The first frost of the season glittered on the hawthorn tree as Sarah knelt at its trunk, her fingers digging into the cold ground. Lucas's shovel struck something solid with a hollow sound that echoed through the quiet garden.

"There's something here," he whispered, crouching down beside her.

Their shoulders bumped as they wiped away the dirt, giving Sarah an electric shock. Every accidental touch since their first encounter in town had been like this—a kind of charged energy she could not even start to comprehend, as if the cells of her body recognized him.

The little wooden box they had uncovered bore carvings smoothed by time. Lucas's hands trembled as he forced open the box, and he discovered a tarnished silver locket nestled in soft faded blue velvet.

"That can't be," whispered Sarah. The locket was a duplicate of the one in Emily's portrait—the one now housed in Willow Creek's history museum.

Lucas flipped open the clasp. Inside, a tiny portrait of Thomas scowled back at them, his stormy eyes aching familiar. On the reverse, a knot of chestnut hair bound with red thread.

Sarah's air caught. "That's—"

"Mine." Lucas held up a strand of his own hair in sunlight. The exact same color.

A wind gust rattled the hawthorn leaves above, and a shower of crimson berries fell into the open box. Sarah's vision clouded—

—Emily twisting the thread around Thomas's stolen lock of hair—

—Thomas forcing the locket into her hand as torches engulfed her—

—"Keep this safe, my love. Until we see each other again."—

“Sarah?” Lucas’s voice dragged her back. His fingers gripped her wrists, his thumbs pressing against her racing pulse. “You disappeared for a second.”

The concern in his eyes mirrored Thomas’s in her vision. She couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not when every shared glance between them felt like stepping closer to a precipice.

“I’m fine,” she lied, closing the locket with a snap. “We should—”

Lucas's phone shook furiously. The screen flickered with a museum alert: *BREAK-IN: 18th-century locket stolen.*

They locked eyes, the unstated reality hanging between them. The locket in Sarah's palm couldn't possibly exist—because the real one was supposedly still at the museum.

Unless it never did.

Lucas's hand closed with hers around the locket. "This is real, isn't it?" His breath sent shivers down her spine. "The dreams. The memories. Us.".

Somewhere in the distance, church bells began to chime—the same bells that had tolled the night Emily and Thomas were torn apart. Sarah’s free hand rose unconsciously to Lucas’s cheek, her thumb tracing the stubble along his jaw.

“I think,” she said softly, “we’ve done this before.”

Above them, the hawthorn tree shuddered, though there was no wind.