She’d done the research. She’d been to the mill in Lewisburg and learned what had happened to Hattie’s daughter, Jane. And eventually she’d learned that Jane had had two children, Ann and Mark, and that Ann was none other than Lori’s mother, and Mark was Lori’s uncle, the one who had taken them in after the “tragedy.”

Before Ann’s death, she had said little about her own mother to Lori. Of course, Lori understood about keeping the past a secret. She’d kept her own past a secret all her life. When she moved in with Uncle Mark and Aunt Sara, she reinvented herself—started going by Lori and asked to have her last name legally changed to theirs. As if leaving the past, and all the pain that came with it, behind could ever be that easy.

Lori told no one about how she’d watched her father shoot her mother, then himself. She just told people, “My name is Lori Whitcomb. I grew up in Keene. My mom and dad are Sara and Mark Whitcomb.” What happened in Elsbury, when she was little Gloria Gray, was long ago and far away—and she liked it that way. Perhaps she shouldn’t judge her mother for never teaching her children her own mother’s name and the gruesome details of her death.

And now, years later, Lori told no one of what she’d learned about her true family history. Family tradition, after all. It was a powerful secret she kept, that she was related to Hattie by blood.

At first, Lori had believed that maybe she did have a gift. Maybe she was touched, as Hattie had been. Maybe it ran in the family, passed down to each generation of women.

Then she realized the truth.

Any power she had, any gift of divination or secret knowledge—it all came from Hattie. She knew things because Hattie spoke to her.

And now the words Hattie spoke were words of warning.

Be careful, Hattie whispered to Lori in her dreams. You’re in danger.

And now, now that she’d found the treasure, actually found it with Hattie’s help and blessing, she felt the walls closing in. All their eyes were on her, searching.

“Any updates?” they’d asked. “Any sign of it yet?”

“No,” she lied. “Nothing yet.”

She hadn’t wanted to come to the circle tonight at all. She wanted to stop going to the weekly gatherings altogether. To drop out of the group. To pass on her role as Hattie to someone else. But that would look suspicious. So she played along.

. . .

Once Lori put the necklace on, started wearing it day and night, hidden under her shirts, the visions and dreams truly started.

She dreamed of Hattie’s house again and again. Of Hattie stacking rocks for the foundation after her family home had been burned down, her mother killed.