Page 17

She yanked a yellowed piece of paper from the drawer and flattened it on the counter. “But not everything. Some of the stuff was worth something. They sold it off, said it was to help with expenses for the baby. Mercy.”

“Lark,” Willow murmured, remembering the cooing infant on the quilt in her vision.

Samantha paid her no mind. She tapped the paper and said, “One item in particular caught someone’s attention.”

Willow leaned in. Bill of Sale, it read. The Queen’s Box. Willow’s heart lurched.

“This box Wrenna left behind, it was bought by a woman called Amira. Amira Greer. No churchgoer, that one. A bull goose looney if I ever did see one.”

“Where is she?” Willow asked. She braced for Alabama. Or Kentucky. Or somewhere far beyond her reach.

Samantha pursed her lips. “Well, now, she lives in the township of Lost Souls.”

Willow blinked. “The township of . . . what?”

“Lost Souls. You heard me.”

“Is that a real place?”

“Real enough to touch, if that’s what you mean.

Though I wouldn’t recommend it.” Samantha wrinkled her nose.

“It’s a community of believers , that’s what they call themselves.

Two hundred folks? Three hundred? They live up in the ridges, where they can tell each other their lies without anyone contradicting them. ”

“Lies? Like what?”

“Oh, it’s nonsense. They think Wrenna was a prophet. Or a saint. Or both.” Samantha wrinkled her nose. “No plumbing. No power lines. Just pine trees and secrets. Bull goose loonies, every one of them.” She tapped the bill. “What about Teddy? I’m giving you this. What will you give him in return?”

Willow hesitated. Her heart tugged toward Teddy. But her feet, her pulse, her blood—they all strained toward the Box. The Queen’s Box.

“Don’t let him eat wheat,” she said. “Please. Just... start there.”

Samantha’s mouth pinched in. She might be convinced to give Willow’s idea a try, Willow thought, if it meant saving her son’s life. But her husband? Never. If Pastor Jim said communion was required, then communion was required.

“And if that doesn’t work?”

Then he’d die. Teddy would die—it was as plain and simple as that. Willow’s gut clenched with guilt.

“There is one thing you could try,” she said, pitching her voice low. “It’s a bit... old-fashioned.”

“Old-fashioned, that’s fine. Tell me.”

Willow scrambled, pulling from childhood memories of remedies her own mother had used, though never in front of their father.

“Apple cider vinegar,” she said. “A spoonful a day. It will clean him out and make him new.”

Hope bloomed in Samantha’s eyes. “When you touched him, that’s the cure that came to you?”

Willow nodded once. “Yes.”

Samantha folded the paper and passed it over.

Willow tucked it into her pocket, her hand trembling slightly.

Samantha followed her out and called to her from the door to the shop. “He’ll be okay, then?”

“He’ll be okay,” she said, but her mind was already miles away. The mountains were calling. The Box was waiting.

~

“The township of Lost Souls,” Willow whispered, rolling the words over her tongue like a sugared pearl. They were round and rich, decadent with promise.

A hidden community tucked into the high folds of the mountain.

A woman named Amira and that strange, terrible, wonderful box.

The Queen’s Box. It was the key to the locked door that had loomed in the back of Willow’s mind since she’d been seven, since the day she’d pulled open that forgotten drawer and lifted a tarnished silver baby rattle.

Chimes tinkled in the recesses of her mind. The Queen’s Box— ting !

She hurried toward the motel, her pulse light, her thoughts a tumble of half-formed plans. How would she get up there, to that mysterious township? It wouldn’t be on any map. There would be no road signs. She’d have to ask around discreetly—maybe at the diner or a gas station.

In her Hemridge Haven Motel room, she grabbed her backpack and slung it on, reassured by its weight against her spine. She had nine hundred and twelve dollars, exactly. Surely that would be enough. Food, a ride, maybe a night or two in a roadside inn, if there even were any up that far.

As she strode back through the motel’s lobby and out into the day, she pictured herself trudging up a narrow mountain trail, the trees arching above her like cathedral vaults, the air scented with woodsmoke and moss.

A figure stepped forward from the shadows of a storefront, jerking her from the daydream.

