The lights inside the Lantern Room came back slowly.
Morgan stared at the window.
The woman was gone.
So were the thirteen fingers.
Her stomach twisted.
She had counted them.
All of them.
Ten.
Then three.
Thirteen.
Thomas' note sat on the bar behind her.
Morgan turned toward it.
Something had changed.
The unfinished sentence was no longer unfinished.
She walked closer.
DC followed.
Morgan read the final line.
And if it asks you to count, don't finish.
She stared at it.
“Well.”
DC looked from the note to her.
“You finished.”
“I noticed.”
“Are you feeling different?”
“Other than deeply regretting several life choices?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Morgan looked toward the window.
“Maybe it doesn't matter.”
“Thomas thought it did.”
“Thomas also disappeared.”
“That isn't helping.”
“It wasn't supposed to.”
Morgan picked up the note.
The new words were written in the same handwriting as the rest.
Same ink.
Same age.
As though they had always been there.
Her phone vibrated.
Mrs. Bell.
Morgan answered.
“Where are you?”
“The Lantern Room.”
“Is DC with you?”
Morgan glanced at him.
“Yes.”
“Good. Stay there.”
Morgan immediately disliked that.
“Why?”
“I'm coming.”
“Mrs. Bell.”
The line went dead.
Morgan lowered the phone.
“She hung up.”
DC nodded.
“That sounds like her.”
“You know, I'm beginning to understand why Grandma liked her.”
Mrs. Bell arrived fifteen minutes later.
She entered through the side door carrying a wooden box beneath one arm.
The moment she saw Thomas' tobacco pouch, she stopped.
“Where did you get that?”
DC pointed behind the bar.
“It's been here since 1978.”
Mrs. Bell set down the box.
“You should have left it there.”
Morgan folded her arms.
“We're a little beyond leaving things alone.”
Mrs. Bell looked at her.
“What happened?”
Morgan told her about the cellar.
The bottles.
Her name.
The red door.
Kiara.
The thing pretending to be Kiara.
Then she told her about the woman outside the Lantern Room.
When Morgan mentioned the thirteen fingers, Mrs. Bell went pale.
“You counted them?”
Morgan hesitated.
“Yes.”
“All thirteen?”
“I didn't exactly plan to. I saw ten, then three more appeared.”
Mrs. Bell's expression tightened.
“You shouldn't have counted.”
“I know that now.”
DC leaned against the bar.
“In her defense, thirteen fingers appearing on one side of a window tends to get your attention.”
Mrs. Bell looked at him.
“This isn't funny.”
“I wasn't joking.”
Morgan pointed toward Thomas' note.
“It changed.”
Mrs. Bell read the final line.
And if it asks you to count, don't finish.
Her face lost what little color remained.
“Morgan.”
“What?”
“You finished the count.”
“Yes. We've established that.”
“Did anything happen when you reached thirteen?”
“The lights went out.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Mrs. Bell looked toward the window.
Morgan watched her.
“What happens if someone finishes?”
“I don't know.”
Morgan sighed.
“Of course you don't.”
“I mean it. Thomas never told us.”
“Maybe because Thomas disappeared.”
Mrs. Bell didn't answer.
Morgan looked at the wooden box she'd brought.
“What is that?”
For several seconds, Mrs. Bell said nothing.
Then she opened it.
Inside were wooden tokens.
Each was round and dark with age.
A symbol had been carved into each one.
Morgan recognized some immediately.
An apple.
A flame.
A key.
A glass.
A leaf.
A door.
Morgan reached toward them.
Mrs. Bell closed the lid.
“No.”
Morgan stared at her.
“You brought the mysterious box full of ominous little tokens and expected me not to ask?”
“I expected you to ask.”
“Wonderful. What are they?”
Mrs. Bell sat at the bar.
“Your grandmother called them markers.”
“For what?”
“I don't know.”
Morgan gave her a look.
Mrs. Bell sighed.
“I know what Evelyn told me. That isn't necessarily the same thing as knowing what they are.”
“Fine. What did Grandma tell you?”
“That Bellweather remembers in thirteens.”
Morgan stared.
“That sounds intentionally unhelpful.”
“She said some things were meant to be counted.”
Mrs. Bell looked at Thomas' note.
“And some things weren't.”
DC leaned against the bar.
“Where did the markers come from?”
“Evelyn gave them to me in 2005.”
Morgan went still.
“When?”
“The morning after we came out of the woods.”
“The morning after October seventeenth?”
“Yes.”
Morgan looked at the box.
“What did she tell you to do with them?”
“Keep them away from you.”
“That's encouraging.”
“She was frightened.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
Mrs. Bell looked directly at her.
“Of what remembered you.”
Silence settled over the Lantern Room.
Morgan looked down at the box.
“Why bring them now?”
“Because one is missing.”
Mrs. Bell opened it again.
Morgan's eyes moved automatically across the tokens.
She stopped herself before she could count them.
Not again.
One indentation in the lining was empty.
“What was there?”
Mrs. Bell looked at her.
“A pear.”
Morgan frowned.
“A pear?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
DC sighed.
