Ash noticed it immediately.
“That’s the shiny thing,” he said.
I went still.
“What did you say?”
He pointed at the locket.
“The shiny thing from my dream.”
Lena gasped. “I dreamed it too! It was in the orange house.”
My heart began to pound.
“What orange house?”
Lena climbed onto a chair and swung her feet.
“The one with the lady who smells like tea.”
Ash nodded.
“She said we should tell Mama when the dragon finds the locked box.”
The bakery kitchen fell silent.
Mrs. Pike’s eyes widened.
Luca slowly placed the metal box on the table.
I knelt in front of my children.
“When did you dream this?”
Ash leaned against me, sleepy and serious.
“Lots of times.”
Lena nodded. “But last night the tea lady said hurry.”
I looked at Luca.
Then at Vanessa, who stood pale and silent near the door.
My grandmother’s message echoed in my mind.
Ask the twins.
Luca opened his hand.
The brass locket lay on his palm, warm from being held.
Inside the tiny folded paper, beneath the first three words, another line had appeared where I could have sworn there had been blank space before.
Not written in ink.
Pressed into the paper, visible only in the kitchen light.
They remember the room where Elena hid the key.
Ash touched the metal box.
Then he looked up at me with Luca’s amber eyes.
“Mama,” he whispered, “who is Elena?”
