She found more receipts stuffed in jacket pockets, all for regular things: milk and eggs, a haircut and color at House of Style, a cup of coffee and a candy bar at a gas station up in Lewisburg.

Lewisburg.

That was weird. It was a tiny town in the middle of nowhere as far as Olive knew.

She looked at the date on the receipt. It was from May 10 of last year. Just a couple weeks before Mama left. The knot in Olive’s stomach tightened.

Went missing, a little voice told her. She didn’t leave. She went missing.

Receipt in hand, Olive jogged down the steps and into the living room, searched the bookshelf, and pulled out the worn Vermont road atlas they had. She flipped to a page toward the front that showed the whole state. Using the index, she found Lewisburg, J-10 on the grid.

Someone had drawn a tiny star next to it in red ink.

She put her finger on the town and couldn’t imagine what would bring her mother there. It was totally off the beaten path, wasn’t on the way to anywhere. Then she noticed other red stars. One in Elsbury. Then another, here in Hartsboro.

Olive blinked down at the stars, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

The three towns—Lewisburg, Elsbury, and Hartsboro—formed almost a perfect equilateral triangle.

The image reminded her of the triangle in the necklace she was wearing and the same image she’d seen chalked on the floor of Dicky’s old hotel. But the necklace and drawing had a freaky triangle with a square, and a circle and an eye at the center.

The necklace under her shirt seemed to grow warmer against her chest. The whole room felt warm, too warm. She looked down at the triangle of red stars on the map.

She thought about the Bermuda Triangle, a place where people disappeared, boats and planes just fell off the map.

That’s what people said anyway, but was that what really happened?

Was it possible to lose people, a whole boat or plane even?

Was there an edge of the world, or a doorway, that you could fall through and be lost forever?

Was that what had happened to her mama?

CHAPTER 22

Helen

AUGUST 5, 2015

“I’ve got good news,” Riley said when she called. “They’ve finally finished the repairs to the historical society. Mary Ann gave me the okay to go back in and start putting the place back together again. I’m heading over this afternoon. Want to join me?”

“Definitely!” Helen said. “I’ve got news, too.”

“About the mill? How’d your trip go?”

“You’re not going to believe it. Hattie’s daughter died in that fire,” Helen said on the phone.

“What? No way!”