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“All right.” He nodded, catching on.

“But how do you fix a fraying rope?”

“You…” He paused. “You cut it.”

“Exactly.” I picked up the knife, slicing through the twine in one motion. It left a clean edge. “Then you tie it off or burn it, whatever. You stop the unraveling.”

I twisted the cord in my fingers, still thinking. “That’s what I was trying to do. Fix it before Annie ever goes through the door.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know.” I dropped the twine, pacing now. “But it wasn’t an accident that I came here. It wasn’t an accidentwhenI came here.”

I’d been retracing my steps through the unfolding narrative of my life and the winding path that had led me here. From the beginning, I’d been following a trail.

“I didn’t just see the door one day and walk through it. I’d gotten the photograph first. That’s what started all of this. From there, I couldn’t let it go. My mother, the baptism records, the envelope with your address…they were like breadcrumbs. That’s what made me cross, and when I did, I created a timeline that overlapped the other one.”

“You could have ended up anywhere, though, right? How did you end up here?”

I sucked in a breath, putting it together. I reached up, clasping the locket watch in my fist. The door had brought me to 1951 because that’s what the locket was set to. The locket that Gran gave me.

“It was Margaret.” I whispered the name. “I couldn’t have done it alone. I would have needed help getting myself back here, because you can’t go to a time when you already exist.”

That was the thing I’d missed. The fact that the locket watch was set to 1951 wasn’t an accident. It had been set that way. By Gran.

We pulled Annie from bed and got in the truck, driving the three miles to the flower farm as the sun rose over the Blue Ridge Mountains. By the time I was knocking on the beveled glass window of Esther’s front door, the memory was pushing into the light of my mind. It was only fragments, but it was there.

I need your help.

I’m speaking the words, but at first, I can’t completely hear them. I look around and see that I’m standing in the shade of one of the greenhouses with Margaret. Her face is softer, younger, as she looks up at me.

I’m watching over my shoulder, afraid that someone will hear us.

“I need your help,” I say.

Esther’s door opened, making the memory vanish, and I was back on the porch again, standing beside Eamon. The younger Margaret was gone, but the slightly older one stood before me now.

“Morning.” She tucked Annie’s hair behind her ear, letting the door open wider. “What are y’all doin’ here so early?”

Annie ran inside, but Eamon and I didn’t move.

She smiled. “June? You okay?”

“What’s all this?” Esther appeared in the hallway behind her, her hair long over her shoulder. She was missing her apron, too.

“It was you,” I said, gaze still pinned on Margaret. “Wasn’t it?”

Margaret gave a confused laugh. “What?”

“I came to you.” I pulled the memory back to the front of my mind. “I told you I needed your help.”

The smile on her face faltered then.

Esther looked between us. “Help with what? What are you talking about?”

I stared at Margaret. “What did you do?”

“Margaret?” Esther prodded.