“I hate to think that my mother’s been down there this whole time,” Olive had said when Helen was with her in the hospital cafeteria last night. “It just seems so…so lonely.”

But Helen didn’t think so. No, she didn’t think Lori would be lonely down there at all.

Because she wasn’t alone down there.

Be careful of the bog, Nate always told Helen. Stay close to the edge.

But the bog always drew her in.

Come closer, it seemed to whisper. Come share my secrets.

It had such an acidic, rich, mesmerizing smell—a primordial scent, she imagined. And it was such an otherworldly place, a landscape unlike anything she’d ever seen.

Some nights, she just sat at the edge, watching, listening, imagining she could see lights, the vague outline of the old house that once stood on the other side.

Hattie’s house.

The past and the present, all that had happened and all that was happening now—she felt it all layered in this place; not just layered but deeply entwined, like the roots of the biggest trees.

She thought of everything that led her here: her father’s death, Nate’s belief and determination, a dream. A dream of a place where she’d feel she belonged. Where she was meant to be.

And she’d found it.

Maybe with a little help, but she’d found it.

. . .

Another searcher in a dive suit who’d been floating around in the pool at the center of the bog waved his arms. “There’s something else down here!” he called. “More remains. Skeletal.”

Others closed in, moving toward him slowly, carefully.

And Helen wanted to scream, to warn them. To say, Leave those bones alone. They belong here. They’re as much a part of this place as the bog itself.

A man beside her mumbled something into a radio.

Another, a volunteer fireman she recognized from the general store, said, “It ain’t safe in that bog. Not with Hattie’s ghost out there.”

Helen turned away, knowing Hattie’s ghost wasn’t out in the bog.

She knew just where the spirit of Hattie Breckenridge was.

She was back at Helen’s house with the others, waiting.

CHAPTER 53

Olive

JUNE 8, 2016

Olive was back near the old foundation of Hattie’s house. She didn’t come out to the bog much these days. It was too hard to come and think about Mama. About what had happened to Mama.

But still, even though she stayed away from the bog, the bog was with her. It filled her dreams, her waking thoughts, too.

Especially after Dicky Barns came to visit her last week. He brought a note from Aunt Riley, who was safely locked up at the women’s correctional facility up in South Burlington. “Your aunt asked me to deliver this to you,” he said.