The video tape’s label formed a neat scroll when she rolled it up, with the string cinching its middle. The button glittered as she wove the string through its holes. The photograph was the hardest to tie; she didn’t want to fold it or damage it and finally settled for puncturing small holes in opposite corners and running the string through them, so it bobbed on the line like a flag.

When she finished, she raised it up. The loop of string held each precious item at an interval, like jewels on a necklace. She wrapped the string around her wrist, tying it there so that its talismans hung over the back of her hand. Then she stood.

Night had arrived. She hadn’t made any of the preparations she was supposed to—closing windows, snuffing out lights. And she didn’t plan to.

“I think…” Her voice broke. She moved into the hallway and faced the house, the rectangle of light from the kitchen washing over her, a spotlight in a void of darkness. “I think I know what I need to do to give you peace.”

She didn’t speak loudly, but her voice echoed through the house. She hoped the spirits would be listening. And she hoped she was right.

The curse would exist until the last of Ephraim’s line died.

Or until the spirits found justice.

Margot ran her fingertips across her talisman, touching each item in turn, gathering strength from them. The original Hull family had died here, in this home, but their bodies had never been found.

Not during the initial searches. Not during the renovations.

Their bones were still somewhere on the hill, buried in unmarked graves. And Margot thought she knew where.

Her legs had gone to water. She closed her eyes, waiting for the wave of fear to wash over her, until she thought she could speak again. “I’m going to try to find your bodies. I’m going to search the underground passageways.”

Her mind conjured images of them. The dark. The damp. Far underground, layers of dirt above, pressing down on her, threatening to collapse.

But it was the only location that made sense to her. The original Hull family had constructed most of the underground chambers before the formalized, official cellar had been built. They were a labyrinth of bare soil and collapsed paths.

Nora and Ray had said the police searched the property after Ezra’s family was reported missing. They wouldn’t have just looked in the house; they would have searched the hill for recently disturbed soil. For signs of a hastily dug burial site.

Ephraim had hidden his murdered relatives in a place where none of the searches could have easily located them. And the only place that presented that opportunity was the underground maze.