Emily wandered into the living room, sank down into the chair by the fire, and looked around at all the knickknacks her grandmother had collected over the years. Emily now realized she had no idea where they came from, what the significance of keeping them was.

Did she hide the pelican on purpose? she asked herself, taking out the newly returned fountain pen from her pocket and turning it through her fingers. But why?

Everything was done for a reason, as far as Catriona Robinson was concerned, especially when it came to her treasure hunts. Every clue, every stepping stone to the next part of the adventure, was carefully and meticulously planned, just like the books that she wrote. Nothing was left to chance, and Emily was beginning to realize that this call from the grave, this test, was no different.

“Bit warm for a fire, isn’t it?” Tyler stood in the doorway, drying his hands on a tea towel as he looked over at the stacks of letters next to the fire.

“I was…” She was going to burn them. All those individual messages of kindness that didn’t belong to her.

Tyler went over to the fireplace, picked up a handful of letters, and collapsed onto the sofa by the window. Part of her wanted to snatch them back, to tell him to keep his hands off things that didn’t belong to him, but instead she found herself sitting forward on the chair, watching him as he read. He tugged at the collar of his shirt and in doing so revealed to her a thin silver scar across the back of his left hand. A scar she, in part, was responsible for.

She was always making him do things he didn’t want to do, such as climb over a fence to explore the garden of the creepy old woman who lived next door, just to find out whether she was, in fact, a witch as Emily so believed. Tyler had tripped over a tree root and cut his hand open on a broken pot, but he had refused to tell his parents where they had been, or whose idea it was to go off exploring in the first place.

Is this why you sent him? Emily thought as he looked up at her and she saw a shadow of the boy he used to be.

“I don’t blame you for wanting to get rid of them.” He tossed the letters aside and stretched out on the sofa, hands behind his head in a pose of utter relaxation. “What is it like?” He turned his head toward her. “To have all those people asking something of you, wanting to know about you and Aunt Cat?”

All Emily could muster was a sigh and a shrug.

“She wouldn’t make you do any of this without good reason,” he said.

“Perhaps.”

“Seriously, Em. I’ve never known you to turn down a challenge before.”

Except she had been a different person back then, someone she barely remembered.