“Of the hanging,” Mary Ann said. “Surely Riley showed it to you.”

Jesus. A photograph of the hanging? It didn’t seem possible.

“Um, no. We missed that one somehow.”

“Ah,” Mary Ann said, standing, going over to a tall black file cabinet. “It’s in our special collection. Maybe Riley hasn’t seen it herself.” She opened a drawer, started looking through files. “Let’s just hope that hasn’t gone missing, too.” Mary Ann chortled a bit.

Helen secretly wished it had.

“Oh, here we are,” Mary Ann said, sounding almost giddy as she slipped a file folder out of the cabinet. She opened it up. Inside, it was lined with two sheets of paper. Between the sheets of paper, an old black-and-white photograph.

Helen cringed, had to force herself not to look away.

“Who would take a picture like this?” she asked.

“We’re not sure who the photographer was,” Mary Ann said.

Helen moved closer, studying the photograph. It was centered on a large old tree full of thick, heavy branches.

She looked at the picture, thought of how there was a piece of that very tree in her house.

Beneath the tree in the old photo, probably three dozen people were gathered, all turned toward the camera, posing. Some were smiling. Some looked down at the ground. It looked like it could have been a picture taken at a town dance or country fair—Hartsboro’s finest gathered in celebration. Some wore dusty work clothes and looked as though they’d come straight from plowing the fields or shoveling coal into a steam engine. Others were in suit and tie, the women in dresses with their hair neatly fastened.

And above them, their kill.

Hattie Breckenridge hung by a thick rope from a high branch. Helen could make out the noose around her neck. She wore a white dress that was dirty, stained. Her shoes were caked with mud. Her eyes were closed, her face placid. There was a woman right below her—a woman with light hair. She was smiling and holding something in her hands, something that seemed to glint in the light.

“What’s that woman got?” Helen asked, leaning in.

“I’m not sure,” Mary Ann said, squinting down. Helen saw a magnifying glass on the desk and reached for it. She studied the photograph through it and could see what it was: a necklace. Helen peered closer, and though it was hard to make out, she was sure it was the same necklace with a strange design Hattie had been wearing in the portrait: a circle, triangle, and square all tucked inside each other.

“Who’s this woman?” Helen asked, pointing to the woman holding Hattie’s necklace like a trophy, a sickening smile on her face that seemed to say, The witch is dead.