“It doesn’t matter now,” Addison said, voice thick with tears. “The memories are gone, and we all hate each other.”

The ferns around them grew taller, so high they blocked the bit of light the gloom hadn’t stamped out. Addison’s family stood in shadow, lit only by the flashing of a handful of fireflies.

“It’s getting worse,” Addison said.

“I don’t think it is,” Maura said. “Look.”

At the center of the broken glass, where the soil was still damp with bourbon, a leaf had appeared. Another followed as a vine forced its way out from the earth. It coiled itself up and up until it faced Addison like a snake. A black bud sprouted, bloomed, and fell away, leaving a plump berry in its place. A firefly landed on it, and as it flashed, a puff of gloom rose from its wings and seeped into the fruit.

Addison blinked, then held out her hand. The blackberry fell into her palm. The message was clear. The garden wanted her to eat it.

She stared at the tiny fruit. Then, she dropped it into her mouth. When she sank her teeth in, it exploded with memory.

Irene.

Kaden.

Maura.

Clem.

Taylor.

Nolan.

Quinn.

Every moment her mother lived through that summer flashed before Addison’s eyes. But the last thing Addison saw before the world came back into focus wasn’t from that summer at all.

A torrent of memories from her own life—captured by a firefly and deposited into the shadow garden—came rushing back to her, and, with them, a warmth she hadn’t realized she’d been missing settled into her chest.

A mother’s love.

A grandmother’s love.

A newfound father’s love.

She gasped as she remembered Sylvia’s words from that afternoon: Maybe loving yourself—loving me—would be easier if you forgot Maura’s love altogether. Irene’s, too. Then it wouldn’t hurt so much.

Addison blinked back gossamer-like threads of memory as the reality of what she’d seen in the bourbon, of what Sylvia had said about that summer, became increasingly clear. Her mother had never given up the truth of Addison’s lineage. It had been stolen from her. Then, it had been used against Addison.

Worse, Sylvia had used that same twisted method on Kaden—Addison’s father—her own son. And then she turned on the shadow garden. She wanted to make it forget the harm she’d done by overworking the dark cornfield, as if forgetting could somehow erase the effects of trauma and her own culpability in bringing it to life.

Sylvia Bonner knew nothing of healing.

As Addison wiped away her tears, Maura knelt beside her.

“Grams,” she hiccuped. “I’m so sorry.”

Maura shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I saw what she did to you. This wasn’t your fault. If only I’d listened to you before…”