Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Jude
The sun was bleeding out behind the trees, painting the sky in layers of pink and gold, like someone spilled sorbet across the heavens.
I stood barefoot in the grass behind the Healing Center, stacking firewood into the old stone pit we used for the full moon circles.
The wood was cedar, pine, and a little birch—each with its own scent, its own memory.
I’d soaked some of the smaller sticks in a mixture of lavender oil and saltwater earlier that morning.
When the fire lit, it would hopefully perfume and clear the air enough to open hearts and loosen whatever burdens people carried in with them.
“You’re stacking them all wrong, babycakes,” Zephyr called out behind me.
I turned and found her waving a bundle of dried herbs like a wand, flicking them toward the trees, the fire pit, and occasionally me.
“Sweetgrass and rosemary,” she said, eyes closed in concentration. “The rosemary’s for remembrance. The sweetgrass is for attracting good spirits. Also, it smells like heaven.”
“And smoke,” I said, smirking. “Smells like smoke.”
Zephyr cracked one eye open, waggling her fingers at me as she sashayed past. “Says the man who thinks lemon verbena tastes like sadness.”
I laughed and returned to arranging the logs in the shape of a starburst, just the way my mentor taught me years ago. A fire built with care burns cleaner. Stronger. Gentler.
Zephyr hummed behind me, stepping in a slow circle, tossing salt and murmuring something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a Stevie Nicks song.
She believed deeply in the woo. The genuine kind.
No performance. Just intuition, vibes, and faith.
I didn’t always agree with her methods, but her heart?
Pure gold. And besides, there was something comforting about her rituals.
They grounded the space. Gave it rhythm.
Still crouched by the fire, I let my eyes drift to the edge of the woods. The wind carried the scent of honeysuckle, and I inhaled deeply, trying to settle the anxious knot that had taken up residence somewhere between my lungs and my stomach.
I’d Googled him as soon as I left the bar. Julian Reed. Podcaster. Skeptic. Cynic in very well-fitted jeans.
I wasn’t psychic, but you didn’t have to be to see it in his eyes—the way he looked at me like I was a magician mid-swindle.
Like he was just waiting for me to pull a rabbit from my hat and demand a donation.
And maybe that would’ve hurt, once upon a time.
But these days? I understood. People like Julian didn’t come to Riverbend unless they were searching for something—or running from it.
What he didn’t understand was that I wasn’t here to sell anything. I didn’t promise miracles. I was here to hold space for people who needed it. To help them feel seen. To remind them that they were already whole, even if they were a little cracked. We all are.
“Anyway,” Zephyr said, shattering my spiral of thoughts as she bent to fluff a blanket on one of the lawn chairs. “A handsome stranger checked into the inn this afternoon.”
My hands paused on the firewood. I turned my head slightly, but kept my tone light. “Oh?”
“Mm-hmm.” She threw a stick of palo santo into the pit like she was seasoning a pot of soup. “Gave his name as Julian. Does that ring any bells?”
I turned to face her, eyebrows raised. “Julian Reed?”
Zephyr blinked at me. “How do you know his name’s Julian?!”
We both stared at each other, then burst into laughter. She probably thought I was psychic now.
“I met him at the Chalice & Cherry,” I admitted, scratching the back of my neck, suddenly feeling sixteen. “It wasn’t a vision. Just a bar. I was drinking a cocktail, and he walked in and sat next to me. Just a coincidence.”
“Mmhmm.” Zephyr twirled her fingers like she was spinning invisible thread. “Well, you may call it a coincidence. But I call it a miracle in casual wear. Sometimes miracles don’t look like holy lights or burning bushes. Sometimes they look like skeptical men with very judgmental eyebrows.”
I laughed again, but something about her words stayed with me. She was watching me now, all soft edges and quiet knowing.
“I’ve got a gut feeling,” she said gently, “that man didn’t come here by accident. He was brought here. For a reason he might not even know yet.”
I said nothing. Just nodded and went back to brushing a pine needle off the firewood.
Julian’s face flashed in my mind—his sharp stare, the curve of his mouth when he smirked, the brief flicker of vulnerability he tried so hard to hide. Could Zephyr be right? Had the universe pointed him toward Riverbend for something more than just an exposé of me?
The first few participants were already drifting in from the gravel path, voices low and reverent. Some carried blankets. Others brought offerings—crystals, tea lights, scraps of poetry written on torn notebook paper.
I lit the fire.
The scent of cedar and lavender bloomed into the night.
