“It could be,” Charlotte said. “The medallion seems Catholic, so that tells us that the Christian faith has some significance here, though it is hard to know what, when burial within the faith is possible nearby, if not in Haworth.”

“I’m afraid I do not believe it,” Emily said. “The child was gravely ill, certainly, but no one who loved their child as a mother or father does would hide their remains in that cold and lonely place. I believe the child was killed and concealed. That the burial place and markings hold the key to finding out who and why—that is why we must assemble this weird design and make sense of it somehow.”

“Murder”—Anne spoke the awful word aloud—“if that’s what it is. And that is what we all need to accept before we continue, sisters. There is infinite, careless cruelty in this word, and somehow one lives with it, side by side with inhumanity, as if it were a consequence of life. But this, this is a deliberate act, and we must all three of us understand the truth we are intent on. For at the end of our detections, if we are successful, we may face grave danger.”

“I am not afraid of danger,” Emily said at once.

“I know you believe that to be true, Emily,” Anne said. “But perhaps that just means that you have yet to meet anything that scares you.”

“That is true,” Emily conceded, “though I cannot imagine such a thing.”

“I am afraid,” Charlotte admitted, her hands hovering over one of the stones as if she were loath to touch it. “I have been since we set foot in Top Withens Hall. Everything about that wretched place seems a bad omen. I wish to find the truth of this as much as you do, Anne, but aren’t you afraid of what it may cost us all?”

Anne turned the stones this way and that until she fitted one more into the curious design. Her answer to Charlotte’s question was that yes, she was afraid she would not find the courage to continue with what must be done. And yet a murderer could not be left loose in the world to roam unchecked—not if one decent person knew that they were free. They had to continue.

“Well, one thing is clear,” she said, gesturing at the table rather than answering Charlotte. “Emily is right: there is a larger design here—one that can only have been made by taking out these stones, arranging them, then carefully replacing them in order. That means whoever hid the body had time; they had no fear of discovery or capture.”