Mrs. Bell glared at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Morgan ignored them.
“When did it disappear?”
“Today.”
“From where?”
“My house.”
“Was anything else disturbed?”
“No.”
Morgan looked at the remaining markers.
“Do you know what the pear means?”
Mrs. Bell shook her head.
“Evelyn never told me.”
Morgan thought about the apples.
The fire.
The bourbon.
The leaf.
Objects kept appearing.
Objects kept returning.
Memories attached themselves to things that shouldn't exist.
“Maybe Grandma didn't choose the symbols.”
Mrs. Bell looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe they're not instructions.”
Morgan looked at the box.
“Maybe they're warnings.”
They stayed at the Lantern Room until the darkness outside the windows began thinning toward morning.
Morgan returned home shortly after sunrise.
DC offered to come with her.
She declined.
He offered again.
She still declined.
Eventually he made her promise to call before opening any doors, touching any supernatural childhood belongings, or accepting beverages from invisible people.
Morgan agreed to two out of three.
She parked in front of her grandmother's house.
Something looked different.
Morgan sat behind the wheel.
The front yard.
Nothing.
Porch.
Nothing.
Then she noticed the tree beside the driveway.
Her grandmother's pear tree.
Morgan smiled faintly.
At least one thing was normal.
Her grandmother had planted it when Morgan was little.
It had never done particularly well.
Some years it produced a handful of hard, ugly pears.
Most years it produced nothing.
This year, Morgan hadn't seen a single fruit on it.
Now its branches sagged beneath their weight.
Morgan got out of the car.
Golden pears covered the tree.
Perfect.
Far too many for a tree that had been bare yesterday.
Morgan approached slowly.
One pear hung low enough to touch.
She didn't.
“Not happening.”
She walked around the tree.
Something had been carved into the trunk.
Fresh pale wood showed beneath the bark.
Morgan crouched.
Three words.
YOU MISSED ONE.
Morgan stared.
“Missed one what?”
A pear dropped behind her.
Morgan turned.
It landed softly in the grass.
Then another fell.
Then another.
Morgan backed away from the tree.
Pears began dropping from every branch.
Not randomly.
One at a time.
A slow rhythm.
Morgan's mind immediately tried to follow them.
One.
Two.
She stopped herself.
“No.”
Another pear fell.
Morgan refused to count.
The falling continued.
She looked away from the tree.
Eventually, the sound stopped.
Silence.
Morgan looked back.
Golden pears lay scattered through the grass.
All except one.
A single pear remained hanging from the highest branch.
Morgan stared at it.
Something had been tied around its stem.
Purple and yellow beads.
Kiara's bracelet.
Morgan's hand went automatically to her pocket.
Both bracelets were still there.
She pulled them out.
M.
K.
The bracelet hanging from the pear wasn't either of them.
Morgan stepped closer.
A silver heart dangled among the beads.
There was a letter engraved on it.
Morgan couldn't see it clearly from the ground.
She took out her phone and zoomed in.
The letter came into focus.
E.
Morgan lowered the phone.
Evelyn.
Her grandmother.
A memory struck without warning.
Morgan was seven.
Her grandmother was kneeling in front of her.
They were somewhere dark.
The cabin.
No.
Not the cabin.
The red door stood behind Evelyn.
Grandma held Morgan's face between both hands.
“Listen to me.”
Morgan was crying.
“I want Kiara.”
“I know.”
“She went through.”
“I know.”
“We have to get her.”
“No.”
Morgan tried to pull away.
Grandma held her tighter.
“Morgan, listen.”
“But Kiara's in there.”
“I know.”
A sound came from behind the red door.
Kiara screaming.
Morgan turned.
Grandma pulled her face back.
“Don't listen.”
“We have to help her!”
“We can't.”
“Why?”
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
“Because it counted wrong.”
Morgan didn't understand.
Grandma reached into her pocket.
Three bracelets.
Purple and yellow beads.
M.
K.
E.
She fastened the bracelet marked E around her own wrist.
Then she pressed the other two into Morgan's hand.
“Grandma?”
“Whatever happens next, you do not count.”
Another scream came from behind the door.
Morgan sobbed.
Evelyn stood.
She turned toward the red door.
“Grandma, no.”
Evelyn looked back at her.
“I'm going to make it forget.”
Morgan came back to herself beneath the pear tree.
Her phone lay in the grass.
She was crying.
Morgan wiped her face.
“No.”
Her grandmother hadn't forgotten what happened in 2005.
She had done something.
Something deliberate.
Morgan looked up at the bracelet marked E.
The pear beneath it began to rot.
Golden skin darkened.
Collapsed.
Split open.
Something fell from inside.
A small wooden token landed in the grass.
Morgan recognized it immediately.
The missing marker.
The pear.
She stared at it.
Then at the words carved into the tree.
YOU MISSED ONE.
Morgan finally understood what they meant.
Not a pear.
Not a marker.
A person.
In 2005, there hadn't been two children at the red door.
There had been three people.
Morgan.
Kiara.
And Evelyn.
And whatever had been counting them...
had only remembered two.
