The last sound I heard before the memory passed from my lips was Quinn’s screams as Nate led a dazed Irene away from the festival.

Chapter 40

Addison

The shadow garden had transformed. Ebony vines overran once-neat rows of vegetables. Sunflower and sage reached up and up, higher than the roofline. Pumpkin and zucchini and cucumber crawled across the dirt, sinking roots between the cracks in the bricks to support them on their upward climb into darkness where the gloom hung cloud-like and heavy over it all. Addison had to stop their growth, to heal them like Sylvia had suggested, or at least calm them. At this rate, they’d drain what little sorrow remained in the soil before she had a chance to fix it.

Fireflies hovered in the unnatural darkness, flitting in between plants, their abdomens pulsing a greenish-yellow light. The festival always brought them out in droves, but never like this. They were meant to chase away the darkness. Instead, everywhere they landed, shadow trailed them like a fog, almost as if they were releasing the gloom they’d soaked up at the distillery the day before.

Addison stood with a family member whom, until yesterday, she hadn’t known she had, in the one place she’d always felt safe. But now, with the garden in as much disarray as her own heart, she wasn’t sure what to feel.

She wished River was with her and not working the festival, that Quinn hadn’t succumbed to a migraine, that her mother and grandmother trusted her interpretation of the leaves.

But maybe they’d been right to doubt her.

Sylvia rested a hand on Addison’s shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to call Maura and Irene? I could call Kaden. Maybe we could all do this together.”

Addison shook her head.

“You don’t want them to know about your father,” Sylvia said. Though her voice was soft and sad, Addison could tell she wasn’t surprised.

“They gave up the memories from that summer,” Addison said.

“The whole town did,” Sylvia reminded her. “Maybe whatever happened was so hard, they had to sacrifice their love.”

Addison hadn’t considered that. “What if you give those memories back to them?” she asked.

“If they wanted them, I’d be happy to,” Sylvia said. “But I wouldn’t force it on them.”

“I wish there wasn’t all this hate between our families,” Addison said.

“You’re afraid to tell them the truth?” Sylvia asked.

Addison shrugged. Her grams had loved her all her life, but she’d hated the Bonners in what felt like equal measure. And after the way she’d responded that morning when Addison had almost told her what she’d learned, she feared Maura would disown her if she discovered the truth of her lineage, that her hatred for the Bonners ran so deep it would extend to Addison, too.