When Natalie got home she found her father in the basement. Judging by the amount of sloshy sounds and the colorful barrage of curses that were coming from the stairs, it seemed as though the water tank had finally burst. It had been the furnace he'd had to fix last month. The house, when they'd bought it, had been advertised as a "fixer upper" and Natalie had always thought it a gross understatement. But according to her father it had been a steal for a mid-century gothic heritage house, and he was quite happy to fix it up. He'd spent a few years as a carpenter and handyman before becoming an architecture, he'd said, and had waved off any concern with a cheerful smile.

This cheer seemed to have dissolved in the face of a flooded basement, so Natalie made her way into the kitchen, where she found a box of pizza on the counter that hadn't even been opened yet. Apparently he'd brought dinner home and then discovered the swamp before he'd gotten a chance to dig in. She felt a pang of sympathy for her father, before remembering what she'd been about to confront him for.

After another glance toward the door—the swearing had increased in volume—she decided to grab a slice of cheese pizza and retreat to her bedroom. She could confront him once he was done mopping up the mess down there. Normally she would have gone down to help, but if she went down there she would ask him about everything, she wouldn't be able to help it. And "basement swamp crisis mode" wasn't exactly the best mindset for him to be in when she started this conversation.

The house creaked as Natalie made her way up the crooked, winding staircase. She was always careful to hang on to the banister. She'd tripped down them once, when they'd first moved in, and her father had repaired the top three, but she still didn't trust them fully any more. The entire house perpetually seemed on the verge of collapse.

She slipped into her room and shut the door, setting her plate down on the shelf. She let her book bag drop to the carpet with a thud, before flopping onto the bedspread. The cheese pizza smelled great, but Natalie's stomach was still squirming. She lay on the bed and stared up at the roof, her hand drifting automatically to the silver fairy pendant, fingers smoothing over the curves and edges.

She hadn't bothered to closer her shades before leaving this morning, and her bedroom was lit only by the full moon coming in through the window. The light fell in bars across the contents of her room, the "Life is a Daring Adventure" poster, with a twisting river down the side of a canyon, and the books on her shelf, a mixture of guide books she had found at thrift stores, and her world map, pinned with all the places she planned to go.

A thick beam of silver light illuminated one side of her bed, and Natalie turned over on her side. She slipped the necklace off, letting the chain dangle from her fingers. The charm glittering in the silvery light. Something about it seemed different suddenly. It seemed, in that strange, ethereal light, more detailed than ever. The face of the fairy was intricately carved, lined and somehow...more alive than before.

It made Natalie want to hold her breath. Like any second now it might move. The silver lips might curve in a wide smile. The delicate, lacey wings might flutter.

Of course, it didn't. What a ridiculous thought.

She lay back on the mattress again, clutching the charm necklace in both hands, shutting her eyes. Maybe Sera was right, maybe there was something to be learned from the necklace. Maybe if she took it to a jewelry place they would be able to tell her where it had come from. It seemed like a stretch, but she was suddenly curious about it. The woman in the photo downstairs, with the hard eyes and the bristly haircut, wouldn't have worn a fairy pendant, she was certain. But the woman in the older picture would have. She had dreamy eyes.

Maybe learning more about this necklace would tell her something, anything, about that version of her mother.

Chapter Three

Lavender, that was the first thing she saw. Fields of purple stalks rippling in the faint wind that stirred her dress around her legs.

Her dress? Natalie glanced down. She was wearing some kind of gauzy black material. The long, artfully ragged bottom twisted and whipped in the wind.

A strange detail for a dream.

She realized a second after she'd thought it, that it was true. She was most definitely dreaming. Her body was fast asleep in a bar of moonlight back at home in her bed. Natalie wasn't really here....wherever this was.

The wind that picked up her dress also twisted cool fingers through her hair, brushing her cheeks and bare shoulders. Somehow, she wasn't cold.

A tangle of scents were caught up on the breeze, the faint tinge of a campfire, pine trees, and lavender. It made Natalie's eyes water with a sudden burst of emotion she couldn't pin down. How was that smell familiar? Why did it provoke a deep sense of nostalgia, tainted by sadness?

On the wind too, she could hear a voice. Faint at first, and then stronger. A chiming, bell-like sound. Words in another language, like nothing Natalie had ever heard before. A language, she thought, that would trip up the human tongue. That did not belong to man.

It was pleasant and far away, and yet...there was something about it that sent a shiver dropping down her spine. A sudden sense of urgency hit her, and she turned this way and that. A blue ribbon of distant water climbed a rocky mountain to her right, weaving up between the rocks to the very peak, where snow capped the tip. And to her left, a thick forest filled with velvety darkness, the pine scent that had been filling her senses for the last few seconds.

She wasn't sure what to do, but the bell like voice was getting nearer, and somehow she knew it was looking for her. It was calling her.

She wasn't even sure how she knew that, but she didn't want to be out in the open anymore. Natalie turned, and her dress brushed across her legs with a whisper of silk. And even though this was a dream, even though she knew nothing could hurt her in a dream and she was perfectly safe in her bed at home, Natalie headed for the shelter of the forest, the chiming voice ringing in her ears.

