Tom had frowned, however, when that package had arrived on their doorstep, containing a generic cell phone to which a single note was attached, with a phone number. Vowing to keep no more secrets, Lynn acknowledged the handwriting belonged to Dr. Steven Richards. Tom had just squeezed her hand and whispered that he trusted her. Her heart swelled for her husband in a way it hadn’t for years.

Steven had sounded frantic when she called, saying he was on his way to Mexico to confirm something that she desperately needed to know. Keeping the conversation short and calm, she said she looked forward to hearing his findings and reminded him that she wanted the letters about her mother that the Corcillium had offered in exchange for her cooperation.

Steven had only said he understood.

Months later, she’d gotten irritated and used the phone to call again. A man had answered, saying that the Corcillium thought it best to keep their communication extremely limited from now on. She’d demanded the letters from her father, which the man said they hoped to provide in time. In response, she’d said that her property was off limits until the letters were provided, and to tell that to Steven himself. The man promised to relay the message.

It still made her so angry to think of her family’s private details in the possession of strangers. She’d never heard from Steven again, including what it was that had made him travel so urgently to Mexico. He hadn’t even ever inquired about Anne, his biological daughter, or any of his grandsons. He must have fully embraced the reclusive life of the Corcillium.

Lynn pulled her hair back off her neck, looking up to the blistering bright sky, wishing she had an elastic hair tie to lift the curls and alleviate the heat—

She held the position, blinking several times, forcing herself to keep squinting. After all, what she had just seen could have been a trick of the imagination.

But then the line above the trees took shape again, like the long tail of a kite in the wind. The swarm drifted apart, the insects separating so thoroughly that it was if they disappeared altogether. She held her breath, waiting, until they once again, for just a moment, joined together, making the shape.

The same formation that she’d seen above her own woods. The same formation she’d seen in the photographs far above other abduction sites.

Not ladybugs. It couldn’t be. Moths, perhaps? What was native to Maryland—?

The answer came in the singing all around her, in the twittering crescendos of cicadas.

Someone, somewhere in these vast pines, had been taken.