“We wanted to, back when you visited the shop. But it’s bad luck to talk about the curse,” Ray said, his voice gentle and faintly raspy. “No, more than bad luck, really. It…attracts it. Makes it worse. We thought we could keep you safer by not saying anything.”

“Can’t have gotten much worse than this, can it?” Nora asked him.

“We both know it can.”

Nora’s face scrunched up, and for a second she looked like she was going to cry, and then Ray pulled her against his chest, his hand running over her hair.

They were talking about her parents. Their deaths. That was what happened when it got “worse than this.”

Margot shuffled forward on the table so she could let her legs hang over the edge. Her feet were bare; her shoes had been left back at the house. The memories felt frantic, unreal, like she’d dreamed them. A miserable scowl pulled at her face, and she couldn’t stop it.

I thought I could sleep through this. That I’d be safe if I pretended nothing was happening. If I just kept to myself and didn’t go looking for answers.

“I expect you’re angry,” Kant said. He hesitated, then added, “You have good reason to be.”

Margot didn’t respond. What she felt wasn’t anger. Not exactly. More like betrayal. He’d led her to her house. Shown her around it. Made her drinks in the kitchen. And he’d never once tried to warn her of what was going to come.

“My job is to help you,” he continued. “I’ll answer your questions as fully as I know how. You’ve heard plenty enough rumors about this land. Most of them are true.” He closed his eyes briefly, but when he opened them again, his gaze was as steady as always. “Gallows Hill is cursed.”

They’re not denying it. They’re not keeping it a secret any longer. It should have been a relief. A weight lifted. Instead, it felt like peeling a scab and revealing a black and bleeding wound beneath. There was no good here, only ugliness.

“The land isn’t right,” Kant said. “It won’t follow natural orders. Sometimes, you’ll see things that shouldn’t be there. Like people. Sometimes, you’ll hear things.”

“Okay.” Her throat hurt. Her voice was like a rasp. She couldn’t stop touching the cast. “Why?”

“We don’t know.”

“All the wrong that’s happened on the land, most likely,” Nora said. The tip of her shoe scraped along dust lining the floor, drawing lines in it. “The executions. Then the original Hull family going missing. But that’s just a guess. If anyone knew exactly what caused this, they were lost generations ago.”