“Why not?”I asked.
“She was afraid it would bring unwanted attention to the town.”
I thought of the demon in the flower shop, the tusks and the drool and the smell of rot.Pretty sure the unwanted attention had already arrived.
“Do the townspeople know about this… supernatural superhighway thing?”I asked.
“Some of them,” Dougal said.“At least in the old families.Alice took great pains to keep it under wraps.But over the last few months, something changed.She was afraid.Kept to herself more.She came to me a couple of times for help.”
He cut a glance at Owen, then drew a long breath.“I tried, Piper.I don’t think I was successful.”
My fingers tightened around my knees.“What do you know about her death?”
Dougal looked to Owen again.
“I told her,” Owen said quietly.“I think something killed Alice for what she was doing.”
Dougal’s shoulders sagged a fraction.He studied me closely.“How much do you know?”
“Not much,” I admitted.“Just that there was some ritual she had to perform at the tree.That’s what Owen told me.”
Dougal nodded slowly.“That’s true.But what he didn’t tell you—because he didn’t know—is that the tree is dying.Alice was trying to keep it alive.”
Owen stiffened beside me.I felt my pulse jump.
“Owen told me she was a… guardian,” I said.
“Yes,” Dougal said.“Guardian of the Crossroads.”His voice went grave.“Her duty was to keep the gate clear of black magic and darkness.But over the last few months, dark things have been seeping into our world.Things out of our worst nightmares.”
His mouth flattened.“Someone—or something—has been stealing pieces of bark from the hickory tree.Alice believed that was what was killing it.And if the tree dies…” He let the thought hang for a beat.“There’ll be nothing left to stop them from coming through.Into Hickory Hollow.And then into the rest of the world.”
My aunt hadn’t been protecting a town.She’d been holding back the dark.
And Enchanted Blossoms, the house on Snapdragon Drive, the greenhouse, Town Hall Street—none of it was quaint small-town baggage anymore.It was the line.
If the tree died, Hickory Hollow wouldn’t be the place I’d come back to.It would be the first thing to fall.
He straightened and looked me dead in the eye.
“Piper, you’re her heir.It’s up to you to be the Guardian now.”
The words sat between us, heavy and unreal.
“No,” I said, shaking my head.“That’s not— I’m not—” I broke off, breath unsteady.“Alice never told me any of this.”
The shop.The house.The wordeverin Alice’s will.I’d thought she was trapping me in Hickory Hollow.
But this was worse.She hadn’t trapped me here.She’d handed me the keys and expected me to hold the door against whatever lived on the other side.
Dougal didn’t rush to fill the silence.Instead, he exhaled slowly, as if weighing how much truth I could bear.
“Hickory Hollow sits in a strange place,” he said at last.“Some towns are just towns.Others…”
He hesitated, lips pressing thin, gaze drifting briefly toward the wall—as if he could see past it.
“Others exist where paths overlap.Where worlds brush too close.Your aunt used to say it was a Crossroads—whether people believed in that or not.”
Silence slammed into the room.
