YOU ALREADY DID.
Morgan stared at the words spreading across the jacket.
The black handprint glistened against the faded purple fabric.
She backed toward the bedroom door.
“No.”
The letters remained.
Morgan looked at the two brass keys on the bed.
One marked MORGAN.
The other marked T.M.
And somewhere, apparently, there was a red door.
A red door she had already unlocked.
Twenty-one years ago.
Morgan grabbed her phone.
She called Mrs. Bell.
No answer.
She called again.
Voicemail.
“Of course.”
Morgan considered DC.
Then decided explaining the reappearance of a jacket her grandmother had burned twenty-one years ago was not a conversation she wanted to have over the phone.
She looked at the jacket again.
The stain had stopped spreading.
Morgan took a photograph of it.
Then another.
This time, she checked both images immediately.
The jacket appeared.
The handprint did not.
Neither did the words.
Morgan lowered the phone.
“That figures.”
She wasn’t leaving the jacket upstairs.
She also wasn’t touching it again.
Morgan found an old plastic storage bin in the hallway closet and, still wearing the gloves, placed the jacket inside.
The T.M. key went into her pocket beside her own.
The note went with them.
She carried the bin downstairs and set it beside the front door.
Then she stopped.
The mixing bowl was still on the kitchen table.
The apple beneath it had been unusually quiet.
Morgan looked at it.
“No.”
Whatever problem was under that bowl could wait.
She needed DC.
The Lantern Room was closed.
Morgan tried the door anyway.
Locked.
She peered through the front window.
Dark.
A handwritten sign had been taped to the glass.
BACK AT 4.
Morgan checked the time.
Just after noon.
“Wonderful.”
She turned toward Main Street.
Bellweather was busy with the kind of autumn afternoon she’d once loved. Shop doors stood open. People carried paper cups between stores. Somewhere nearby, something sweet was cooking.
Then Morgan heard a familiar metallic rattle.
She turned.
Across the street, a man stood behind an old copper kettle.
Morgan smiled before she could stop herself.
The kettle corn cart.
That thing had apparently survived everything.
As children, she and DC had spent most fall weekends trying to convince their grandparents they needed enormous bags of it.
Morgan crossed the street.
The man behind the kettle looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t place him.
“Small bag?”
“Please.”
He scooped warm kettle corn into a paper bag.
The first bite tasted exactly the way Morgan remembered.
Sweet.
Salty.
Warm.
For several seconds, she stood on the sidewalk and let herself enjoy something uncomplicated.
Then the man spoke.
“Haven’t seen you since you were little.”
Morgan looked at him.
“You remember me?”
“Evelyn’s granddaughter.”
Apparently there was no escaping recognition in Bellweather.
“Morgan.”
“I know.”
Of course he did.
She glanced at the cart.
“You’ve been selling this here that long?”
“Longer.”
He stirred the kettle.
“Your grandmother used to bring you every Saturday.”
Morgan smiled.
“That I remember.”
The man stopped stirring.
Morgan noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, I’ve gotten very familiar with that particular version of ‘nothing.’”
He studied her for a moment.
“You remember coming here?”
“Yes.”
“With Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
Morgan frowned.
“Sometimes DC.”
The man shook his head.
“Before that.”
“I don’t know.”
He looked down at the kettle.
“You used to come with a little girl.”
Morgan’s hand stopped halfway into the bag.
“What little girl?”
“Friend of yours, I assumed.”
“I don’t remember that.”
The man shrugged.
“You were children. Long time ago.”
“What did she look like?”
He thought.
“About your age. Dark hair.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“No.”
Morgan reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
“Would you recognize her?”
“Maybe.”
She opened the photograph of herself outside the cabin.
The man leaned closer.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He pointed.
Morgan looked at the picture.
Only Morgan sat on the cabin steps.
“What?”
“She isn’t there.”
Morgan looked at him.
“Who?”
“The girl.”
“There isn’t another girl in this picture.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why are you pointing?”
“Because that’s where she used to stand.”
Morgan’s stomach tightened.
“Here?”
He nodded toward the empty space beside seven-year-old Morgan.
“Always right next to you.”