She woke in the dark, a stuttering gasp ripped from her throat. There was a piercing pain in her right palm, and she realized a moment later, that the fairy pendant was clutched hard in one hand. She eased her grip, blinking blearily around. The room was dark because the clouds had covered the moon, that was all. She must have fallen asleep still thinking about the pendant and had that bizarre dream.

For a second she thought about getting up and changing into her pajamas, but she was in leggings and a comfy top, and her eyes were still heavy with sleep. It seemed like a lot of work. Instead she put the pendant gently onto the bedside table beside her uneaten pizza and slipped under her covers. Throwing her arm over her pillow, she shut her eyes with a sigh.

Still, as tired as she was she couldn't help remembering the chiming voice on the wind, a wind scented with a somehow familiar scent of pine and smoke.

It took her longer than she'd thought to fall asleep.

Chapter

"I still can't believe you didn't confront him." Sera dropped her book bag beside the bus stop, slumping onto the end of the bench with her back to the wall.

Natalie rolled her eyes. Her friend had been saying the same thing all day. "He was knee deep in water, remember? Not the best time to have a serious discussion."

Sera narrowed her eyes at one of the posters on the bus shelter's wall, as if it were somehow responsible for the burst water tank. "Maybe he knew you found that chest. Maybe he set it up that way."

Her brows shot up. "He burst our water tank so he could avoid talking about it?"

"Think about it," Sera tapped her temple. "It makes complete sense."

Natalie snorted. "Maybe in your head it does." She dropped her bag beside Sera's and slumped against the wall beside her. "You sure you can't come to the pawn shop with me?"

Sera groaned. "Oh my god, do I want to. But we're having birthday dinner for Nana. There's no way I can skip without getting into huge crap. Unless you want me to tell my family you're having a crisis and I absolutely need to go with you?" She ended this question on a hopefully note, and Natalie sighed.

"No, there's no way your mom wouldn't be on the phone to my dad, like immediately."

"At the speed of light," Natalie admitted mournfully. "It would probably defy physics. Sorry, you're on your own. Text me immediately if you find anything juicy though, promise?"

Sera's idea of "juicy" was a little morbid, since she was looking into her missing, possibly dead mother. But Natalie just shrugged. "Promise."

They road three stops together, and then Sera had to jump off a few houses in front of her own. She stood on the sidewalk as the bus went by, waving and pointing at her cell phone, her lips forming the words, text me, and Natalie forced a smile and gave her a thumbs up through the window. She really did wish Sera had been able to come with her. There was something a bit scary about doing this on her own. Which was ridiculous. There likely wasn't anything the pawn shop owner would be able to tell her about this. It's not like he would take one look at it and say, "Yes, this clearly belonged to a murder victim." That was ridiculous.

The bus lurched to a stop, and Natalie grabbed the bar to steady herself. This was her stop, or at least, the stop in front of the pawn shop. She clamored down the steps with the rest of the crowd, and once her feet were on the sidewalk she somehow felt more nervous than she had before. She forced herself to breath deeply and put one foot in the front of the other.

It wasn't a big deal. It probably wouldn't turn up anything.

There was an ugly yellow sign above the pawn shop, which said in blocky black letters, "Pirate Pat's Buy and Sell Shop". There was a badly drawn cartoon parrot on the front, which seemed to be winking down at passerby. She had driven by this shop with her father on a few occasions, and usually they made fun of it.

A pirate pawn shop, did that mean he stole all of his "booty"? It was really only half a joke, her dad had admitted. Because pawn shops had a bad reputation for selling stolen goods.

Natalie wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans and pushed her way through the door. Instead of a bell, there was a sharp buzzing sound as she entered, which made her jump.

The insides of the shop were just as disreputable looking as the outsides. The pirate motif had been continued here. There were child-like paintings of pirate ships circling round the top of the wallpaper, and the walls were blue, making it look like the shop was the ocean and the ships were floating on the surface. Or at least, it was probably meant to look that way. Really it just looked...sort of bad.

Natalie moved deeper into the store. There were piles of junk everywhere. Tall shelves filled with broken CD players and racks of CDs and DVDs. Rows of battered vacuum cleaners and dust busters lined the walls, and boxes of used sports equipment crowded the floor.

Natalie picked her way through the chaos. Rounding the corner of a set of tall shelves, she spotted the low glass case at the front. Gold and silver glittered under the electric lights, all nestled on long blue velvet cushions. There was a man at the desk, maybe Pirate Pat himself. He didn't look too far off the part, with his long scraggly hair and patchy beard. He regarded her with a kind of uncomfortably close interest as she approached, and her stomach squirmed.

"Well hi there, what can I do for you?" His voice was oily and practiced, and his smile was wide and insincere.

"I wanted to get a piece of jewelry looked at." Natalie took the necklace off, again being careful not to catch her hair on the charm, and the man's eyes followed her every movement. She felt her skin crawl and suddenly wished she'd been carrying it in her pocket instead of wearing it in. Pirate Pat was definitely creepy.

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