The front door rattled, and a heavyset man stepped into the small room. His eyes flicked to Willow, then to Teddy.
“Hey, bud,” he murmured, ruffling Teddy’s hair with surprising gentleness. It broke Willow a little, seeing this big man take such care with his too-small son.
“Hi, Daddy,” Teddy said.
“Richard, this is Willow,” said Teddy’s mother. “She... she’s here from the city. Training to be a nurse practitioner.”
Willow blinked. That lie came so easily. But it was a smart one. A protective one.
“She says we need to stop letting Teddy eat bread. Wheat.”
Richard swiveled his head and regarded Willow. His expression betrayed no emotion, not even disdain. Just cool neutrality.
“Why would we do that?”
“He’s allergic.”
“To bread,” he stated, as if the concept was too absurd to entertain.
The woman’s eyes darted to her son, then to her husband, then to Willow. “If he stops eating bread, will he get better?”
“We’re not going to stop giving our boy bread, Samantha,” Richard said.
Willow’s lungs tightened. She should tell these people the truth—that she had seen Teddy’s grave. That she knew how this story ended.
Unless maybe she was wrong?
She was special, after all. Maybe she didn’t have to pretend. Maybe therewasa way.
She met Samantha’s eyes and made the woman an unspoken offer.I can help you... but only if you help me. It’s an exchange, remember?
Understanding dawned on Samantha’s face. She hustled Willow back through the cluttered aisles of the shop, nearly knocking over a precariously balanced tower of chipped saucers.At the front of the store, she ducked behind the counter and rummaged through one drawer, then another.
“They were the most God-fearing folks I ever met,” she muttered. “Wouldn’t even let their neighbors hang laundry on Sundays.”
“Who?” Willow asked.
“Lem and Elizabeth Whitmire.”
Willow froze. The Whitmires. The ones who had adopted her mother after Wrenna had disappeared. The ones her mother still refused to speak about, even now. Unclean, they’d called her. Shameful. A child of sin.
Samantha glanced up, clocking Willow’s reaction.
“They gutted Wrenna’s house after she vanished,” Samantha said. “Burned near everything. Called it occult. Dangerous.”
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.”
