Irene tilted her head back and closed her eyes briefly. “We’ve been so focused on trying to be the ones to fix things for her that when the universe gave her a tea-leaf reading we didn’t like, we did everything we could to blame it on her. But it seems pretty clear to me that those leaves brought us to this point.”

“And what, exactly, is this point?” Maura challenged.

Irene looked to Kaden.

“People haven’t just been giving up their worst memories at the bourbon festival. We think that my family has been stealing whatever memories suit them,” Kaden said. “And they’ve been doing so for years.”

Maura narrowed her eyes.

“Mom,” Irene said. “The cornfields don’t belong to the Bonners. That’s shadow garden land. They took it from us. Then they made us forget that it was ever ours. Now they’re trying to do it again.”

Maura let her daughter’s words sink in. She’d long thought the Bonners had a magic of their own. Her eyes landed on Kaden. “Why didn’t you tell us right away?”

He shook his head. “Whatever memories I had of it, my family took from me.”

That was exactly the sort of thing Sylvia would do.

“How does it work?” she asked.

“It’s in the bourbon,” Kaden said. “When I drink it, I can steal your memories.”

“And the shadow garden…” Maura started.

“Amplifies it, yes,” Irene said.

“That bitch,” Maura said.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Kaden said.

“The gloom hung over Yarrow long before the memory harvest began,” Maura said. “It was always the heaviest near the distillery. But after that first dark-corn batch was tapped, it just grew and grew and grew. The town chalked it up to an increase in bourbon production, but I knew there was something else to it. I just didn’t know what it was.” She started to stand. “If the cornfields are on our land, there has to be a record of it somewhere.”

“It won’t be that easy,” Kaden said. “My mother would’ve taken precautions. She probably got her hands on whatever documents proved it was yours and had them destroyed a long time ago.”

“Then what do we do?”

“That’s why we called you here,” Irene said. “We thought you might have some ideas.”

“I’m going to need a cup of tea.”

Clem jumped from her chair. “On it.”

Maura started to pace, long braid swishing at her back. “You said your mother took your memories away.”

He nodded slowly.

“Which means you can do this to each other.”

“I think so.” Kaden gulped.

“Well, it seems to me,” Maura said, “that it’s time for you to repay the favor.”

Chapter 35

Addison

Addison let herself relax into Quinn’s hug as every accusation her grams had hurled at her melted away.

“You did it,” Quinn said. “You actually did it.”