1 | CHAPTER 1: GO TO HELL, LITTLE BRAT
The Hawthorne house had been designed to make visitors lower their voices without knowing why. Its white limestone façade rose above the wooded hills of southern West Virginia, and the eastern wall of the main living room consisted almost entirely of glass, allowing the August sun to spill over polished marble, pale rugs, and furniture that looked as though no child had ever been permitted to touch it. Tessa Hawthorne had lived there for almost four years and still sometimes caught herself moving carefully around the place, conscious of the generations of family portraits, silver-framed photographs, and inherited objects whose histories everyone else seemed to know. That morning, however, the house felt unusually ordinary because Maisie had filled it with the small, persistent noise of a three-year-old who had decided that every drawer contained something worth investigating.
Tessa had left her daughter downstairs with Lenora for what should have been less than ten minutes. A delivery driver had called from the gatehouse because the electronic entrance was refusing to recognize his code, and Evan was upstairs in his office on a conference call, so Tessa had slipped on her sandals and walked down the curved drive herself. Lenora had been sitting near the windows with coffee and a gardening catalogue, apparently content to watch Maisie move between a wooden puzzle and a collection of stuffed animals arranged on the rug. There had been no argument between the women that morning, and Lenora had even seemed softer than usual when Maisie offered her a plastic teacup and solemnly announced that it contained strawberry soup.
By the time Tessa disappeared beyond the front steps, Maisie had abandoned the tea set and wandered toward an antique cabinet beneath the staircase. The cabinet belonged to Lenora, although no one had ever explained why it remained in the main living room when nearly everything else she considered personal was kept in the west wing. Its walnut doors were carved with twisting leaves darkened by age, and one lower compartment had always been secured with a small brass lock. Maisie had been fascinated by the keyhole for weeks, occasionally kneeling in front of it and trying to fit toy keys inside until someone redirected her.
That morning, the lock was already open.
Lenora noticed only after the child had pulled the narrow door toward herself and reached into the shadowed compartment. Her catalogue slipped from her lap as she stood, but Maisie had already found the object hidden behind several old ledgers: a rectangular wooden box no larger than a hardcover book, its corners worn smooth from years of handling. The little girl sat back on her heels and lifted the lid with the same delighted concentration she gave to birthday presents, unaware that her grandmother had stopped several feet away.
“Maisie, put that down.”
The sharpness of Lenora’s voice made the child glance over her shoulder. She hesitated, studying her grandmother’s face, then looked back into the box because curiosity had already overcome the warning. Inside lay a tarnished silver coin, several loops of faded red thread, a photograph with curled edges, and a small object wrapped in yellowing cloth. Maisie touched the coin first and turned it between her fingers, leaving a dark mark on her thumb.
“Pretty,” she said.
Lenora crossed the room so quickly that the coffee table shifted when her knee struck it. She seized the box, spilling the thread across the carpet, and caught Maisie by the wrist when the child tried to keep hold of the coin. The movement frightened Maisie more than it hurt her, and she immediately began to cry, twisting her arm while Lenora pried the coin from her fingers. For several seconds the older woman seemed unable to decide whether to look at the child or the contents of the box, her breathing growing shallow as she stared at the faded photograph lying faceup among the scattered objects.
The picture showed a little girl.
Its colors had almost disappeared with age, leaving the child’s dress a washed-out blue and the garden behind her a mixture of brown and gray. She appeared to be about Maisie’s age, perhaps slightly older, with light hair cut unevenly around her ears and one hand resting on the back of a wooden chair. Maisie leaned closer despite Lenora’s grip, but Lenora snatched the photograph away and shoved it beneath the cloth before the child could study it.
“You weren’t supposed to touch this.”
“I want Mommy.”
The words changed something in Lenora’s expression. Her anger did not disappear, but it became secondary to a fear so immediate that she seemed to have forgotten where she was. She pulled Maisie toward the window, turning the child’s head with both hands while Maisie squirmed and cried harder, confused by the sudden examination. Lenora pushed a strand of blond hair away from the girl’s right ear and looked at the small patch of skin just beneath it.