Morning arrived with a gray sky.

Mist still lingered between the trees, cloaking the old house like secrets unwilling to be revealed.

Evalina sat at the kitchen table, staring at the old metal box she had found beneath the floorboards of the upstairs room the night before. Her fingers trembled above its lid.

Hunter stood beside her, silently waiting.

“This was my mother’s,” she finally said. “It’s locked. But she hid it so carefully… it means whatever’s inside wasn’t meant for the world to see.”

Hunter nodded. “We can open it together. Whatever it is, you don’t have to face it alone.”

Evalina took a deep breath, then reached for...