Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Julian
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this... unclenched.
The rental car was a little silver Kia that still had that new car smell. I’d cracked the window, letting in the breeze. It smelled like fresh grass, wildflowers, and distant rain. Basically, the opposite of the subway platform where I’d last fought for air.
The mountains rolled around me like a giant green quilt, and everything looked washed clean.
The sky was wide and bluer than I thought sky could be.
Puffy clouds drifted lazily, like they had nowhere to be.
Trees flanked both sides of the two-lane road, thick with leaves and wild undergrowth, and every so often the road would dip just enough for me to glimpse the Shenandoah River winding along like a silver ribbon.
It was a place people moved to when they decided to leave civilization behind and start fermenting their own kombucha.
And, annoyingly, it was kind of gorgeous.
I exhaled long and slow, rolling my shoulders.
I hadn’t realized how tightly wound I’d been until somewhere around mile marker fourteen when my spine unlocked like an old file cabinet.
City tension doesn’t dissolve easily. It usually takes tequila or therapy.
But apparently, Virginia mountain air could do the trick, too.
I passed a handmade sign nailed to a post:
RIVERBEND–3 MILES.
Painted letters. Slightly crooked. Charming, if you’re into rustic fonts and mild cult vibes.
Then came the billboard.
Big. Glossy. Unmissable.
COSMIC GRACE MINISTRIES — Healing Begins with Belief
Worship Wednesdays | Miracles Nightly | All Are Welcome
Featuring a giant photo of Jude freaking Brooks, all beard and beatific smile. He looked like the cover model for Modern Prophet Monthly.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
“I’m going to expose you,” I muttered, eye twitching.
As if on cue, another sign appeared just a few feet later:
RIVERBEND WHOLE EARTH CO-OP — Locally Sourced, Spiritually Aligned
And then another, hand-painted in swirling purple letters with sparkles around the edges:
MADAME OPAL’S THIRD EYE EMPORIUM — Tarot, Crystals, Aura Realignment
“Oh goodie,” I said dryly. “A whole town full of people who think Mercury’s in Gatorade.”
Riverbend was officially woo-woo central. I half-expected a fairy to dart across the road holding a gluten-free scone.
I eased the car into town, passing a tidy little welcome sign made of reclaimed wood and hand-painted flowers.
The main street was about four blocks long, lined with colorful shops and old brick storefronts that had been aggressively boho-fied.
Wind chimes jingled. There were rainbows painted on windows.
An entire café had been built out of what looked like a repurposed school bus and smelled like incense and lentils.
And yes, the sidewalks were crowded with crystal-wearing, chakra-balancing, henna-tattooed hippies.
There were women in flowing skirts and men in linen tunics, couples holding hands and sipping something green in mason jars.
One guy carried a mesh bag full of mushrooms, and another carried a bag filled with art supplies.
I actually giggled. Out loud.
These were the exact kind of people I avoided.
The motel sat at the edge of town like a forgotten prop from a ‘70s road trip movie.
Riverbend Inn had two floors, teal doors, and a faded sign in the shape of a crescent moon.
The gravel lot crunched under the tires as I pulled in and parked near the office, which was basically a trailer with ambition.
The moment I opened the car door, the smell hit me.
Patchouli. Thick and pungent, like the ghost of every incense stick ever burned, had formed a support group and chosen here as their meeting space.
I coughed once, wiped my eyes, and headed for the office.
Inside, the air was humid and smelled like herbs, old books, and something floral that had died tragically. The walls were painted lavender. A lava lamp glowed on the check-in counter next to a half-melted candle in the shape of a mushroom.
Behind the counter stood a woman who looked like Janis Joplin’s stunt double.
Barefoot, in a kaftan the color of sunflowers, with about sixteen strands of beads around her neck.
Her gray hair was in two long braids, and her reading glasses hung on a string made of tiny bells.
She was sipping from a giant mug that smelled like boiled lawn clippings.
“Welcome, traveler,” she said with a voice like velvet over gravel. “I’m Zephyr.”
Of course she was.
I tried not to giggle. “Hi. Julian Reed. I have a reservation.”
“Julian,” she repeated, closing her eyes like she was communing with my spirit guide. “Mmm. Virgo moon. Sharp tongue. Knows too much for his own good. Trouble follows you.”
“Mostly ex-boyfriends.”
Zephyr cackled, a laugh that said she hadn’t taken anything seriously since the Bush administration. She turned to a massive binder labeled ROOMS & INTUITIONS and began flipping through it.
“I put you in room 6. Has a good energy flow. Faces the sunrise. You strike me as someone who needs alignment.”
“Lady, I’m here to interview a cult leader, not to find my inner child.”
She handed me a key attached to a crystal the size of a baked potato. “That’s not mutually exclusive, sweetheart.”
As I walked to my room, dodging wind chimes and the scent of spiritual armpit, I had to admit something to myself.
This was going to be weirder, and maybe more fun, than I thought.
The town looked like it had been curated by a Pinterest board called “Witches Who Bake.” I mean that in the most chaotic, affectionate way.
