Page 51 of Where the Roses Bloom

We walked in silence for a while longer. The trees got denser, the underbrush thicker. Vines coiled over old stones. I could feel the tension in Rhett’s body shift beside me.

“This land has always felt…different,” he said.

“Maybe it was,” I murmured. “Maybe it still is.”

“You feel it, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah…it feels good, but a little strange.”

“Makes sense,” he said, tilting his head down the path. “It’s just up ahead.”

A veil of willow branches shaded the path ahead of us. I followed the path toward the branches, reaching out to pull them aside…and there it was.

The Witch Tree.

The light changed instantly. Willow branches hung low all around. The air was thick and still, scented with ozone and honeysuckle.

Rhett pointed forward, hesitant. “There it is,” he said. “They say that’s where she died.”

He was pointing toward the biggest tree in the grove, its bark gnarled and split down the middle. Moss clung to its base. A few white mushrooms popped around the base of the tree and grew from its split trunk.

I walked toward it slowly, my fingers twitching.

“I don’t know what I expected,” I whispered, “but this…it feels old.”

“Most things around here are,” Rhett murmured. “But this is older.”

He let me go ahead while he circled the edge of the clearing. Maybe I should have been a little freaked out, the sensation that we weren’t alone overwhelming me…but I didn’t feel watched.

I felt remembered.

I knelt down near the roots, brushing back a patch of softmoss. The dirt here was dark and damp, and for a second, I thought I saw something glint.

“Hang on,” I said.

I dug carefully with my fingers, scraping away the earth until something hard and cold pressed back. I frowned as I pulled it out and examined it: a bottle, small, sealed with wax. Inside, I could just make out the coil of something that looked like a lock of hair and a bit of faded red ribbon. The glass was cloudy, smudged.

My breath caught.

Rhett came up behind me. “What is that?”

“A spell bottle,” I whispered, “or at least…that’s what it looks like.”

He crouched beside me. “From when?”

“I don’t know.”

I blinked—and for the briefest moment, everything around me blurred.

The wind was louder, the grove brighter. The tree before me was younger, smaller. A woman stood where Rhett had been, dressed in something homespun, hair braided down her back.

She turned, and I caught a glimpse of witch-gold eyes.

I stumbled back, only for Rhett to catch me before I hit the ground.

“Whoa, whoa…” he breathed. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just…had a weird moment. Probably too much sun.”