Summer here. I spent summers here. With my parents. Before the fire, before the running, before I forgot everything that mattered.
“You okay?” Thessa asked, finding me sitting on the floor surrounded by toys.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think so. Maybe.” I held up the one-armed doll. “I might have been a destructive child.”
Thessa’s lips twitched. “That tracks.”
“That’s enough for now.”
It was the third day when I found the secret.
Because apparently my life was a fantasy novel now. Secret wolf heritage, magical kingdoms, fated mates, and now a hidden room unlocked by a mysterious family heirloom. All I needed was a prophecy and a chosen one speech and I’d have the full set.
I was in the library, my favorite room in the cabin, filled floor-to-ceiling with books in languages I could and couldn’t read. I was running my fingers along the dusty spines, looking for anything that might tell me more about my family’s history. There had to be journals, diaries, records of who the Mirabelles were, what they believed, why they died.
My hand caught on a crevice. A gap in the bookshelf that shouldn’t be there.
I crouched down to examine it. The gap was small, oddly shaped, recessed into the wood. Not for any key I’d ever seen.
I studied it for a long moment, trying to figure out what it could be.
Then I looked at my wrist.
The watch. The Mirabelle watch, with its distinctive shape and the crest engraved on the back. The watch I’d worn for as long as I could remember, the one piece of my past I’d never let go of.
No. It couldn’t be.
That would be ridiculous. That would be the kind of thing that only happened in books. My watch was not a literal key to a secret vault. That was insane.
“Thessa!” I called. “THESSA!”
Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Thessa burst in, looking alarmed. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Look at this.” I pointed to the crevice. “Does that shape look familiar to you?”
Thessa crouched beside me, squinting at the gap. Then recognition dawned on her face.
“That’s the same shape as your watch.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Do you think it’s a secret door?”
“Only one way to find out.”
My hands were trembling as I unfastened the watch from my wrist. This watch had been my comfort, my talisman, the only thing connecting me to a past I couldn’t remember. And now it might be a literal key.
I pressed the watch into the crevice.
It fit perfectly, and a click echoed through the room as the bookshelf swung inward.
Thessa and I stared at the dark opening that had appeared in the wall. Cold air drifted out, carrying the scent of dust and age and secrets long buried.
“Holy shit,” Thessa breathed.
“Holy shit,” I agreed.
We found candles, lit them, and stepped through the opening into a small, dark room beyond.
