It fit.
A perfect fit.
My pulse kicked into high gear.Madeline breathed in quick through her nose.
And then we both watched as the torn page fused with the one in the book.Gold light danced along the jagged edge leaving nothing but a faint line.The pencil marks came together, as though forming one complete sentence.One complete thought.
Relief hit first.Then annoyance because the letters might as well have been star charts.
This didn’t help me at all.But at least I knew where the page belonged now.
Beneath my hand, the grimoire warmed.As though it recognized me and the page.
“Piper,” she said slowly.“That’s the instructions for the potion.”
My head snapped up.“The potion?”
“For the Crossroads.The one you’ll use with the enchantment.”
“You can read it,” I said, still stunned.
Of course she could read it.She could read the book she showed me.
“Yes.”
“I can’t read it.”
“Then I’ll translate it for you.”She smiled then.“I’m glad Owen brought you.”
“So, am I.”
Madeline ran her finger down the page as she read it, her gaze intent as it focused on every word.I waited, holding my breath.
“The potion requires essence of Moonpetal,” she said.“Mixed with a teaspoon of vervain, a tablespoon of hickory sap, and a single drop of Guardian blood.”
“Blood?”I swallowed hard.“Mine?”
She nodded, “Yes, Piper.Yours.To bind it to you and the land.”
The realization hit me hard.Hickory Hollow wasn’t just a place I lived—it was tied to me bone-deep.
I pulled out my phone and opened the notes app, typing quickly with the tip of my finger to get down the ingredient measurements before I forgot.“What else?”
“The Sun Disk,” she continued.“You’ll need it to place at the crossing while you recite the enchantment during the planetary alignment.”She was still looking at the page as she spoke.“Then pour the potion over the roots of the tree.”
I abandoned trying to use the tip of my finger and went for both thumbs to type faster.I got it all down.
“And this will seal the Crossroads?”I asked.
“Only for one lunar cycle.”She looked up at me then, her dove gray eyes meeting mine.“Thirty days.Less if the contamination is worse than Alice realized.”
I dropped the phone into my lap.“Only thirty?”
Thirty days wasn’t enough time to mend the Crossroads, deal with the chaos living under my roof, or even find Alice’s murderer… but it might be enough time to keep the town from being obliterated.
“It’s only a temporary binding but that should buy you some time to figure out how to close it permanently.Time to discover who’s poisoning the tree.And,” she paused, took a deep breath, “who killed Alice.”
The words hung between us and her tone of voice was soft, reverent, emotional.
