There’s only one problem. Well, there are a lot of problems. But one main one. “But… there wasn’t a letter in the Book of Shadows.”

“Oh, it’s there, dear. Tucked into the pages,” Poppy says.

I have a sudden image of me throwing the book into the air when Bea called. Had it landed somewhere and I hadn’t noticed? “Wait. It’s probably still at the house.”

Candlelight is bouncing off the aunts’ smiles.

“Well, then, I guess we know where you’re going next,” Marigold says.

Heat rises in my chest and face. “You think I should go back there?”

“We think you should spend as much time as possible there,” Violet says.

“But…” I think of my mom. Her closed door. Her tense shoulders. This feels like a major betrayal of her, but maybe the aunts are right. How else am I going to get to know Sage except by going to her house and reading her mysterious trail of letters?

This is ridiculous. I need to make sure I’m understanding everything. “So you’re saying that Sage wanted to teach my mother more about the family curse, and to do that I’m going to have to find her letters?”

“Precisely,” Poppy says. “It’s a series of letters, and they’re all on the property. She showed us the first letter, but the rest were meant only for your mother. You can imagine it has taken a great deal of restraint to not go over there and try to find them ourselves.”

“But… why did she set it up like that? Couldn’t she just have told my mom?”

The aunts exchange a look as though I have said something very amusing. “Where’s the fun in that?” Marigold says.

“You’d have to know them as girls to understand,” Violet says. “Those girls were obsessed with finding treasures in the house. It drove poor Daisy crazy. Every time I went over, they’d dug through some random closet and found something new. Back then it was packed to the gills. We used to say it was a Bell family storage locker—I don’t think anyone had gotten rid of anything in literal centuries. Antiques everywhere! Plus, the house sat empty for so long, ever since the girls left.”

“What do you say, Willow?” Poppy asks quietly. “Are you in?”

I hesitate for a moment, my gaze on a flickering candle. But there’s nothing to decide, really. I have to know more about Sage.

“I’m in,” I say, and the aunts break out in a series of hoots and cheers.