Madeleine took a deep breath, hesitated before replying. “It’s just…they belonged to my mother.”

The picture in Emily’s mind was gone in an instant, replaced by the image of a metal ladder swung down from a hatch in the ceiling of her upstairs landing back home. A square of black into which she climbed, over and over.

“It’s okay.” Emily understood, because she wouldn’t have wanted to give anything away either, which is why the loft of the cottage in Norfolk was fit to burst with boxes filled with her grandmother’s belongings—items that Emily had no need for but couldn’t bring herself to give away or sell, along with dozens more she was certain contained things that once belonged to her mother. Things Catriona had clung to but never looked at.

The memories of people hiding away in darkened spaces, collecting dust, collecting nothing but time.

“Why did you show them to me?”

“I thought it might help, with the treasure trail.”

Emily’s eye fell on another box, half open, containing dozens of pages stapled together along one edge. She lifted the top copy out, saw a name and date written on the first line.

“Celine Dubois, 1979,” Emily read aloud, skimming the rest of the page but understanding only half of what was written there in colloquial French. She turned to the next page, saw another name, date, and collection of words, then looked at Madeleine with an unspoken question.

“Everyone who stayed here had to leave something behind. Usually a short autobiography, but sometimes more.”

“More?”

“Before you ask,” she said, putting the pages back and closing the lid to the box. “Hers is missing. She left a whole notebook behind, apparently. Filled with poems and snippets of a story. But my mother tidied it away somewhere for safekeeping when she realized how valuable it was and then couldn’t remember where she’d put it.” Madeleine sighed, looked around the room at the stacks and stacks of boxes. “I suppose it could be in here, for all we know. Or she gave it away. Or someone stole it. I guess that’s the curse of being famous. Everyone wants a piece of you.”

They had always wanted more. But Catriona had been so very good at keeping Emily away from that part of her life. Kept her hidden from view.

“Maman told me Catriona and Gigi were always playing tricks on people, how Catriona refused to allow any customers to buy what they claimed they wanted. Said she had a knack of understanding what it was someone wanted, or needed, to read. That they always left here believing it had been their idea all along.”

Catriona Robinson was always so very good at persuading people to do her bidding. Even, it would seem, when she was no longer alive, she had the ability to make everyone run around doing exactly as she had planned.

“So many people have come back, telling their stories about the day she sold them a copy of Animal Farm, A Room of One’s Own, or The Grapes of Wrath. One man claimed he left here carrying a copy of Pride and Prejudice, despite him arguing with Catriona about how Austen was nothing more than a load of sentimental nonsense. Apparently he met his future wife on the way home, who saw the book and commented on how much she adored the Bennetts.”