On the back of it, worn but legible, a single initial was engraved.

The letter R.

Someone had placed that locket around the neck of an unconscious woman before she was left in the woods.

It had been put there on purpose, by someone, for a reason none of us yet understood — and the wrongness of that, the deliberateness of it, unsettled me more than almost anything else.

When I took it, that afternoon, to Mrs.

Mabel, the old woman went white to the lips the instant she saw it, and reached out to touch the metal with a trembling hand.