Julian had it.

Julian had taken it, at some point in his childhood, and kept it, and hidden it, and carried it, all these years, the way he carried everything about his sister, in silence, out of my sight.

My five-year-old had rescued his sister’s locket from his father’s erasure and kept it safe for seventeen years, waiting for the day he would place it in my hands and complete the promise.

I do not know when he took it, or where he kept it, or how many nights in his childhood he had held it the way Lily had held her red dress.