Willow turned to see a woman behind the glass counter, arms folded, watching her. She had greasy brown hair twisted into a loose bun and small sharp eyes.
“Hi,” said Willow. “I’m looking for... a box?”
The woman’s brows lifted. “A box.”
“A big one. Big enough to hold a human.”
“This isn’t the mortuary, hon. We don’t sell coffins.”
“I’m not looking for a coffin,” Willow said quickly. “Just... coffin-sized. And shaped.” She thought of the pastor who’d disappeared after Wrenna had closed him into the box. Coffins didn’tdisappearpeople, though. At any rate, he’d gotten what he’d deserved.
“What I’m looking for is a box,” she said more firmly. “Not a coffin.”
The woman sighed. “Wrenna Bratton’s box, then. That’s what you’re after.”
Willow’s pulse quickened. Was that how the people in Hemridge thought of it, as Wrenna’s box? It made a sort of sense if she’d kept it after... after whatever she’d had it do to the pastor. “Yes. Wrenna Bratton’s box.”
The woman squinted at Willow, peering at her from this angle and that. “You look a bit like her, that old witch. You related?”
“What? No!” Willow said. If this woman thought of Wrenna as a witch, then she fell squarely into the anti-Wrenna camp. But this woman was in her early thirties, probably. She couldn’t have known Wrenna, even briefly. Could she have?
Willow’s mother had always told her daughters that Wrenna Bratton—her biological mother—had hanged herself when Mercy had been just a baby.
Miriam Candler had suggested that no, in fact, Wrenna hadn’t hanged herself. Miriam had acknowledged that Wrenna had disappeared from Hemridge, however, leaving her baby girl behind.
But Willow’s mother had just this year turned forty, making her several years older than the store clerk for sure. So whatever had happened to Wrenna, there was no way the woman on the other side of the counter had ever encountered her. Not in person.
“I’ve heard of her, that’s all,” Willow said. She remembered Darlene from the bus. “I’m... doing a study on her. Folklore stuff. Oral histories and, um, found objects. And that’s the object I’m trying to find. Wrenna’s box.”
“Hmm,” the woman said. She tipped her chin toward a door at the back of the shop and said, “Come with me.”
Adrenaline coursed up Willow’s spine. “To see the box?”
“No, not that. It’s my little boy. I want you to meet him.”
Now Willow was utterly baffled. “Why?”
“He’s not doing so good. Maybe you can help.”
Willow frowned. “I don’t think so. I don’t even know what you’re—”
“Listen, hon. I know you said you’re not related to Wrenna, but I’m not so sure. Like I said, you’ve got the look of her. And if you’ve got even a touch of what she had, well...”
“You called her a witch,” Willow said flatly.
“Because she was one. I call a spade a spade.” The woman seemed to realize she was shooting herself in the foot because she adopted a stiff expression and said, “Not that I’m judging.”
Willow scoffed. “No?”
“Now, listen,” the woman said, clocking Willow’s demeanor. “This box you’re looking for, the one that’s shaped like a coffin but isn’t a coffin. I know where you can find it.”
Willow drew in a breath.
“You help me, and I’ll help you,” the woman coaxed.
Willow wanted to refuse. She couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of help this woman thought Willow might offer. Still, she gave a curt nod.
In the back room of the store, a small cot sat against the wall. On it lay a little boy who was maybe four years old. He was skinny, save for his stomach, which was swollen and hard.
