“If we were being robbed, wouldn’t they take more than a couple of random tools?” Helen asked.

“Not if they were just doing it to mess with us,” Nate said grimly.

“I’m sure the tools are around here somewhere,” Helen said now. It was the logical, adult thing to say. She didn’t tell him that when he’d said “vortex,” she’d immediately thought of the deep center of the bog and all that could be hidden there.

CHAPTER 10

Olive

JUNE 10, 2015

“I can’t believe how much better this one works,” Mike said. Olive was letting him try out the brand-new metal detector, and he was waving it over the ground at the edge of the bog.

Mike was right: the new metal detector was amazing. It was so much more sensitive than her old one and could find things much farther down. So far, she and Mike had found two metal buttons, some coins, an old hinge, and bullet casings. And that was from working on only one square of her grid.

“I think I should go back and redo all the areas I already searched,” she told him. “The treasure might be too far down for my old machine to pick up on. But this one will get it.”

Mike nodded but kept his eyes on the ground. He didn’t believe in the treasure. He’d never come right out and said that, but it was obvious to Olive.

He was wrong, though. Hattie’s treasure was real. She felt it in her bones, especially when she was out here in the bog; she knew she was close. And Mama had been right: they were going to be the ones to find it. Now, without Mama, it was all up to her.

The treasure called to her, whispered, pulled on her, told her not to give up. That this could be the day.

Keep looking, it seemed to say.

You’re so close.

Some people, they were afraid of the bog. They said Hattie’s spirit was out there, and she was angry, looking for revenge. They said that if you went after dark, you’d see her walking across the bog, that the pink lady’s slippers that bloomed in the woodlands around the edges sprung up in the places where she’d stepped.