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The color drained from Lucas’s face.
“Are you okay?”
He slowly shook his head. “Did anything else happen?”
I snarled my lip and sat down on the bench. “Because that isn’t strange enough?”
“I’m being serious, Hollie. Did anything else happen?”
With a shake of my head, I replied, “I called my mother to ask if it was possible that I could read the baby’s thoughts. I told her what happened, and she said my third or fourth great grandmother was named Charlotte. It was a tragic story, though, and I’m honestly surprised she told it to me.”
Lucas leaned forward, looking eager for me to tell him more. “What was the story? Tell me.”
I let out a strangled laugh, not sure why he was so intent on hearing this story. “Why? It’s kind of sad.”
Lucas stood then bent down in front of me. He took my hands in his and said, “Please tell me.”
I stared at him in confusion. Why was it so important that I tell him this story? “Um, well, she said Charlotte’s mother was in labor with her third child and it was a difficult one. Her father gave Charlotte her mother’s favorite dolly to watch over. The mom and baby both died soon after.”
“Is that all?” Lucas asked, not sounding at all like himself.
“Ah…um…no. He said…”
“Who said?”
I shook my head, trying to remember the story I had been told mere minutes ago. “Charlotte’s brother kept a journal. He, um, wrote that his father gave Charlotte a locket with her name on it and her mother’s picture on the inside. I asked about the doll and locket, but my mother said it was most likely lost in a fire.”
“Holy shit,” Lucas mumbled. “Where was the fire?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, wanting to ask him what was going on. But from the look on his face, I knew he needed me to keep going.
“Charlotte and her father died in their home. Her older brother was in town at the market when it happened.”
Lucas fell back onto his ass and started to rock as he whispered, “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.”
Getting down on the floor with him, I pulled at his arm. “Lucas, what’s going on? You’re scaring me now.”
He turned to look at me and then frowned. “You look like her.”
“Who?”
“Charlotte,” he whispered.
A nervous bubble of laughter came out of my mouth. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough.”
He shook his head, stood, then helped me up too. “Sit on the bed. I need to tell you something.”
I did as he asked and rubbed my hands together nervously. I’d never seen Lucas so rattled. He wasn’t even this freaked out when I told him I was a witch. Okay, well, maybe it was a different kind of freaked out.
Lucas paced back and forth before stopping in front of me. “The site that they wanted me to come back and supervise…”
Nodding, I said, “Yes, what about it?”
Clearing his throat, he said, “So far we’ve dug up part of a foundation of a home. Today, when I was talking to Tripp, we both noticed something in the ground. We both started to look closer and noticed it was doll. Most likely a porcelain doll.”
I nodded.
“Tripp went off to get a couple of the interns so we could start working on getting it out. When he left, I bent down to work on the doll and it was like I was transported back to the 1700s. It was a simple clapboard house with a red door. I walked inside and a little girl was standing there.”
