Kant shifted, easing his stiff leg out at an angle. “The oak tree was still standing when the first Hull built his house beside it, though it had been dead for some time. It came down in a storm a few years after he bought the land. He worked it by hand into barrels. We still have them.”

The imagery on the bottles rose in Margot’s mind: a dead tree, its branches twisting in unfathomable patterns, adorned each label. “That’s…morbid.”

“A lot of folks thought so.” The corners of Kant’s mouth twitched up a fraction. “A lot of folks still think so. Can’t blame them. Hundreds of souls drew their last breath on that tree. But the first Hull wasn’t one to care about superstition, I’d say, otherwise he never would have bought the land.”

“I guess that explains the ropes.” Margot tasted the tea. She normally didn’t take hers sweetened, but her throat was achingly dry and the blanket had done very little for the pit of cold in her chest. She swallowed it in one drag, breathing deeply once she put the cup down. “Is it like…some kind of tradition?” She frowned. “Wait, you said some people still don’t like the winery being here. Maybe it’s a protest.”

“Can’t say for sure.”

“But it’s not about me or my arrival?”

“I don’t believe so. Best to my knowledge, those ropes would have been here with or without you.”

“Okay.” That was something. When she’d first seen the hanging nooses, she’d taken them at face value: a warning. Get out or this is what will become of you.

And she’d been prepared to believe it. Whether her parents had been beloved or reviled, a stranger moving into town and taking over one of its major businesses was going to upset some people. At minimum, they would be wary. At worst, she’d been prepared to face deep-flowing, bitter resentment.

Though it didn’t change the fact that someone had come to the house—with the knowledge that Margot was now living inside—and left the macabre symbols hung across her front porch. And they’d rung the bells. Not just to be a nuisance, she thought, but to draw her out of her room. To make sure she saw the ropes in the dangerous hours of predawn, when she would be most easily frightened.

It wasn’t exactly a generous welcome.

“I could get some night-vision cameras,” she said. “The kind that turn on with motion. If they come back, we’ll at least have footage of them. We could finally see who’s been doing this.”

“If you like,” Kant said. “The electronics store in town is small, but there’s a larger one about an hour away.”