There were handmade candles in every shape and scent imaginable, hemp bags with phrases like Moon Juice, Not Misogyny, and one café promising “herbal enlightenment through soup.”
I passed a woman in a feathered cloak walking a hairless cat on a leash. A man in a top hat offered me “non-toxic chakra glue” from a tray of test tubes. A child spun past me wearing fairy wings and yelling something about Saturn’s return.
The locals were giving Midsommar meets Burning Man with a dash of Etsy.
I didn’t hate it.
Somewhere between a crystal emporium and an herbal apothecary-slash-smoothie bar, I saw the sandwich board sign:
MADAME STARLIGHT—PSYCHIC READINGS $40 / $50 WITH CRYSTAL ATTUNEMENT
Free biscotti with every session
“Of course there’s biscotti,” I muttered.
I should’ve kept walking. I wanted to keep walking.
But the brief glint of nostalgia punched me square in the gut.
My mom used to run a psychic reading table out of our living room when I was a kid.
Clients came in for horoscopes and then left, minus their rent money and clutching a discount sage stick.
That was my origin story. The reason I became a journalist. The reason I made it my life’s mission to expose every fake psychic, miracle healer, and vibe-chasing charlatan from New York to New Orleans.
So, obviously, I walked inside.
Incense smoke drifted around a collection of velvet curtains, weird dolls, and what I can only describe as an aggressive number of frogs. Ceramic frogs, glass frogs, stuffed frogs—someone clearly had a Kermit kink.
“Come in, darling!” a voice trilled from behind a beaded curtain. “You’ve got a desperate aura!”
Great.
Madame Starlight emerged in a caftan printed with the entire zodiac, her hair piled high on her head in a croissant shape, and sprayed into submission.
She wore glitter on her eyelids and something that might’ve been a parrot feather behind one ear.
Her acrylic nails were so long they clicked like castanets.
“You look like someone who doesn’t believe in anything but needs to,” she said, looking me over.
“Ma’am, I haven’t believed in anything since 2016.”
She cackled. “Delicious! Sit down. We’ll begin with your energy. Would you like biscotti?”
“Only if it’s not metaphorical.”
She handed me a rock-hard cookie and waved her hands around my head like she was conducting a ghost symphony. Following that, there were tarot cards and a crystal pendulum. Then a brief interlude where she claimed to smell my ex’s emotional baggage.
“My spirit guides say you’re here to uncover a great truth,” she declared. “Also, your root chakra is constipated.”
I snorted. “I’ve been constipated since I got here. That’s not mystical. It’s a side effect of all the patchouli.”
Her reading lasted twenty chaotic minutes and involved references to a past life in Byzantium, an ex-boyfriend named “Trevor or maybe Kevin,” and a warning about a tall man with a beard who would “change everything.”
“Oh honey,” I said as she handed me a business card coated with purple glitter. “You don’t know how much I want that to happen.”
She gasped like I’d just told her I was the reincarnation of Dionysus. “Do you feel it?” Her glittery eyes met mine.
“I feel something,” I said, standing up. “Pretty sure it’s dehydration and a deep yearning for whiskey.”
She pressed both hands to her temples. “Yes! Alcohol! The spirits want you to open yourself with fermented grain, AND you’ll find who you’re looking for.”
I stared at her for a long moment as her entire body trembled. Then she opened her eyes and smiled.
Honestly, I couldn’t even be mad. She was a one-woman fringe festival and I kind of loved her for it. Despite not believing a word that came out of her mouth, the reading itself was highly entertaining. I gave her the money, took my biscotti, and walked out before she offered to realign my spleen.
Across the street stood a small, squat building with weathered wood siding and a rainbow flag fluttering in the window. A sign in curly script read:
THE CHALICE & CHERRY—Cocktails & Community Since 1998
Bingo.
I crossed the street and stepped inside.
The bar was dim and cozy, with exposed brick, fairy lights overhead, and indie music floating in the background.
There were maybe a dozen people inside. Some playing cards, a couple whispering in a booth, and a bartender who looked like a Disney prince’s disreputable cousin.
And then I saw him.
Sitting at the far end of the bar, nursing what looked like a whiskey neat and laughing at something the bartender said, was Jude Brooks.
I knew it was him before he even turned his head.
The same face from the billboard, only more real.
More dangerous. The kind of beautiful that made your stomach forget its job.
He looked like a 21st-century Jesus who could rail you through a confessional and then read you poetry while you relaxed in the afterglow.
He wore a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing forearms that looked like they’d split firewood and then hold you after a panic attack. His hands were enormous, his smile was lazy. And his energy…
Well. His energy could punch a hole in your carefully constructed emotional walls without even trying.
He glanced up. Our eyes met.
Something zapped between us like static electricity before a storm.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Because of course the hot mountain Jesus I was here to investigate—the maybe-cult-leader, maybe-miracle-worker, definitely-cautionary-tale—was exactly my type.
And just like Madame Starlight said… I’d found the tall man with the beard who was going to ruin me.