“ ’Cause. It’s Hattie’s, right? Are you sure you want to go messing around with anything that belonged to her? It’s probably, like, cursed or something.”

Olive chuffed out a laugh, picked up the metal detector, and slipped the headphones back on. Mike sat down on a fallen log and pulled a bag of Skittles out of his backpack, offering some to her. She shook her head and went back to work.

They were searching the northwest corner of the bog. Even with the headphones on, she heard hammering and Helen’s and Nate’s voices. Olive and Mike weren’t technically on their land, not way over on this side of the bog, but still, Olive didn’t really want them to catch her. But she had their routine down by now. They worked every morning, took a break for lunch, then worked until just before dinner. They’d usually take a walk down to the bog either before or after dinner. And they couldn’t see the bog from their house. They were uphill, up a steep path through a little strip of woods. So Olive felt safe. And even if they caught her, she wasn’t doing anything illegal. She’d just smile real big, introduce herself as a neighbor, and tell them she was fooling around, looking for old coins and stuff.

She’d been watching Helen and Nate enough to know things had been tense lately. They snapped at each other when they were building, accused each other of misplacing tools. This morning, Nate had a big freak-out about his cell phone, which had been missing for days.

Olive smiled, thought they’d be gone soon. They’d realize they couldn’t hack it, then pack up and leave. She’d also been buoyed by the rumors she’d been hearing in town. People were saying that Helen and Nate should never have come. Olive liked the idea of the whole town being against them, making them feel unwelcome; this would drive Helen and Nate away for sure.

Olive marked her map with a big, satisfying no-treasure-here X and tagged the corners of the grid with tiny pieces of red string tied around saplings—something no one would notice if they weren’t looking. Then she moved on to the next part of her grid: a six-by-six-foot section along the northern edge of the bog. Her sneakers were already soaked, so she didn’t mind working on such soggy ground. Her feet sank into the mossy carpet, the water well above her ankles in places. Tall rubber boots would have been better. There was always the chance that Daddy would notice her wet sneakers and ask how she’d gotten so soaked going to school and back.