I did not comfort her.
Not yet.
Maybe not for a long time.
But I no longer wanted hatred to be the only bridge between us.
A sound came from outside.
A car door closing.
Luca moved to the window beside the front door and looked out.
His expression shifted.
“Someone else is here.”
Vanessa turned white.
“No,” she whispered. “He followed me.”
“Who?” I asked, though I already knew.
Vanessa backed toward the stairs.
“Bell.”
Luca took my hand. This time, I let him.
We slipped through a side door into the fading afternoon, carrying the box, the envelopes, the locket, and more questions than we had answers. The trees thrashed overhead. Gravel crunched somewhere near the front drive.
Luca led us behind the house toward a narrow path through the woods.
Vanessa followed, breathing hard.
I looked back once.
A man stood near the front steps of Bellweather House, tall and still beneath a dark umbrella.
I could not see his face.
But he lifted one hand, not in threat.
In greeting.
As if he had expected me all along.
By the time we returned to Gray Hollow, evening had softened the sky to violet. Mrs. Pike met us at the bakery door with flour on her cheek and worry in her eyes.
“The children are fine,” she said before I could ask. “Fed, washed, and currently negotiating for one more story.”
I almost collapsed with relief.
Lena came running first, hair damp from her bath, pajamas covered in moons.
“Mama!”
She threw herself into my arms. Ash followed more quietly but held on longer.
Luca stood in the doorway, watching us with the metal box tucked under one arm and my grandmother’s locket in his hand.
Ash noticed it immediately.
“That’s the shiny thing,” he said.
I went still.
“What did you say?”
He pointed at the locket.
“The shiny thing from my dream.”
Lena gasped. “I dreamed it too! It was in the orange house.”
My heart began to pound.
“What orange house?”
Lena climbed onto a chair and swung her feet.
“The one with the lady who smells like tea.”
Ash nodded.
“She said we should tell Mama when the dragon finds the locked box.”
The bakery kitchen fell silent.
Mrs. Pike’s eyes widened.
Luca slowly placed the metal box on the table.
I knelt in front of my children.
“When did you dream this?”
Ash leaned against me, sleepy and serious.
“Lots of times.”
Lena nodded. “But last night the tea lady said hurry.”
I looked at Luca.
Then at Vanessa, who stood pale and silent near the door.
My grandmother’s message echoed in my mind.
Ask the twins.
Luca opened his hand.
The brass locket lay on his palm, warm from being held.
Inside the tiny folded paper, beneath the first three words, another line had appeared where I could have sworn there had been blank space before.
Not written in ink.
Pressed into the paper, visible only in the kitchen light.
They remember the room where Elena hid the key.
Ash touched the metal box.
Then he looked up at me with Luca’s amber eyes.
“Mama,” he whispered, “who is Elena?”
