Chapter 3 - Inside the Pendant
I opened the pendant the next morning.
Not alone.
Not impulsively.
After what happened to Maisie, I had learned one thing quickly: if an object frightened Lenora Hawthorne, I wanted another person present when it revealed why.
Evan sat across from me at the kitchen table.
My sister Rachel was upstairs with Maisie.
The pendant rested between us.
It was a small oval silver locket, scratched around the edges, the hinge stiff from age.
“You never opened it?” I asked.
Evan shook his head.
“I couldn’t.”
“That’s becoming a theme.”
He accepted that without defending himself.
I used my thumbnail.
The locket opened.
Inside were two tiny photographs.
One showed Abigail smiling beside Evan.
The second showed Warren Hawthorne holding both children on his shoulders.
Nothing shocking.
No bloody clue.
No secret confession.
Then Evan noticed the backing.
“There’s paper under Abby’s picture.”
I carefully lifted the miniature photograph.
A narrow strip of folded paper sat underneath.
The writing was faded blue ink.
17-B.
Three characters.
Evan went perfectly still.
“You recognize it.”
“Dad’s storage system.”
“What does that mean?”
“Our old house had built-in cabinets in the basement. He numbered everything. A-series was tax records. B-series was personal archives.”
“Seventeen-B?”
Evan rubbed his palms against his trousers.
“I don’t know.”
That time I believed him.
The Hawthorne house where Evan grew up had been sold after Warren died eight years earlier.
Lenora had moved most personal belongings into commercial storage.
Which meant if Cabinet 17-B had survived, she probably controlled it.
I took a photograph of the paper.
Then I asked Evan to show me the video he had watched with Maisie.
He resisted for exactly three seconds.
Then he opened his laptop.
The file was labeled SUMMER 1997.
Abigail appeared on the screen.
Seven years old.
Dark hair.
Pink overalls.
Alive in the careless, ordinary way children are alive when nobody knows the footage will one day become evidence of anything.
She ran through the Hawthorne living room.
The same living room where Lenora had struck Maisie.
The furniture had changed.
The chandelier had not.
Neither had the cane.
It stood beside Warren’s chair.
My throat tightened.
Abigail picked up the silver pendant.
Warren’s voice came from behind the camera.
“What did Grandpa give you?”
Abigail grinned.
“My necklace.”
“That’s yours forever, kiddo.”
Abigail held it toward the lens.
“This is mine.”
Then her eyes shifted.
Lenora entered the edge of the frame.
Abigail’s entire body changed.
Shoulders inward.
Smile gone.
She put the pendant under her shirt.
I paused the video.
“Evan.”
“I see it.”
“You saw this two months ago?”
“Yes.”
“And still said nothing.”
His jaw tightened.
“Keep watching.”
The footage resumed.
Lenora spoke from behind the camera’s view.
“Abigail, did you go into my bedroom again?”
The girl shook her head.
“Come here.”
Abigail backed away.
Warren laughed nervously.
“Lenora, leave her alone. We’re filming.”
Then Abigail said something.
Quiet.
I replayed it.
“I won’t tell.”
Lenora stepped fully into frame.
“What did you say?”
The footage abruptly ended.
My skin prickled.
“What wouldn’t she tell?”
“I don’t know.”
Evan looked genuinely sick.
I clicked the file information.
The digital copy had been made ten weeks ago.
But the original source was listed.
Hawthorne Archive Tape 17-B.
I looked at Evan.
The paper in the pendant wasn’t pointing toward a cabinet.
It was identifying the tape.
“Where did you get this file?”
“Mom had a box of digitized tapes.”
“Who digitized them?”
“A company last year.”
“Then there may be a complete version.”
Evan stood.
“My mother said most originals were destroyed after Dad died.”
“Your mother says a lot of things.”
I closed the pendant.
Three hours later, Rachel called from upstairs.
“Tessa?”
Something in her voice made me run.
Maisie was sitting safely in her crib.
Rachel held a small framed photograph she had found inside the diaper bag.
It wasn’t ours.
Someone had put it there.
The photograph showed Abigail.
On the back, written in Lenora’s unmistakable handwriting, were four words:
SHE LIED THEN TOO.
Lenora had been inside our belongings.
May you like
Or someone wanted us to believe she had.
📖 The pendant led us to a missing section of Abigail’s last home video—and then a photograph planted in Maisie’s bag proved someone was still trying to control Abigail’s story. 👇
