“Your mama always wanted a master bedroom,” Daddy said between swings, plaster dust covering his arms and face. “A closet all her own.” He hit the wall with renewed vigor, smashing right through to the other side.

They put in two side-by-side closets: his and hers. Olive helped her father hang all of her mother’s abandoned clothing up in the closet on the left. As she handled her mother’s best dress, her favorite leather coat, she believed her father, believed that her mother would actually come back. Because there was no way she would have left all this behind. Not her favorite dress and coat. Not every pair of shoes. Not the treasure. Not Olive.

Renovations aside, Olive was more determined than ever to find the treasure, sure that once she found it, her mother would return. Wherever she was, she’d see Olive on TV, hear about it on the news: about the girl who’d found the buried treasure, the girl who was now rich.

If that didn’t bring her back, then Olive would have all the money she needed to find her. She’d hire an army of private detectives, do whatever it took to bring Mama home again. And Mama would see the new master bedroom, her own huge closet, and she’d never want to leave.

In the meantime, Olive kept searching.

. . .

Now Olive listened to Mike’s footsteps as he made his way clumsily down the path. She pressed the binoculars to her face, watching the outsiders. They stood, their arms around each other, stupid smiles plastered on their faces that said all their dreams were coming true. Olive hated them. She couldn’t help herself.

She bit her lip, watching the flatlanders. They were kissing now. Totally gross.

I banish you, she thought again, concentrating as hard as she could.

The woman pulled back from the man, looked right in Olive’s direction.

Olive didn’t flinch. Just held tight to the tree, concentrated on blending in, on being part of the landscape. Because she was a part of the landscape. And this place, it was a part of her. All of it: the trees, the animals, the bog, the wind in the trees.

CHAPTER 3

Helen

MAY 19, 2015

Something was being eviscerated.

That’s the only way she knew to describe the sound she was hearing: a horrible, keening screech. A creature being tortured, split open, and gutted. It was a desperate, high-pitched scream. At first, it sounded like it was right outside the trailer; then it seemed to move—or was it being dragged off?—farther back into the woods. Out in the direction of the bog.

She’d been awake for hours, unable to sleep in the cramped bed, listening to every strange sound—breaking branches, howling dogs, hooting owls—so unlike the hushed buzz of highway traffic that she’d heard at night back at the condo.