Chloe’s pov
She shook her head when she realized she had me, I opened my mouth again but she lifted a finger to stop me.
“That reminds me,” she muttered as she stood up and walked away.
Lisa knelt in front of the hearth and pried up a loose floorboard I'd never once noticed in nineteen years of sitting in this kitchen, the wood groaning as it came free in her hands.
"I pulled this from the archives the week before Cody barred me from the main house." She lifted out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth, cradling it like it might crumble if she breathed wrong. "I've been waiting for the right time to show you. I think that time is now."
She unwrapped the cloth on the table between us, and the scroll underneath looked older than anything I'd ever seen, the leather binding cracked and soft with a
