imagine having this beautiful, wall-to-wall window bringing in the light while you work. Talk about inspiring!"

Sarah walked over to the window and gazed at it for a while. She turned around slowly, trying to imagine the walls stripped clean and painted white, the shelves filled with style guides, and a desk at the wall. Then she stopped at the hanging trail of vapour that had ended a young life.

"Oh, no, I couldn't," she said, the image of her Stacy sitting in that corner burnt into her mind. "I'm sorry, Alan. I know we need a cheap place, but I just couldn't."

"Well come on, hon'." Alan let the words out like a sigh. He glanced around for a bit, found the album shelf, as struck on an idea. "Here. Give me a hand with this, will you?"

He and realtor lifted the shelf up and carried it over the trail. When they brought it down it was invisible, lost inside a copy of The Downward Spiral.

"There," Alan said. "Now it's good as gone. You'll never see it again."

When he turned to see his wife's reaction, the homeowner, a woman of thirty-five with a soul of eighty, was standing at the door, a look on her face as if her son's corpse had just been dragged out of the grave before her eyes.

"Oh," Alan spluttered out. "I -- I'm sorry."

"No," the woman said. "It's--" She waved her hand as if to say it was fine, but didn't get the words out.

After a long while, Alan managed, "It's a lovely house. Really. At $200,000 it's a steal."

"Two hundred and fifty," the woman said.

"What?"

"Three hundred. I mean -- it's not for sale."

The realtor stepped over and grabbed her arm, half comforting and half threatening. "Abby," she said, in an admonishing tone, "We talked about this."

"They can't put the shelf there," the woman said. "They can't."

"We'll talk about it. Go for a walk, okay?"

"They can't," the woman said again, but she turned away and left.

Sarah looked at the shelf. She said, "Should we," and then stopped, looking up to Alan.

"Don't worry about that," the realtor said, a plastic smile back on her face. "This is your home now, you can do what you like. Now, if we can get you to sign today, we can bump it down to one-eighty. What do you say?"