Crazy Kate tossed an exasperated expression at Tessa. “And what caused the weather? You don’t think the weather protected the house?”
Tessa made a scoffing noise in her throat. “You think the spearcausedthe fog?” But she remembered the feeling she’d had the night the fog arrived, the feeling that the fog was concealing Mystic Water, protecting it. “That’s absurd.” Tessa’s fingers itched to grab her notebook and write the question,It’s absurd to think the spear caused the fog, right?
Crazy Kate hummed in her throat. “Is it, Tessa? You don’t believe in the garden either? I didn’t think you were a thiefanda liar.”
“Excuse me?” Tessa asked, bristling. “I amnota liar.”
Crazy Kate stepped close to Tessa, and Tessa tried to step away but ended up with her back pressed against the living room wall. Crazy Kate spoke in a hushed tone, “You’ve experienced how the garden changes you, yet you continue to deny it? Maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re denying the truth.”
Paul stepped toward them, asking Tessa with his eyes if he should manhandle the wild woman out of the apartment. Tessa shook her head.
“What’s this about the garden?” Paul asked.
Tessa groaned. There was enough insanity going on in the room right now without telling Paul that his mama’s garden was quite possibly magical. Crazy Kate looked at Paul and smiled, her expression softening. There was no denying the mischief in Crazy Kate’s gaze.
“It’s what brought you here,” Crazy Kate said to Paul.
“My parents brought me here. I came to see them.”
Crazy Kate looked at Paul and then at Tessa. “Does it give you comfort to deny the obvious?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small object. Then she stretched out her closed palm to Paul, offering him whatever was hidden in her hand. He held out his open hand, and she dropped a red heart-shaped pushpin into his palm. She nodded her head toward the wall map. “You cannot escape the truth forever. It will keep turning up until you accept it.”
Tessa’s heart slammed in her chest. Frantic, desperate beats that caused her vision to blur as she tried to focus on the red pushpin in Paul’s hand. His lips parted, but he said nothing. He stared at the pushpin until his fingers closed around it. Neither one of them tried to stop Crazy Kate as she snatched the spear from the living room and rushed out of the apartment.
Without a word, Paul walked into the bathroom. A few seconds later, Tessa heard the rush of water through the pipes as the toilet flushed. When he returned to the living room, his hands were empty. He grabbed his notepad, cell phone, and pen from the coffee table and barely glanced at Tessa.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said as he left the apartment.
Tessa stood alone in the living room before sitting on the couch and staring at the wall map. She exhaled a deep breath, and the mint shivered, filling the room with its calming scent. Tessa looked at Huck Finn swimming in his plastic home. “What have we gotten ourselves into, Huck?” The fish had no answer.
With no idea how to react to Crazy Kate’s appearance and what had been said, Tessa grabbed her laptop and purse. She bagged what remained of the Courage Quiche and slid it into a canvas grocery bag. Then she walked up the street to work.
Tessa sat at her desk, staring out the window. Was owning Honeysuckle Hollow really within her grasp? Her computer dinged, alerting her that a new email had arrived in her inbox. The email was sent from a lawyer’s office in California. She clicked open the email while holding her breath.The contract for the earnest money.She opened the attached email file and read through it. Another email containing the full real estate purchase agreement arrived. Tessa’s heart performed a pirouette in her chest. She called her contact, Mr. Wagner, at the local bank branch. He was a close friend of her daddy’s, and she knew he had ways to quickly push through the necessary paperwork and approvals.
Tessa informed Mr. Wagner that she wanted money wired from her savings account for the earnest money. Even through the phone line, Tessa heard the skepticism and questioning tone in Mr. Wagner’s voice. “Are you one hundred percent sure about this?” he asked.
Is anyone ever 100 percent sure about anything?she thought. “Yes, sir, I am.”
“That’s a lot of money, Tessa,” he said. “Have you talked to your dad about this?”
Am I a kid?“My parents respect my choices,” she said, but it was likely only half true. She opened her notebook and turned to the most recent list asking,Should I buy Honeysuckle Hollow?Beside the number one, she’d written,I want to.Without anyone else’s opinion or advice, she’d proceeded with an offer for Honeysuckle Hollow. Beside the question at the top, she squeezed in another question:Should I drain my savings for Honeysuckle Hollow?Beside the number two she wrote,Do I have a choice?There’s always a choice, and Tessa’s choice was to buy Honeysuckle Hollow. She asked Mr. Wagner to initiate the necessary paperwork and told him she would be at the bank in fifteen minutes to wire the money.
After the wire transfer, Tessa sat in her car and stared at the receipt. She’d never spent so much money at once, not even to put a down payment on her condo. She electronically signed both the earnest money contract and the real estate agreement, alongside Mrs. Steele’s signature, and emailed them to the lawyer. Now all she had to do was wait for the fully executed contract to return to her. The house was as good as hers.
Tessa should probably feel sick to her stomach for making such an impulsive decision without conferring with her friends and family, but instead, excitement bubbled through her veins. The sun shined through the windshield and warmed her cheeks. She opened her notebook and flipped to the question:Should I drain my savings for Honeysuckle Hollow?In the past two and a half years, she’d never made any decisions without making sure she asked three people for their opinions, and now she’d made two life-altering choices without so much as her mama’s input. Whatwasher mama going to say?
Tessa returned to her office. Sitting at her desk, she cut into the cold quiche and forked it into her mouth. She chewed slowly, thinking about the house, and then her thoughts drifted to Crazy Kate. She recalled her first real run-in with Crazy Kate at Sweet Stop when she hinted at the magical properties of the garden. Tessa forked another piece of flaky pastry into her mouth, then she gaped at the quiche—Courage Quiche. Had the quiche given Tessa courage to buy Honeysuckle Hollow? Was it false courage? Would she snap out of it in a few hours and realize she’d made an impulsive mistake?
At this point, Crazy Kate was the only person who might have the answer, and Tessa had questions for her too. Why would she have buried a spear of protection beneath Honeysuckle Hollow? Crazy Kate told Tessa when the rosemary in the garden was mature, she wanted brewed tea.Are you really thinking of having tea with Crazy Kate?
“Why stop there?” she asked out loud. “Why not stay for dinner?”
Her cell phone rang, and the local mechanic, Mr. Benson, informed her that the Great Pumpkin had not died. They’d tinkered with the inner workings and brought it back to life. One of the shop guys needed to go downtown, so he was going to drop off the car for her. Mr. Benson said he’d send her an electronic invoice, and she could pay it online. Tessa thanked him. Now with a car, there was still time for a visit with Crazy Kate before her afternoon meetings.
At the diner, Tessa found Cecilia in the back room, and she asked if they’d brewed any rosemary tea for the day. Tessa explained she needed it for a friend and asked if she could have some to go. She also asked for a tin of dried lavender from the garden. Fifteen minutes later Tessa walked out of the diner with a tin of lavender and a bottle of rosemary tea that smelled like wildness and green pine needles. She found the car keys to the Great Pumpkin on the right front tire, and she drove toward Juniper Lane before she could change her mind.
The dirt driveway leading down toward Crazy Kate’s cottage had potholes the size of kiddie pools. Trying to navigate the Great Pumpkin around the craters was about as easy as cuddling a beehive without being stung. Colored glass bottles had been placed onto branches, turning the trees into kaleidoscopes. Tessa parked and climbed out of the car. Wind chimes whispered in the trees, mesmerizing her with their tinkling, music-box notes. Suncatchers shimmered in the sunlight, and Tessa stared, completely charmed by the magic of the forest.
“Come to steal a new prize?” Crazy Kate asked.
