Clara believed the danger had been contained, but houses built on old promises require more than quick remedies. When she and Etta inspect the boundary protecting the property, they discover that one of its oldest safeguards has been deliberately disturbed. Someone has taken the missing piece, and the house may already know who.

A silver ring crosses thirty feet of dry floor on a tide only Clara can see. Her mother orders her to return it to the ocean before sunset, but an unexpected visitor suggests the ring was never lost, and the house has more to remember.

Three days after the burial of an aunt Clara believed had been dead for thirty-one years, a black envelope arrives with a brass key, a warning, and an invitation to a house that remembers more than her family will admit.