Page 32 of The Queen's Box

Willow blinked. “The township of . . . what?”

“Lost Souls. You heard me.”

“Is that a real place?”

“Real enough to touch, if that’s what you mean. Though I wouldn’t recommend it.” Samantha wrinkled her nose. “It’s a community ofbelievers, that’s what they call themselves. Two hundred folks? Three hundred? They live up in the ridges, where they can tell each other their lies without anyone contradicting them.”

“Lies? Like what?”

“Oh, it’s nonsense. They think Wrenna was a prophet. Or a saint. Or both.” Samantha wrinkled her nose. “No plumbing. No power lines. Just pine trees and secrets. Bull goose loonies, every one of them.” She tapped the bill. “What about Teddy? I’m giving you this. What will you give him in return?”

Willow hesitated. Her heart tugged toward Teddy. But her feet, her pulse, her blood—they all strained toward the Box. TheQueen’sBox.

“Don’t let him eat wheat,” she said. “Please. Just... start there.”

Samantha’s mouth pinched in. Shemightbe convinced to give Willow’s idea a try, Willow thought, if it meant saving her son’s life. But her husband? Never. If Pastor Jim said communion was required, then communion was required.

“And if that doesn’t work?”

Then he’d die. Teddy would die—it was as plain and simple as that. Willow’s gut clenched with guilt.

“There is one thing you could try,” she said, pitching her voice low. “It’s a bit... old-fashioned.”

“Old-fashioned, that’s fine. Tell me.”

Willow scrambled, pulling from childhood memories of remedies her own mother had used, though never in front of their father.

“Apple cider vinegar,” she said. “A spoonful a day. It will clean him out and make him new.”

Hope bloomed in Samantha’s eyes. “When you touched him, that’s the cure that came to you?”

Willow nodded once. “Yes.”

Samantha folded the paper and passed it over.

Willow tucked it into her pocket, her hand trembling slightly.

Samantha followed her out and called to her from the door to the shop. “He’ll be okay, then?”

“He’ll be okay,” she said, but her mind was already miles away. The mountains were calling. The Box was waiting.

~

“The township of Lost Souls,” Willow whispered, rolling the words over her tongue like a sugared pearl. They were round and rich, decadent with promise.

A hidden community tucked into the high folds of the mountain. A woman named Amira and that strange, terrible, wonderful box. The Queen’s Box. It was the key to the locked door that had loomed in the back of Willow’s mind since she’d been seven, since the day she’d pulled open that forgotten drawer and lifted a tarnished silver baby rattle.

Chimes tinkled in the recesses of her mind. The Queen’s Box—ting!

She hurried toward the motel, her pulse light, her thoughts a tumble of half-formed plans. How would she get up there, to that mysterious township? It wouldn’t be on any map. There would be no road signs. She’d have to ask around discreetly—maybe at the diner or a gas station.

In her Hemridge Haven Motel room, she grabbed her backpack and slung it on, reassured by its weight against her spine. She had nine hundred and twelve dollars, exactly. Surely that would be enough. Food, a ride, maybe a night or two in a roadside inn, if there even were any up that far.

As she strode back through the motel’s lobby and out into the day, she pictured herself trudging up a narrow mountain trail,the trees arching above her like cathedral vaults, the air scented with woodsmoke and moss.

A figure stepped forward from the shadows of a storefront, jerking her from the daydream.

“Willow! Hey, girl!” Jefferson called.

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