Part 1: Opening

The ranch cost Margaret Ellis exactly one dollar.

The auctioneer had warned her that the property was worthless. The roof leaked, the well had dried up, the fences were collapsing, and the previous owner had vanished without leaving a forwarding address.

Nobody else in Dry Creek wanted it.

Margaret bought it anyway.

At thirty-four, she had spent most of her life moving from one rented room to another, working as a seamstress and saving every penny she could. She didn’t dream of becoming wealthy. She only wanted a place where nobody could tell her to leave.

But the first night at the ranch, she discovered that the house had been waiting for someone.

It began with a sound beneath the floorboards.

Three slow knocks.

Margaret stopped unpacking and listened.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

She took a lantern and followed the noise to the old dining room. Beneath a faded rug, she found a narrow wooden hatch hidden under the table. Its iron handle was cold, and the lock had been opened recently.

Below it was a small storage room.

Inside stood a wooden cabinet with twelve drawers. Each drawer contained bundles of letters tied with faded ribbons.

Margaret counted them.

Two hundred.

Every envelope carried the same name.

Margaret Ellis.

Her own name.

She stared at the handwriting, recognizing neither the ink nor the careful, old-fashioned loops. The oldest envelope was dated forty-seven years earlier. The newest had been written only six months ago.

That made no sense.

She had never lived in Dry Creek. She had never owned property there. Until the auction, she hadn’t even heard of the ranch.

Yet someone had spent decades writing to her.

With shaking fingers, she opened the first envelope.

Dear Margaret,

If you are reading this, then the ranch has finally found its way back to you. I hope you arrived safely. I hope you still have the little silver button your mother gave you.

Margaret’s breath caught.

She reached instinctively for the small silver button sewn inside her coat.

It had belonged to her mother, who died when Margaret was only six. She had never told anyone about it. In fact, she had never understood why her mother had insisted she keep it.

She opened the second letter.

You must not trust the man who offers to buy the ranch back. He will tell you the property is dangerous. He will tell you that the previous owner was a criminal. Both statements are partly true.

Margaret lowered the paper.

A horse neighed outside.

She turned toward the small basement window and saw a rider sitting motionless near the gate. His face was hidden beneath the brim of a black hat.

Then he raised one hand.

He was holding an envelope.

Margaret hurried upstairs and stepped onto the porch.

“Can I help you?”

The rider didn’t dismount.

“You’re Margaret Ellis?”

“Yes.”

He studied her for a long moment.

“Then you shouldn’t have bought this place.”

“Why not?”

“Because that ranch wasn’t supposed to be sold to you. It was supposed to be burned before you ever found it.”

He tossed the envelope onto the porch.

Margaret picked it up.

Her name was written across the front in the same handwriting as the two hundred letters below the house.

But this envelope had no date.

Only one sentence was written on the back:

“The woman who wrote all those letters is still alive—and she has been waiting for you to come home.”

Margaret looked up.

The rider was already disappearing into the darkness.

And for the first time, she wondered whether the ranch had really been abandoned at all.