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Goldie looked at me, perplexed. “You good?”

I nodded and brushed my thumb across her cheek. “Just want to keep you safe.”

She smiled gratefully, and I turned on the car, pulling away as their gazes hung heavy on us. I felt a nervous feeling creep back—the feeling of the calm before the storm.

Goldie

The rain was coming down in sheets today, the whole world soaked through. I could barely see the cops perpetually parked on the street out front.

“Can we play outside?” River asked again. He was insistent that this was the perfect weather for an afternoon stroll.

I looked at him with a raised brow. “Do you not see—or better yet, hear—that rain?”

He just shrugged, because in his four-year-old mind, rain was completely unimportant to his goals for the day: mainly, going to the park just down the street. “We can wear boots.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, because of course that was his only worry—that his light-up sneakers didn’t get wet. The rest of him was unimportant. He ran off toward his room, presumably to find his rain boots. The kid was an absolute hoot, and spending my days with him was slowly becoming the best part of my day.

Lexington was behind on some work, so he was at the office trying to catch up, despite it being a weekend. I had insisted it would be fine if he were a bit late, but he had gone in anyway. I think he was trying to prove a point that he could get his work done on time. No one faulted him, nor anyone at work, for being a bit tardy with assignments at the moment. Everyone was preoccupied trying to figure out who the man was who had taken me.

After my meeting with Darren, the search re-ignited. They were refusing to let the case grow cold. We didn’t have much, but we did have the only two survivors to help: Silas and me. Jackie had been working with Silas to see if he could remember anything. I was tasked with trying to figure out what the hell the quote in my notebook meant.

I finally remembered why I had written it down. Old Man Baker was so fervent as he spoke—nearly panicked on my behalf. It was like he knew what was coming, but I couldn’t figure out how or why. I wandered into my room, pulling out the notebook and taking it with me to watch River. He was sitting on his bedroom floor, his rain boots pulled from his closet, but he was distracted by some action figures and playing with them on the rug. I sat on his bed, flipping to the page in question.

Tell Marigold to run, and to run far. Tell her to go where the witches were burned.

He must have known that I was a target again, but I wasn’t sure if he knew I was Marigold. I didn’t remember him from when I was a kid, but I didn’t remember much. It was possible we had crossed paths before I was sent to my uncle's.

“Where the witches were burned,” I muttered to myself.

River looked at me, confused. “Huh?”

I just waved him off, and he turned back to his toys. My first instinct was Salem, Massachusetts, with the Salem witch trials. Though it was misinformation to say any witches were burned there, I didn’t think Old Man Baker was prioritizing historical accuracy. But why Salem, Massachusetts?

Something about his words rang familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. I ran back to my room, grabbing the case file we had compiled before I was taken, and returned to my spot on River’s bed. I looked through the details of each case in the file, trying to figure out what I was missing. The biggest, most glaring difference between my case and everyone else’s was that I wasn’t a kid. But I think I was supposed to be—I was just the one who got away.

There was one other difference: every other disappearance had an associated note of some kind. But the Watcher had never sent a note for me. Sometimes the notes popped up after a body was found instead of when someone disappeared. Maybe that was why? I pulled out the scans of the notes, laying them across the bed. Some were just coordinates, others were names, and some sounded like poetry. That was it! I set the notebook down next to the notes. The line had the same cadence as the notes—similar language, too.

“Is Old Man Baker the Watcher?” I thought aloud. What I had found pointed to yes, but when he had stopped me, it hadn’t felt threatening.

It felt like a warning to protect myself.

I checked the time on my phone, hoping Lexington would be back soon. I wanted to bounce all my theories off him. Maybe he could figure out what Salem, Massachusetts had to do with it. I kept rifling through the file, trying to find anything that tied Old Man Baker to the case beyond a similar cadence in the notes and sayings. It wasn’t enough to convict him of anything, and if he were responsible, we would need more.

“Salem,” I spoke aloud quietly. “Maybe not the one in Massachusetts?”

It was a stretch, but if I remembered correctly, Salem, Oregon, was close to Cherrytree Hills. They were neighboring towns. I pulled out my phone and brought up a map of the state, zooming in on Cherrytree Hills and the surrounding area. I was right about its approximate location, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. But if Old Man Baker was just talking in riddles and he really meant Salem, Oregon… why would I need to go there? What was in that town?

An idea struck me, and I dialed Darren’s number, pressing the phone to my ear. It rang twice before he picked up, breathless on the other end. “Hello?”

“Hi, Darren. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Oh, no,” he explained. “Just out for a run. What can I do for you?”

“Is Salem, Oregon, connected to the case at all?” I asked quickly, not wanting to take up too much of his time.

“Umm… beyond you and Silas technically being in Salem when you were picked up, not really,” he explained, and I inhaled quickly, shocked I hadn’t known. “It’s where we searched for the place you were held. There was nothing on public land, and we didn’t have warrants for private land.”

“Do you think that’s where we were held—around Salem?”