It wasn’t until they’d reached the crest of the hill marking the edge of the orchard that Lester dared to stop and look back. By then, the strange woman was gone. Her vine-covered cottage had resumed its chameleon-like trick of blending into the surrounding trees. The only sign of its sole inhabitant was the faint sound of muffled laughter coming from somewhere inside.

“I hope she chokes on it,” Amanda said, glancing over her shoulder as they turned and walked back down the long driveway toward the road. “What a miserable crone.”

“Yeah,” agreed Mae, “but at least it was worth it.”

“How do you figure?” Amanda asked. “We didn’t discover what the symbol means or why it was hidden on the paper from The Mortician’s Eye. She didn’t tell us anything, not even her name.”

“No, but she did tell us how to find it,” Mae said and held out a small spiral notepad.

“You were taking notes?” asked Amanda

“A good psychic investigator always keeps records,” Mae said, matter-of-factly. “When Lester questioned why her father had painted the symbol, she told us we’d have to ask him ourselves.”

“Of course!” Lester said. “The gravestone.”

“Exactly.” Mae flipped a page in her notebook. “Let’s see.” Her finger scanned down the paper. “She said it was the — third stone from the gate.”

Hurrying back to the cemetery, they counted two graves and stopped.

“There’s nothing here,” Lester said, looking down at the empty space. He turned and began scanning the surrounding trees, half expecting to see the woman from the cottage laughing at them from behind one. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said, feeling stupid. He’d wasted everyone’s time listening to the ravings of a mad hermit, with nothing to show for it but a long uphill ride home. “Let’s just go.”

“Give me a minute,” said Mae.

She began slowly walking back and forth, eyes on the ground. Moving to the iron fence marking the cemetery’s border, she turned and retraced her steps, quietly counting them off. Her sneakers sunk into the thick moss that ran between the stones, creating a grid-like pattern of footprints. Reaching the space where they’d expected to find a grave, she stopped and tapped her toe. She moved to one side and tapped again, then back in the original spot. Each time she did, she listened closely to the sound it made.

“I think there’s something here,” Mae said, bending down and peeling back a chunk of moss. Tossing it to one side, she brushed away the thin layer of dirt beneath. As she did, she exposed the corner of a smooth piece of granite and the small hourglass symbol carved into its surface.

Without a word, Lester and Amanda knelt beside her. The three of them excitedly uncovered the rest of the stone. Then, using water bottles from their bikes, they washed off the last bits of earth, revealing the marker’s inscription.

“Oh, hell,” Amanda said, gazing back in the direction of the cottage. “You have got to be freaking kidding me.”

The way back home was long and nearly entirely uphill. Their bikes weren’t much use as they climbed out of the steep valley, and they pushed them along, regretting their weight. Despite this burden, Amanda was walking so quickly that Mae and Lester had to break into a slow jog to keep up.

“It could be a coincidence,” Lester said, breathing heavily. “The Pooles have lived in Giles Hollow for as long as the Norths.”

“Right,” Amanda replied. “Another family of Poole’s, whose grandfather had the same name as mine and died in the same year. You saw what it said, Richard B. Poole, husband to Sylvia, father to Jennie and Daniel.”

“Why don’t you just ask your parents?” suggested Mae.

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“Sure, and when they want to know why we were down here in the first place, I’ll explain how we found a clue in a journal we stole from The Council. While I’m at it, why don’t I ask if they’re members of a secret order called The Dark?”

“Okay,” Mae said, “point taken. But if that’s the grave of your grandfather, wouldn’t that make the woman from the cottage —”

“My father’s sister,” finished Amanda, nearly spitting out the words.

They reached the crest of the current hill they were climbing and sat down on an old stone wall to catch their breath. Lester passed around the last of the water, and he and Mae listened as Amanda told them the story of her estranged aunt, Jennie Poole.

After years of trying to have children, Richard and Sylvia Poole had been doubly blessed with a pair of twins. Jennie, the oldest by four minutes, was clever, energetic, and fearless. An early walker, she was quick to get into mischief. Once, after a frantic search for his daughter, her father had found her fast asleep on one of the rafters high up in their barn. He’d had to use a ladder to get her down and, for the life of him, couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten up there in the first place.

Easygoing and thoughtful, the Poole’s youngest, Daniel, was in many ways Jennie’s opposite. Because of this, however, he was often overlooked, his parent’s energies entirely consumed with trying to slow down, subdue, or corral his sister. So much so that as a baby, Daniel had been forgotten in a grocery store parking lot. His mother loaded the bags and his screaming sister into their car and accidentally drove off, leaving him behind. By the time she’d realized her mistake and raced back to the store, Daniel was covered in an inch of snow from the storm that had started in her absence. Still, true to his nature, the baby had simply cooed and babbled happily up at his mother from the empty shopping cart as she dusted him off.

And so it went throughout most of their childhood.

Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, the two siblings were devoted to one another. They insisted on doing everything together. Even after they’d graduated from high school, with Jennie going to work for The Council full time and Daniel heading to college, they stayed in close contact.

However, all of that changed during Daniel’s final year of school. Barely a month before he was to come home and take his place in the family business, Jennie went to visit her brother for the weekend. Her work kept her busy, and it had been nearly six months since they’d seen each other. Of course, Daniel knew better than to ask, but judging by the string of postcards from places like Egypt, Romania, and Scotland, his sister spent most of her time traveling for Mr. Noxumbra.

Unfortunately, their reunion was to be short-lived. Within minutes of Jennie’s arrival, they found themselves in a rare heated argument. What began as a disagreement quickly turned to shouting, devolved into insults, and concluded with the slamming of several doors. Amanda’s parents had never revealed the cause of the fight, but whatever it was must have been serious because it resulted in a rift that had proven irreparable.

Jennie immediately returned to Giles Hollow and, insisting she could not work with Daniel, abruptly quit her job at The Council. Weeks later, when her brother returned home and moved back into their parent’s house, he found her room empty. Jennie had packed her things and gone without a word to anyone or leaving so much as a note. Neither twin had seen or spoken to the other since.

For her part, Amanda had never met her wayward Aunt. The few times her father had been willing to broach the subject, he’d given her the impression that his sister now lived somewhere overseas. So accidentally bumping into her had not been an eventuality for which Amanda was even remotely prepared.

“When I was little,” Amanda said, “I used to imagine she lived alone on a rocky island in the middle of a frozen sea.” She turned the empty water bottle upside down and watched the last few drops fall to the ground.

Lester recalled Mr. Poole arriving at their house for a mid-winter dinner party. He’d come through the front door, shaking snow off his jacket and blowing on his freezing hands. When he’d joked about it being colder than Aunt Jennie’s cauldron on a Halloween Night out there, Mrs. Poole had given him a sharp look. Lester hadn’t paid much attention to the comment at the time but now thought he understood.

“Wait, if she’s your father’s twin sister, why does she seem so much older than him?” Lester asked.

“You thought she seemed older?” said Amanda.

“Yes and — no.” Lester was trying to reconcile the image of the old woman from the woods with the one they’d left back at the cottage. Something felt off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Whatever her age,” Mae said, “I think we’d be wise not to believe everything we saw today.”

“What do you mean?” asked Amanda.

“Well, for starters, the whole feeble hermit business. Did you see how quickly she moved when she wanted to? Then there were her questions. They seemed almost rehearsed, as though she’d been expecting us. It’s as if the entire encounter was staged for our benefit. A fairly convincing performance, I’ll admit, but I suspect an act all the same.”

“Why would someone go through all that trouble to fool a few kids?” Lester asked.

“The same reason anyone lies,” said Mae, “to hide something.”