“It’s real,” she said quietly, with profound satisfaction. “I’m not going mad. Or if I’m confabulating, I’m doing it so damn consistently—” She shook her head. “My birth-mother came here. Or from here. Or something. And she was stabbed, and nobody knows why, or who did it.” That brought her back to reality. It raised echoes of her own situation, hints of anonymous threatening phone calls, and other unfinished business. She sighed, then retraced her steps to the potsherd. Massaging her scalp, she sat down on the spot, with her back to the nearby elm tree.

She stopped talking abruptly, thrust the dictaphone into her hip pocket, pulled out the locket, and held her breath.

The crunch of a breaking branch carried a long way in the night. Spooked, she flicked the locket open, focused on its depths, and steeled herself to face the coming hangover: She really didn’t want to be out in the woods at night—at least, not without a lot more preparation.

The next morning—after phoning Andy at The Globe and securing a commission for a business supplement feature on VC houses, good for half a month’s income, with the promise of a regular weekly slot if her features were good enough—Miriam bit the bullet and phoned Paulette. She was nerving herself for an answering machine on the fifth ring when Paulette answered.

“Hello?” She sounded hesitant—unusual for Paulie.

“Hi, Paulie! It’s me. Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday, I had a migraine and a lot of, uh, issues to deal with. I’m just about getting my head back together. How are you doing? Are you okay?”

A brief silence. “About as well as you’d expect,” Paulette said guardedly.

“Have you had any, uh, odd phone calls?”

“Sort of,” Paulette replied.

Miriam tensed. What’s she concealing?

“They sent me a reemployment offer,” Paulie continued, guardedly.

“They did, did they?” asked Miriam. She waited a beat. “Are you going to take it?”

“Am I, like hell!” Miriam relaxed slightly. Paulette sounded furious. She hadn’t expected Paulie to roll over, but it was good to get this confirmation.

“That bad, huh? Want to talk about it? You free?”

“My days are pretty open right now—listen, are you busy? How about I come over to your place?”

“Great,” Miriam said briskly. “I was worried about you, Paulie. After I got past being worried about me, I guess.”

“Well. Should I bring a pizza?”

“Phew…” Miriam took stock. Just a bitch session together? Or something more going on? “Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll lay on the coffee right away.”

“That’d be wonderful,” Paulette said gratefully.