Morgan enlarged the photograph.
Nothing.
Just the cabin wall.
“What do you mean, always?”
“Your grandmother brought photographs in once. She was showing them around.”
Morgan looked up.
“Photographs from the cabin?”
“I suppose.”
“You’ve seen this cabin?”
“In pictures.”
“Where is it?”
“No idea.”
Morgan looked back at the image.
“Did my grandmother say who the girl was?”
The man shook his head.
“She didn’t need to.”
“What does that mean?”
“You introduced her.”
Morgan went still.
“I did?”
“Every time.”
“What did I call her?”
The man frowned.
“I don’t remember.”
Morgan’s stomach sank.
Then the man looked at the photograph again.
“You always said it the same way.”
“Said what?”
His brow furrowed.
“Her name.”
“What was it?”
He shook his head.
“I can’t remember. I just remember you telling me.”
Morgan stared at the empty space beside seven-year-old herself.
The name came before she knew where it came from.
“Kiara.”
The man looked at her.
“Yeah.”
Morgan’s breath caught.
“That’s what you used to call her.”
The name meant nothing.
And somehow that frightened her more than if it had.
The kettle popped loudly behind him.
Morgan jumped.
The man turned.
“That shouldn’t be doing that.”
The burner beneath the kettle was off.
Another pop.
Then several.
He lifted the lid.
Steam curled upward.
The smell of toasted corn and browned butter drifted across the sidewalk.
Morgan stepped closer.
“Is there something in there?”
“Shouldn’t be.”
He reached for a scoop.
Morgan caught his arm.
“Don’t.”
He looked at her strangely.
“I have had a very unusual week.”
Another kernel popped.
Something small struck the inside of the copper kettle.
Not popcorn.
Metal.
Morgan looked at the man.
“Turn it over.”
“What?”
“Please.”
He hesitated, then grabbed the kettle with both hands and tipped it over the cooling tray.
Three unpopped kernels rolled out.
Then something else.
A small bracelet landed between them.
Morgan stopped breathing.
Plastic beads.
Faded purple and yellow.
A tiny silver heart hung from the center.
Morgan knew it.
She had owned one exactly like it.
Her grandmother had helped her make it when she was seven.
Morgan picked it up.
One side of the heart was scratched.
She turned it over.
A single letter had been engraved into the back.
K.
“This isn’t mine.”
The man looked at her.
“You sure?”
“Mine had an M.”
Morgan stared at the bracelet.
Purple and yellow beads.
Exactly like hers.
Except for the initial.
The kettle popped again.
Morgan looked inside.
Another bracelet lay at the bottom.
Her bracelet.
She recognized the crooked bead beside the clasp.
The silver heart bore an M.
Morgan reached for it.
The instant her fingers touched the metal, Main Street disappeared.
She was small again.
Seven.
The copper kettle towered above her.
Someone was holding her hand.
A little girl.
Dark hair.
Purple jacket.
No.
Morgan looked down at herself.
She was wearing the purple jacket.
The girl beside her wore yellow.
They were laughing.
Someone handed them a bag of kettle corn.
Morgan heard her grandmother behind them.
“Stay where I can see you.”
The little girl squeezed Morgan’s hand.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“The woods.”
“Grandma said no.”
“She won’t know.”
Morgan shook her head.
The girl’s smile disappeared.
“She said he’s waiting.”
“Who?”
The little girl looked toward the western hill.
“Thomas.”
The memory shattered.
Morgan stumbled backward into the cart.
The man caught her arm.
“Are you all right?”
She couldn’t answer.
Main Street had returned.
Cars.
People.
Autumn sunlight.
Morgan looked down.
Both bracelets lay in her palm.
One marked M.
One marked K.
She closed her fingers around them.
She remembered Kiara.
Not everything.
Barely anything.
A hand.
A laugh.
A yellow jacket.
And Kiara's voice telling her Thomas was waiting in the woods.
Morgan looked toward Bellweather Orchard in the distance.
Twenty-one years ago, she hadn’t gone into those woods alone.
There had been another child with her.
Morgan looked at the bracelet marked K.
One question rose above all the others.
Why didn't anyone remember Kiara?
