The air in the cavernous auction hall was thick with the scent of floor wax and history. Nora Vincent pulled her cardigan tighter, weaving through rows of mahogany bureaus and piles of moth-eaten textiles. As a professional archivist, she had learned that the most important stories were rarely the ones sitting on the auction block; they were the ones buried in the discarded boxes beneath it.
She crouched near a stack of leather-bound ledgers that smelled of damp attics. Tucked between a tarnished silver tea set and a stack of correspondence was a small, heavy frame. It was a Victorian photograph, the silver emulsion fading into sepia ghostliness. It depicted two girls in stiff, lace-collared white dresses. They stood on a rug, one slightly older, clutching the hand of a smaller girl with such ferocity that her knuckles appeared white even in the grainy light.
Something about the younger girl’s expression—a vacant, glassy stare—and the unnatural, locked posture of her limbs sent a shiver down Nora’s spine. It was a heavy, visceral reaction. She didn’t hesitate. For twelve pounds, the auctioneer handed over the slice of the past. Nora felt a strange, lingering pull as she tucked it into her satchel…