The kid freezes, flusters, tries to act like he isn't panicking. It's not a very convincing effort, but it's a noble one all the same. John lets him have it. He knows what he looks like, with the skeletons and the eyes; he knows that, to these storybook hero kids, they must see VILLAIN stamped on his forehead.

This is going to be an interesting dinner.

"Paul's upstairs, I think," he says, just as mildly, as he shuts the door behind Oscar with a heavy click. "He'll be down in a bit. Let's get these to the kitchen."

Their walk through the mansion is blessedly free of skeleton servants, but the decor is no less eerie. In places where the marble flooring has cracked or broken, it has been patched with whorls of organic off-white. The home is grand and dark and oppressively silent.

In the universally pleasant-but-stilted tone of parents making small talk with their children's friends, he says: "So, how long have you been in town, Oscar?"