“Willow! Hey, girl!” Jefferson called.

He was flanked by two men in neatly pressed shirts and bolo ties. One wore a silver cross on his belt buckle. The other carried a well-worn Bible in the crook of his arm.

Willow drew up short.

“Miss Braselton,” said the older man, his voice smooth with authority. “I’m Deacon Cotter. This here is Deacon Moore.”

Moore nodded, polite as a knife.

Willow’s stomach dropped. “I—hi.”

“We’re from Heaven’s Gate Revival,” Cotter said. “We understand you might be related to Lem and Elizabeth Whitmire.”

Willow blinked. “I don’t—I mean, I know the name. That’s all.”

Moore smiled. “Your mother’s Mercy? Mercy Braselton?”

“That makes you the Whitmires’ granddaughter,” said Cotter.

“They’re dead,” Willow said. Her heart was a kick drum, desperate to burst free.

“Their family is still here,” said Cotter.

Moore chuckled expansively. “We’re all family here.”

“And we look after our own. Especially when one of them—a lost sheep, you might say—comes wandering home.”

Willow took a step back.

Jefferson looked down.

“They’re worried about you, Miss Braselton,” Moore said gently. “We all are.”

Willow forced a smile. “That’s really kind, but I’m fine. Just... passing through.”

“Passing through Hemridge without telling anyone? Folks don’t do that,” Cotter said. He narrowed the gap between them. “And the things you’ve been asking about—Wrenna Bratton, that old box—it’s stirred up concern.”

“It’s research. That’s all.”

Moore gave her a sympathetic look. “You know, sometimes when young people dig too deep, they get... unbalanced. Overwrought. We’ve seen it before.”

Willow’s pulse skittered.

“That’s why we’d like you to come with us,” Cotter suggested. “Just to talk. To make sure everything’s all right.”

Willow felt small and scared, the way she’d felt too many times before.

Powerless. Cornered. Her feet didn’t move, her breath wouldn’t come.

But this time, in the instant where fear should have taken hold, something inside her shifted—no, opened, like a hinge creaking wide, no longer afraid of the noise it made.

“No,” she said.

She heard her own voice—low, certain—and knew it wasn’t just her voice that had changed. It was her.

She squared her shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Jefferson opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Miss Braselton,” Moore said. “It’s not a request.”

She turned to bolt, but Cotter was already there, barring the path. Moore moved to her left. Her exit points collapsed like snapped matchsticks.

“You can’t do this,” she said, the words hot with fury.

“We can,” Cotter replied. “It’s called protective custody. The Lord calls on us to guard His flock.”

Willow opened her mouth to scream—and an invisible force slammed down and shook the very air around her. The ground beneath her buckled, not physically, but as if it had remembered something ancient and cruel. Her teeth rattled from the inside out.

None of the others seemed to feel it. Only her.

The deacons reached for her, and she twisted sideways, knowing it would do no good. Their hot and heavy hands found no purchase on her skin. They reached through her as if she weren’t there.

Willow gasped. Her gasp was soundless. She spun around, but her sandals didn’t scrape the sidewalk. Her backpack didn’t thud against her back.

Hemridge was still there. Still gray. Still hollow.

Willow, on the other hand . . .

Cotter whirled every which way, confusion drawing cracks in his sanity.

Moore’s hand cut the air where her shoulder was, but it passed right through her.

Willow laughed soundlessly. She was in a box. A box! An invisible box, that’s what it felt like—a space outside time, behind the veneer of the world. The slam she’d felt? That had been a lid.

But not to capture her. To shield her.

She knew the silence of being trapped, silenced, and held down. But not now. Now she had slipped inside this... this box , and the box was her protection.

“She was right here,” Cotter barked.

“She couldn’t have just disappeared,” Moore snapped.

Willow moved past them like a shadow folding through mist. She didn’t run. Why bother?

Although... she wasn’t sure how long this mercy would last.

A voice inside her whispered, Yes. Go .

It wasn’t Wrenna’s voice or Severine’s or even Serrin’s. She didn’t know whose voice it was, and she didn’t need to.

Go, urged the voice.

She went.