Gunshots still echoed over Mistveil Coffee Farm.
Bang!
A flock of birds perched in the coffee trees scattered all at once.
Pantawan flinched, nearly dropping the letter in her hand.
“Get down!”
Phakin rushed over, grabbed her arm, and pulled her behind a wooden post.
Another gunshot rang out from the coffee trees.
Bang!
Splinters flew from the fence out front.
Phakin glanced toward the window, then hurried to close the curtains.
“Stay away from the windows.”
“Are they really shooting into the farm?”
“I don’t know who they’re aiming at, but we can’t go outside right now.”
He crouched to pick up a flashlight and his phone, then checked every door in the house.
Then he dragged a small wooden cabinet in front of the front door.
“Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to find out where they came in.”
Pantawan quickly grabbed his arm.
“No! It’s dangerous out there.”
Phakin looked at her for a moment.
“If I don’t know where they are, we’ll be in even more danger.”
He picked up the flashlight without turning it on.
Then he headed for the back door.
“Lock the back door behind me.”
“Phakin…”
“I’ll be back.”
He disappeared into the darkness.
Pantawan stood alone in the middle of the room.
Her heart was still pounding from the gunshots.
But what frightened her even more than the bullets…
was the letter in her hand.
She looked at the white envelope again.
“To Pantawan…”
Why had Grandma written this letter to her?
And why had she hidden it under the floor of the house?
Phakin’s warning on the phone kept running through her mind.
Don’t open Grandma’s letter.
If this was only about the coffee farm…
what were those people afraid of?
But if this letter was connected to what had happened tonight—
she had to know.
Pantawan slowly unfolded the paper again.
Grandma’s handwriting trembled slightly in a few lines.
“My dear granddaughter,
“If you’re reading this letter, it means the people searching for MOG have started to make their move.”
Pantawan froze.
MOG.
The same name she’d found in the journal.
The same name as the symbol on the map.
And the coffee-blossom seal on the metal box.
She continued reading.
“MOG is not a company name, nor is it the name of any one person.
“It’s what a certain group of people call a ‘project’ connected to Mistveil Coffee Farm.”
Pantawan’s eyes widened.
She quickly opened Grandma’s journal and laid it beside the letter.
Everything was beginning to connect.
The Old Coffee Tree.
The first point.
The metal box.
The second point.
The brass key.
The thing that would lead to the next point.
And on the map…
there was an MOG symbol in the mountains behind the farm.
She read on.
“Many decades ago, Grandpa didn’t plant the first coffee tree just to start a farm.
“He planted it to conceal something.”
Pantawan fell silent.
“Conceal what…?”
She turned the page over.
There was another line on the back.
“What lies beneath the mountain is worth more than the entire coffee farm.”
Suddenly, footsteps sounded outside.
Pantawan hurriedly turned off the light.
She thought Phakin had come back.
But the sound wasn’t coming from the back door.
It was coming from the side of the house.
A rustle…
She slowly backed away.
A letter in one hand.
The brass key clenched in the other.
Then her phone buzzed.
Bzz…bzz…
A message from Phakin.
“I’m behind the house. Don’t open the door.”
Pantawan’s heart sank.
If Phakin was behind the house…
then who was walking along its side?
She quickly read the next message.
“I found footprints from three people. They didn’t come by road.”
Another message followed.
“They came in from the mountain.”
Pantawan looked at the map.
The mountain…
The place marked MOG.
Those people hadn’t come to the farm by chance.
They knew the secret route.
And they might know more about MOG than she thought.
Suddenly, the door shook under a blow.
Bang!
Pantawan flinched.
She hurried toward Grandma’s room.
The door was hit again.
Bang!
The wooden cabinet Phakin had wedged against it began to shift.
Pantawan quickly scanned the room.
Then her eyes stopped on an old photograph.
A picture of Grandpa, Grandma, and a mysterious little girl.
She picked it up.
On the back was a small message she’d never noticed before.
“The one who holds the key is the one who opens the door.”
Pantawan looked down at the key in her hand.
Suddenly, she understood something.
The key hadn’t been hidden because Grandma wanted to keep a secret.
It had been kept…
to wait for her to be the one to open it.
The front door continued to shake under repeated blows.
Pantawan continued reading the letter.
“Pantawan, if they ever come back, don’t sell the farm. Don’t run. And don’t trust anyone who claims to own the truth.”
“Take the key to the place marked with three coffee blossoms.”
“There, you’ll find the truth about MOG.”
Pantawan quickly opened the map.
She traced the route with her finger.
One coffee blossom was at the Old Coffee Tree.
The second was on the metal box.
And the third…
was on the mountain behind the farm.
But something was wrong.
She’d only just noticed that there wasn’t just one route from the farm to the mountain.
Another narrow path was hidden beneath the old ink.
It led straight to a place that had been crossed out.
Beside it were faint letters.
MOG — Seed Storage Room
Pantawan drew a breath.
“The seed storage room…”
She remembered right away.
When she was a child, Grandma had always forbidden her from going into the old warehouse behind the farm.
Grandma had said it was just a storage room for equipment.
But if it really held MOG’s secret…
everything she’d ever believed about this farm might not be true.
Crash!
The front door was shoved partly open.
Pantawan hurriedly stuffed the letter, journal, and map into her bag.
She clutched the key in her hand.
Footsteps drew closer.
One person…
Two…
She was about to back toward the rear door—
when a flashlight beam swept past the window.
Then came a shout.
“Over here!”
The people outside stopped.
Then several sets of footsteps sounded from the other side.
Phakin was back.
And he hadn’t come back empty-handed.
The thing in his hand made Pantawan’s eyes widen.
An old metal plate.
Three letters were stamped on it.
MOG
Phakin came in through the back door and quickly locked it.
“Let’s go.”
“Where did you find that?”
“In the mountains.”
He turned to look at the map in her hand.
His expression changed when he saw the words Seed Storage Room.
“What did Grandma tell you?”
Pantawan looked at him.
Then she answered firmly.
“Grandma said MOG is hiding the truth about Mistveil Coffee Farm.”
She gripped the key tightly.
“And I think…the first door is in the old warehouse.”
Phakin looked toward the darkness outside the window.
The other group’s car engine began to roar again.
He turned back to her.
“Then we have to get there before they do.”
Pantawan nodded.
But before the two of them could leave the house—
she turned the letter over and checked the back again.
There was another line she hadn’t read yet.
Grandma had written just a few words.
“And remember…the person who brings MOG back to the farm isn’t an outsider.”
Pantawan and Phakin looked at each other.
Silence filled the room.
Because that meant—
one of the people close to them might be working for MGO.