She was in the opening between the kitchen and the living room, under the hanging tree beam, facing into the kitchen. She studied the corner where she’d seen Hattie three weeks ago. She looked up at the beam, at the dark shape in the dim moonlight that filtered through the windows.

There were voices behind her. Whispering. Talking so low, it sounded more like radio static than human voices, but she knew that was what they were. She could recognize the ebb and flow of conversation, of two people trying not to be heard.

Was Nate here?

She had an absurd thought then: that she would turn and he’d be there, talking with his white doe; that the deer was actually Hattie, just like Riley said. They’d be sitting together, and the deer would be whispering to him, speaking perfect English, singing him a little song maybe…Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. Or maybe something else. Something strangely romantic—Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me—as she looked up at him with her big, glossy doe eyes.

She heard a giggle, but it was all wrong—low and crackly, like it was coming through a far-off AM radio station. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know what was there.

Slowly, she forced herself to turn her head and look, to see who, or what, was behind her.

There, sitting in the living room in the place the new brick hearth would go, was Hattie. She was on a stool. Where does a ghost get a stool? Helen wondered. Hattie was wearing the same white dress she’d had on the last time Helen had seen her, but there was no rope around her neck. She was smiling, laughing. And at her feet, a young woman sat, having her hair braided by Hattie. The woman shared Hattie’s dark hair and eyes. Helen saw the young woman wore a plain blue dress, but it was tattered and burned, stained brown and yellow from smoke. And she carried the smell of smoke on her; Helen caught a whiff of it in the air.

This must be Hattie’s daughter, Jane. The one no one knew what had happened to.

But Helen knew.

The pieces clicked into place. She didn’t know the details yet, but she was sure of one thing: Hattie’s daughter, Jane, had died in the fire at the mill.

“Jane?” Helen said, and the woman looked up at her, opened her mouth to speak, to tell Helen something, something important, Helen knew, but no sound came out.

The room flickered with light; the beam of a flashlight dancing through the window.

“Helen?” Nate called, coming through the door, shining his light on her. “Helen, my god! What are you doing out here?”

“I…” She glanced to the center of the living room. Hattie and Jane were gone.