Narrator

In the center of the ring sat a small bundle wrapped in cloth and tied with twine.

Nora whispered, ''Don't.''

''Of course I did anyway, because curiosity is another human weakness.''

I stepped over the ring without touching it and picked up the bundle.

It was heavier than it should have been.

I brought it into the light and unwrapped it carefully.

Inside was a small notebook, leather-bound, the pages warped with age.

And beneath it, a strip of dried skin, dark and stiff, with coarse hair on one side.

Maddie made a choking sound and backed away.

Eric said, ''What is that?''

I didn't answer because I didn't know, and saying I don't know felt like inviting chaos.

I opened the notebook instead.

The handwriting was old-fashioned, tight, slanted.

The first page had a date, 1936, a name, H.L.

McRae, and the first line, if you find this do not speak after dark.

The next pages read like a work diary at first.

Mentions of building, hauling timber,

the Civilian Conservation Corps, the hard winter, men going missing.

Then the tone shifted.

There were entries about hearing voices, about men waking up outside without knowing how they got there, about a borrower that wears a face it didn't earn.