Addison gasped and cried out. She tried to pull back, but before she could, her vision went dark, and the garden showed her what it had revealed before. Those hungry roots sinking deeper and deeper, tangling beneath the earth with the Bonners’ corn. As Addison watched the plants struggle, she realized there was only one place she could make sense of this, and the only way she could get there was with Sylvia Bonner’s permission.

She surfaced from the darkness to River’s voice.

“Addison? Addison!”

She blinked her eyes open to find him tearing at the vines that had spiraled up toward her throat, his hair mussed from sleep and his aura bright with panic. The roots-turned-thorns held firm, but try as they might, they couldn’t get to Addison’s pain.

“Stop,” she said, first to him. Then, to the garden, “Stop!”

The vines hesitated. Roots retracted, pulled away, before they buried themselves beneath the soil once more.

“It’s okay,” she said, reaching for River’s hand. “I’m okay.”

“You’re bleeding,” he said as he touched her bare arm gently and stepped away from a nearby plant. “The garden attacked you.”

“I wanted to give it my pain.”

“You can do that?” River asked.

She shook her head. “But I had to try.”

“Saving the garden isn’t worth risking your life,” River said.

“The garden is like a part of my family,” Addison said. “I can’t just let it die.” She held out her arms, and River stepped back as he took in the wilted sunflowers.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered.

“It’s starving,” Addison said. “But I think it’s trying to show me how to fix things.”

She pushed herself to her feet. “I have to talk to Sylvia,” she said. “The garden is pointing me to her cornfield. I need to see it for myself.” But talking to Sylvia meant facing what she’d seen in the bourbon head-on, and for that, she needed strength.

She led River back to the guesthouse, where she put the kettle on. Mason jars of her mother’s teas lined the countertop. She selected one labeled, For courage. Green tea, thyme, fennel, Saint-John’s-wort, and lemon balm. She unscrewed the jar and breathed in the earthy aroma, then sprinkled a few pinches into two cups before setting the water to boil.

“I don’t know if you should talk to Sylvia again,” River said as the water started to boil. “You were pretty shaken last night, and after the stunt with Nate trying to take your family’s land, I don’t think you can trust her.”

“I had another vision that led to the Bonners’ cornfield,” Addison said. “I have to follow it. The garden is sick, and nothing will be right in Yarrow until we figure out what’s wrong.”

River nodded slowly. “How can I help?”

“Will you take me to Quinn and Harper’s?”