The Invited (ARC)

  “Mama would have loved this house just the way it is,” Olive would say.

  . . .

  Olive stood in the bog now, wearing her mother’s necklace—Hattie’s necklace. The door between the worlds.

  She took it off, let it dangle on the thin leather cord.

  “Show me, Hattie,” she said. “It’s time.”

  And she felt it. Felt it in her heart. That it really was time. That Hattie was ready to show her now.

  And the silver pendant started moving, pulling to the left. She walked a few steps, then the necklace changed direction and so did she. Step by step, she followed the path the necklace laid out. Hattie’s path. She stepped over the pink lady’s slippers that seemed to be leading the way. The path, accented with the wild pink orchids, led right to the back corner of Hattie’s house. Then the necklace began to twirl in fast clockwise circles.

  “Here?” she asked.

  Yes, the necklace said. Yes.

  Maybe it was another trick; she’d dig up another ax head, an old pot or sink maybe.

  She laid the necklace down on the ground, began pulling back rocks. Tested with her metal detector and got a strong signal.

  She kept digging, moving rocks.

  Until her shovel hit something hard.

  She reached down, felt a piece of wood and, behind it, the edge of a heavy metal box.

  Beside it, Hattie’s necklace glinted up at her in the sunlight, the eye in the center watching.

  I see all.

  Acknowledgments

  TK

  About the Author

  Jennifer McMahon is the International Thriller Writers Award–winning author of eight novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Island of Lost Girls, Promise Not to Tell, and The Winter People. She graduated from Goddard College and studied poetry in the MFA Writing Program at Vermont College. She lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella.