Page 149 of The Glittering Edge

Penny pauses, staring at Ellie’s face. Because there’s one thing she hasn’t tried.

She googles the Thompson family, and sure enough, they’re still around. They own a bunch of storage units on the outskirts of town, and they’ll be open for another hour.

Penny puts the directions into Google Maps, and then she’s driving to the outskirts of Idlewood.

There’s a reason the curse-breaker didn’t work. Alonso said so himself after the spell was over—they were missing something. It’s a long shot, asking Ellie’s family what they remember and hoping it will give Penny the clues she needs. But what else is there to try?

The sun hangs low behind the storage units, which are deserted as Penny pulls up. The only sound when she opens the car door is crickets, and she tugs her jacket tighter around her as she looks for anything resembling a front office.

A door slams somewhere, but nobody appears. There’s an office next to the nearest unit, and fluorescent light cuts through the blinds. Penny walks over, knocking before she opens the door.

Country music plays softly from a speaker, and the computer monitor is bright with spreadsheets. The chair behind the front counter is empty.

“Hello?” Penny says, but there’s no answer.

There are two corporate chairs, so Penny sits in one of them, pressing her fingers into her knees and trying to look like she has honest intentions. But what questions is she going to ask? How will she explain her curiosity about a long-dead woman?

As the minutes pass, nobody appears. Penny looks out through the blinds, but the evening outside is quiet and empty. She gets up and wanders over to the counter, searching for one of those service bells. But there isn’t one.

Penny leans on the counter and rubs her temples. Her head has started to pound—how long has it been since she’s had a drink ofwater? She almost laughs. If she can’t even hydrate, how was she ever going to break a curse?

“What a joke,” she says. She shouldn’t even be here. She turns around, heading for the door.

Then there’s the tinkle of keys and the sound of something falling to the floor.

Penny whips around, hoping whoever has appeared didn’t hear her talking to herself. But there’s nobody at the counter.

Her heartbeat is suddenly in her ears. Will she go through life wondering if every unexplainable event is because of magic? She needs to calm down.

Slowly, Penny leans over the counter. On the floor, next to the desk chair, is a key ring with a single key and a name tag. Penny walks around the desk and picks it up. She’s halfway to setting it down when she reads the name on the tag:ANNIE THOMPSON. A relative of Ellie’s?

Penny shifts the key ring, examining the key. It looks too smooth, like it’s only half made.

But it’s not half made. It’s a skeleton key, which must mean it will open every single storage unit.

Penny clutches the key to her chest.

“Ellie?” she says. “Are you here?”

She turns around, half expecting to see the Shadow standing in the corner. But the only shadows are cast by the harsh overhead light and the cheap IKEA furniture.

It’s a stretch. Maybe the Shadow isn’t trying to tell Penny anything. But she’s here, and she has the key, and she could peek at the computer and see if the Thompsons have a storage unit. What if they kept any of Ellie’s things? Breaking and entering isn’t on her bucket list, but she’s just dehydrated and desperate enough that it sounds reasonable. She’s not going to steal anything after all. She’ll only look around.

Penny grabs the mouse and starts clicking through the spreadsheets, looking for a list of the tenants. But they’re all budgets or accounting reports.

“Come on,” Penny whispers, minimizing all the windows so she can look through the documents on the desktop.

There.A customer log, updated yesterday.

Penny scrolls through the list, past many names she recognizes and a few that she doesn’t. None of them are Thompson. She scrolls through a second time to make sure, and one row catches her eye.

Not for rent, it says.

Then Penny is out the door. Gravel crunches underfoot as the buildings loom on either side, silver garage doors dull in the evening light. The unit is at the end of the farthest row, near the woods. Penny fumbles with the key, but it slides easily into the lock. The sound of the door sliding upward is like a scream, so she only opens it enough so she can crawl inside.

In the storage unit, Penny turns on her phone’s flashlight, which reveals a room the size of a walk-in closet. There’s an old dresser, a coatrack filled with purses and a dusty winter coat, and lots of disintegrating boxes. She holds her light to the labels on each box.

DENNIS/OLD FISHING GEAR.

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