She pooled the chain into her hand before gently setting it on the glass between them.

Pirate Pat continued to stare at her for an uncomfortable second, before finally turning his attention to the necklace. His eyes widened momentarily, and he blinked. Then he seemed to shake himself. He cleared his throat, looking back up at Natalie.

"Ah," he said. "Well that's a nice piece of work to be sure."

She stared at him, trying to figure out if he was putting on this way of talking or not. He couldn't possibly pretend to be a pirate at all times, could he? That seemed a bit ridiculous.

The man's eyes were narrow as he let the pendant dangle from the chain. He seemed to be concentrating very hard on the necklace. "Silver," he said. "Pure silver, would fetch a nice price."

Natalie shifted from one foot to the other. She wasn't sure she was comfortable with how he was looking at it. With that hungry light in his eyes. "Okay, so..."

"I'll give you fifty for it." He said it sharply, looking up from the necklace, his dark eyes glittering as they fixed one her face.

Natalie forced herself not to frown at him. "I thought you said it was silver. Wouldn't it be worth more than that? And can you tell me anything else about it? Like who makes it?"

Pirate Pat shrugged. He didn't take his eyes off the necklace. "No idea. Couldn't tell you. Just that it's silver and it's very good work." His eyes flicked to her face again. "Give you a hundred."

Natalie bit back her frustration. "But it's quite unusual, isn't it? I mean, I've never seen anything like it. Are you sure you don't recognize—"

"Couldn't tell you, kid." He seemed impatient suddenly. He leaned over the desk, so close she could smell peppermint gum and something else. Smoke? "Give you one hundred and fifty for it."

"No thanks."

"Three hundred. Come on, kid. Bet that's more than you've ever even seen."

Natalie frowned at him. This wasn't how bartering usually worked, was it? Jumping from one hundred to three immediately. Wasn't he supposed to be good at this? "I don't think so." Natalie felt suddenly spooked. There was something that was making her distinctly uneasy, and she wasn't sure if it was the smell, or the way he talked, or the intense way he was looking at the necklace. Maybe it was all of those things.

"I'll have it back please." She put her hand out, and it shook slightly in the air between them.

For a few seconds Pirate Pat only stared at her hand, and then at her, as if he didn't understand what she was asking. His fingers seemed to tighten around the necklace, and in that moment Natalie had the terrible thought that he was about to refuse. That he would take the necklace and put it in his pocket.

And then, very reluctantly, he leaned across the counter and dumped the chain in her hand. "Your loss, kid. Let me know if you ever want a buyer."

"Thanks." She backed away, clutching the necklace to her chest, filled with relief. Pirate Pat was already turning away, his thumbs flying across the screen of his phone. Apparently they were done, which, Natalie thought, was more than alright with her.

She wove her way back through the junk as quickly as possible, and practically burst out the door back into the cool evening air, feeling instantly better. The necklace she deposited into her pocket, her fingers running over the charm once, just to reassure herself that Pirate Pat hadn't whisked it off the chain somehow when she wasn't looking. Okay, maybe the pawn shop hadn't been the greatest idea.

Home was only a few blocks away, and she was filled with a kind of nervous, pent up energy. It would probably help to walk it off.

It was just starting to get dark, and the street lights were coming on. She started north along Main Street, her hand still in her pocket. The crowds on the sidewalk were starting to grow as everyone headed home, and Natalie had to dodge people a few times. Someone bumped into her on the way past, and she felt something brush her wrist. There was a deep, muttered, "Sorry" and then he was gone, vanished into the crowd.

She frowned, brushing at her arm where he'd bumped her. Her wrist itched. Only, her wrist was very near her pocket, almost in the top if it, actually, he would have had to get awfully close to her pocket. She clenched the charm more tightly and looked around. On one side of her a black van with bright red lettering and a diagonal slash across the side pulled up. A Worthhill factory truck. Natalie eyed the driver, who was hanging out the window, tapping his cigarette on the side of his door. He didn't look up as she walked past.

School had just let out and the sidewalks were crowded. A woman and her two children moved past, pushing through a group of middle school students, and groups of people stood at the bus stop bench, heads bent over their phones. The street was busy, traffic rushing past on one side, people pushing past on the other. It was nothing, she was being paranoid.

Clearly Pirate Pat had made her way too jumpy.

There was a shortcut through the woods that led to her backyard, and Natalie picked her way through the forest path, still completely occupied by the strangeness back at the pawn shop. The way he'd looked at the necklace, the hungry light in his eyes. Was it possible the necklace was worth a lot of money? Maybe he hadn't wanted to tell her how much, because he'd wanted to buy it from her cheap.

The thought was enough to make her fish the necklace back out, letting it rest in the palm of her hand as she walked. The sun was starting to sink beneath the treeline, and though bars of faint light pierced the cover of the forest, it was hard to make out the intricate details of the charm.

Perhaps her mother's necklace was rare and valuable. Like an antique or something.

The faint sound of a branch breaking made her pause on the trail, turning with her heart in her throat. There was only more forest behind her, just trees, and ferns stirring in the light wind. It had probably been a bird or a racoon making its way through the forest floor.

She turned back, picking up the pace a little. She was almost home, and then she could ask her father about this necklace. It wasn't something she could put off any longer. In spite of the fear of what she might discover, she needed to know.

Another crack from somewhere in the forest behind her. This time when she turned around there was a dark figure at the mouth of the trail. Her heart kicked into a gallop, and for a moment she couldn't breath. Then she saw it was just a tall, thin man in a black tracksuit. He had a walking stick in one hand, and he hadn't seemed to notice her on the trail ahead of him yet, so intent on the book in his hand. Occasionally he would look up at the trees and then back down at the book.

Natalie sighed and turned back to the trail, feeling like an idiot. Lots of bird watchers came through here, since this was one of the biggest forests in the area. Here she'd been jumping like some kind of paranoid lunatic and it was just some old guy in an ugly tracksuit.

She shook her head and kept moving.

"Natalie?"

The voice came from behind her, a familiar voice. Natalie turned around, frowning. The man at the mouth of the trail waved.

"Didn't think I'd see you here. Do you bird watch too?"

One of her father's friends, maybe? Natalie stepped closer, squinting to make out his features better in the dim light. As the tall man approached she realized he wasn't as old as he'd thought. She'd only thought so because of the way he was dressed.

His thin face was lined, it was true, but his shaggy hair was dark brown, and he had young eyes behind thick glasses. His face was very familiar. The book in his hand wasn't a bird book, she realized, it was a leather journal.

Natalie's mouth dropped open. "Mr. Neilson? What are you doing here?"

He laughed, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. He was actually relatively pleasant looking when he smiled, as if he'd shed his stiff librarian persona. "I live around here."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

For a moment neither of them said anything, and Natalie was very aware that the silence was stretching out between them.

She shifted, staring down at the book in his hand. He was definitely strange, and some internal red flag had popped up in the back of her mind. She didn't want to be alone with him in the dark forest. "Well, I better get home or my dad—"

"What is that?" He took another step forward, his head tilted to one side, and Natalie realized he was looking at her right hand. At the chain dangling from between her fingers. "I saw you in the pawn shop earlier. Is it an antique?" The moment he said this she stepped back, and a pained expression flashed over his face, as if he realized he'd said the wrong thing.

"You saw me in the pawn shop?" Her heart had begun its loud thumping again. "Have you been following me?"

missing, pos'