The Good House

The novel is set primarily in the fictional logging town of Sacajawea, Washington, and spans several generations of the Toussaint family, whose matriarch practiced vodou, a syncretic Afro-Caribbean religion in which practitioners commune with spirits called lwa.

In a 1929 prologue, Marie Toussaint, a vodou priestess of Creole descent, and her Chinook husband, John, are confronted by a desperate father bringing his gravely ill daughter, Maddie, to their door. Marie recognizes that the child is inhabited by a baka, a malevolent spirit. John warns Marie not to attempt an exorcism, calling it a trap, but Marie insists she cannot let a child die on her doorstep.

The narrative jumps to July 4, 2001. Angela Toussaint, Marie's granddaughter and a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, hosts a party at Marie's house, known locally as "the Good House." Angela's estranged husband, Tariq Hill, has arrived unexpectedly, and the couple is attempting to reconcile. Their 15-year-old son, Corey, is moody and evasive, complaining of a stomachache. Before the party, Corey confesses he stole Gramma Marie's gold ring years ago and has recovered it. He places the ring in Angela's palm and asks whether its African symbols have powers, then descends to the wine cellar. Minutes later, a gunshot erupts. Angela finds Corey dead from a wound to the head, lying beside a black Glock identical to a gun Tariq claimed to have sold.

Two years later, Angela has rebuilt her life as a talent agent in Los Angeles, her top client being rising actress Naomi Price. She battles insomnia and intrusive memories. After Corey's death, she attacked Tariq at the funeral, convinced he had lied about the gun, and spent three months at a private mental health retreat. When the caretaker calls about a purchase offer on the house, Naomi encourages Angela to revisit the property and offers to accompany her.

In Sacajawea, strange events multiply. Naomi's poodle, Onyx, vanishes from the locked house. Naomi is found asleep on the wine cellar floor where Corey died, with no memory of how she got there. Angela learns that her neighbor Rick Leahy recently walked grinning into the path of a logging truck. Angela's high school sweetheart, Myles Fisher, who is interviewing for an editor position at a local paper, reconnects with her.

Angela enters Corey's preserved bedroom and discovers a hidden altar: a bowl, a candle, a saint's medal, and index cards bearing symbols from Gramma Marie's ring. She visits Rick's son, Sean Leahy, now eighteen, who reveals that he and Corey experimented with spells Corey found in the house, accidentally awakening something dangerous. Sean insists the land is cursed. Angela contacts Myles, who confirms that other townspeople have committed violent, uncharacteristic acts since Corey's death.

In Oakland, Tariq has chronic stomach pain and an inhuman smell seeping from his skin that no one else detects. He experiences violent blackouts. After his nephew confronts him about a disturbing incident Tariq cannot remember, Tariq has a final moment of horrified clarity before the baka consumes him entirely.

Angela's friend Liza Brunell reveals a family story: On July 4, 1929, Marie performed a ritual to save the sick child. The child recovered, but that same day, Angela's mother, Dominique, began screaming at church and was never well again.

Flashbacks reveal the haunting's source. Behind a blue door in the junk room, the same door from his recurring dreams, Corey found a manuscript by Marie Toussaint dated 1929 and addressed to a descendant. Marie's writings explain that she spoke a stolen word belonging to Papa Legba, the lwa who serves as gatekeeper between humans and the spirit world. She uttered it in rage during a storm, awakening the baka from the sacred ground beneath her property. The word was encoded in the symbols on her gold ring.

Corey and Sean performed a midnight spell from the manuscript to recover lost objects. Angela's ring reappeared, but Corey had skipped the required cleansing rituals and inadvertently summoned the baka. A seductive girl named Becka, the baka in disguise, began appearing to Corey at The Spot, a clearing in the woods. She manipulated Corey into a confrontation with a local bully named Bo Cryer, who sank alive into a sudden pool of mud, a human sacrifice that fed the demon. Corey vowed to perform a banishment on July 4. A final flashback reveals his last moments in the cellar: Becka waited with Tariq's old Glock, urging Corey to shoot Angela. A vision of Gramma Marie broke the baka's hold, and Corey turned the gun on himself rather than kill his mother.

In the present, Liza's husband, Art Brunell, drowns his eight-year-old son, Glenn, while under the baka's influence. Angela recognizes that each victim experienced stomachaches before violent acts. Tariq, fully possessed, drives to Vancouver and murders Naomi, then heads for Sacajawea. From jail, Art tells Angela the baka has consumed Tariq and is destroying anyone connected to Marie's line. Marie had intended Angela to perform the final banishment in 2001, but because the ring was missing, the spirit's messages went to Corey instead. Angela must kill Tariq's body and banish the baka using Marie's guidance.

Angela and Myles enter the house, now overtaken by dead leaves, spraying mud, and shaking walls. In the attic, Angela finds a hidden vodou altar and a govi, a small clay pot containing Gramma Marie's preserved hair and nail clippings, the vessel of her life-spirit. Tariq ambushes and kills two deputies in the woods, then shoots Myles at The Spot. Angela cannot fire her gun; the baka has frozen its trigger.

Angela enters a trance, buries the govi's contents in the sacred soil, and allows Gramma Marie's spirit to possess her. Speaking through Angela, Marie declares the stolen word returned to Papa Legba, breaking the baka's power. A gunshot kills Tariq, its source ambiguous. Angela awakens alone beneath a tree.

In a vision, Angela meets Gramma Marie, who confirms the baka is permanently banished. Because Angela let Marie's spirit ride her and returned the stolen word, she has earned a miracle.

The final chapters restart on July 2, 2001, with events unfolding differently. Angela experiences a dizzy spell that clears her thinking, goes to Corey's room, and insists on the truth. Corey gives her the ring and the manuscript. Together they perform the ceremony properly at The Spot, returning the stolen word to Papa Legba. Becka appears at the trail's edge but cannot approach and vanishes. No one is harmed.

On July 4, the party unfolds joyfully. Corey brings sodas from the cellar without incident. Angela tells Myles she plans to move to Oakland to be closer to Corey. As fireworks light the sky, Angela watches her son, her husband, and her friends celebrate, knowing that if she waits, the skies will flare again.