For a moment, Max considered the idea that the doctor could actually read his mind and then dismissed the thought. Doctor Francis appeared to be a lot of things, creepy and annoying chief among them, but Max doubted that the man had made a deal with the devil in exchange for witchery. The trials that had ravaged the Massachusettes cities of Salem and Kingsport had put a stop to that kind of nonsense long ago. Besided the man couldn’t even walk. If he was going to bargain for anything, wouldn’t new legs top the list of requests?

“Where do you think we should start, the staff or the patients?” Doctor Francis asked.

“How large is the staff here?”

The doctor ticked off names on his fingers as he named them. “We’re a small family here. Let’s see. There’s myself, Moira, whom you’ve met- she’s newly arrived from Scotland. Henry McCoy is the groundskeeper. He’s hiding.”

“Hiding?”

“Oh, not from the authorities. I’m afraid he’s hiding from his family. Some kind of trouble back home, if I understand correctly.”