Even without that utilitarian wing, there’s something off about the place. Brittle strands of dead ivy cling to a corner. Sunlight shining onto the windows have made them opaque. It reminds me of an Edward Hopper painting—House by the Railroad. The one that’s rumored to have inspired the house from Psycho. All three structures project the same aura of homespun menace.

Beneath the photo is a caption—Dr. Charles Cutler poses outside Peaceful Valley Asylum, circa 1898.

The name summons a memory from fifteen years ago. Vivian and I alone in the woods, reading the tiny name engraved on the bottom of a rotting box.

Peaceful Valley.

I remember being curious about it. Clearly, Vivian was, too, for she came here looking for more information. And what she learned was that Peaceful Valley had been an insane asylum.

I wonder if that realization stunned her as much as it does me. I wonder if she also sat blinking in disbelief at the page in front of her, trying to wrap her head around how a box of scissors from an insane asylum ended up on the banks of Lake Midnight. I wonder if her heart raced as much as mine does. Or if her legs also suddenly started to twitch.

That sense of shock subsides when I look at the text on the page opposite the photo. Someone had drawn a pencil line beneath two paragraphs. Vivian, most likely. She was the kind of person who’d have no problem defacing a library book. Especially if she found something important.

By the end of the nineteenth century, a growing divide had formed regarding the treatment of mentally ill women. In the nation’s cities, asylums remained crowded with the poor and indigent, who, despite a growing call for reform, still lived in deplorable conditions and were subjected to harsh treatment from undertrained and underpaid staff. It was quite a different story for the wealthy, who turned to enterprising physicians opening small, for-profit asylums that operated without government control or assistance. These retreats, as they were commonly known, usually existed on country estates in areas remote enough for family members to send troubled relatives without fear of gossip or scandal. As a result, they paid handsomely to have these black sheep whisked away and cared for.

A few progressive doctors, appalled by the extreme difference in care between the rich and the poor, attempted to bridge the gap by opening the doors of their bucolic retreats to those less fortunate. For a time, Dr. Charles Cutler was a common sight in the asylums of New York and Boston, where he sought out patients in the most unfortunate of situations, became their legal guardian, and whisked them away to Peaceful Valley Asylum, a small retreat in upstate New York. According to the diary of a doctor at New York’s notorious Blackwell’s Island Asylum, Dr. Cutler intended to prove that a more genteel course of care could benefit all mentally ill women and not just the wealthy.

While I’m almost positive this is what Vivian was pointing to in her diary, I have no idea what it has to do with Franny. In all likelihood, it doesn’t. So why was Vivian so convinced that it did?

There seems to be only one way to find out—I need to search the Lodge. Vivian discovered something in the study there before Lottie came in and disrupted her. Whatever she found led her here, to this same book in this same library.

Always leave a trail of bread crumbs. That’s what Vivian told me. So you know how to find your way back.

Only I can’t help but think that the trail she left for me won’t be enough. I’ll need a little help from a friend.

I grab my phone and immediately FaceTime Marc. He answers in a rush, his voice almost drowned out by the cacophony in his bistro’s kitchen. Behind him, a line cook mans a skillet that sizzles and pops.

“It’s a bad time, I know,” I tell him.

“The lunch rush,” Marc says. “I’ve got exactly one minute.”

I dive right in. “Remember that reference librarian at the New York Public Library you used to date?”

“Billy? Of course. He was like a nerdy Matt Damon.”

“Are the two of you still friendly?”

“Define friendly.”

“Would he try to get a restraining order if he saw you again?”

“He follows me on Twitter,” Marc says. “That’s not a restraining order level of animosity.”

“Do you think he’d help you do some research for your best friend in the entire world?”

“Possibly. What will we be researching?”

“Peaceful Valley Asylum.”

Marc blinks a few times, no doubt wondering if he’s heard me correctly. “I guess camp’s not going so well.”

I quickly tell him about Vivian, her diary of cryptic clues, the fact that an insane asylum, of all things, might be involved. “I think Vivian might have found something before she disappeared, Marc. Something that someone else didn’t want her to know.”

“About an asylum?”

“Maybe,” I say. “In order to be sure, I need to know more about that asylum.”

Marc pulls his phone closer to his face until all I can see is one large, squinting eye. “Where are you?”

“The local library.”

“Well, someone there is watching you.” Marc moves the phone even closer. “A hot someone.”

My eyes dart to the lower corner of my screen, where my own image rests in a tiny rectangle. A man stands roughly ten feet behind me, his arms folded across his chest.