And I found myself wondering, what exactly would Julian see when he looked into the flames?
The first arrivals came bearing vibes and fermentation.
“Jude, my love!” cried Honeybelle, wrapping me in a hug so tight I could feel my spine realign. She was barefoot, as usual, and wearing a flowing wrap dress covered in embroidered mushrooms and moons. The crown of dandelions in her frizzy gray hair bobbed with each step she took.
“I brought mead,” she added, producing three bottles from a macrame tote. “One’s lavender-rose, one’s chai-honey, and the other’s infused with mushroom essence for clarity.”
Zephyr clapped like she’d just been gifted Beyoncé’s personal juicer. “Yes! Clarity mead! Last time I drank that, I communed with my past lives and found out I used to be a goat herder in ancient Greece.”
“You’ve told me,” I said with a laugh, accepting a bottle. I uncorked it, poured a little into a recycled mason jar, and took a sip.
It tasted like fermented regret. Mead is disgusting, but it was given as a gift, so I’d force myself to enjoy it.
Still, I nodded solemnly. “Powerful clarity,” I said. “Tastes like… insight.”
Zephyr, who was burning another herb bundle that smelled like someone lit an artisanal soap shop on fire, leaned over and whispered, “That guy Julian is going to die when he sees all this.”
I snorted.
More people arrived—some familiar, some new.
Everyone hugged, exchanged kisses on the cheek, complimented each other’s crystal jewelry, and shared things like raw cacao, jars of flower water, or pieces of driftwood that had “called” to them.
One woman handed me a rock shaped suspiciously like a penis and said it was from the river and “vibrated with masculine energy.” I thanked her sincerely and placed it beside the altar stone.
And as I stood in the middle of it all—the light of the sunset curling like smoke through the trees, Zephyr spinning barefoot in the grass, a man named Windwalker lighting a cone of incense he’d made from pine sap and ancient “dragon resin” (probably from a head shop in Charlottesville)—I suddenly saw it all through his eyes.
Julian.
God, he must think we’re a bunch of barefoot cult rejects.
To be fair, most of us were barefoot.
But we weren’t a cult.
And I wasn’t a fraud.
I didn’t make promises or sell salvation. I didn’t even accept donations. My parents had passed when I was twenty in a car accident. They left me a small inheritance, enough to buy the Healing Center and keep the lights on without dipping into capitalism’s cold, dead pool.
It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t glamorous. But it was peaceful. A small life, lived intentionally. One that made me feel… useful.
And okay, sometimes I was lonely.
Sometimes I dreamed of what it would be like to share this life with someone. To have someone to drink mead with. (Or someone who would suffer through it for me.)
But that someone was not Julian Reed, the hotshot podcast guy with a cynical brain and a face that made my insides do cartwheels. That man was probably editing a snarky podcast episode about “hippie theatrics and snake oil bonfires.”
“Sun’s setting,” Zephyr said, her voice a gentle breeze against my thoughts. “Time to begin.”
I opened my mouth to say—wait, Julian is coming—but I caught myself just in time.
He wasn’t coming.
Why would he?
He was here to expose me. Not join me.
I forced a smile and nodded.
Zephyr clapped her hands together once, the sound sharp in the still evening. “Brothers, sisters, and beings of the beyond,” she called out, “I welcome you to tonight’s healing circle. May your hearts be open, your minds clear, and your bowels... regular.”
Everyone chuckled and started forming a circle around the fire pit. A few pulled out blankets, some lit candles or placed crystals in front of them like offering stones.
Windwalker stepped into the center wearing a tunic that looked like it had once been a curtain in a very sexy yurt. He raised both arms dramatically, the sleeves fluttering like wings.
“Tonight,” he intoned, “we gather not to fix what is broken, but to uncover what has always been whole. The moon is in Libra. The sun is in Cancer. Uranus is, of course, in retrograde.”
Zephyr gasped theatrically, which got a good laugh from the crowd.
“And we,” he went on, “are here to let go of what no longer serves us. To breathe. To release. Even howl if the spirit moves you. Which it should.”
Someone had already started playing a hang drum. The fire crackled high. The scent of cedar and lavender filled the clearing.
I smiled. This was the work. This was the good part.
And yet… I kept glancing toward the tree line, where the gravel path disappeared into the woods.
Looking for a tall silhouette.
A familiar head tilt. Sharp cheekbones. Eyes like storm clouds.
Looking for him.
But Julian Reed was nowhere to be seen.
The ritual carried on around me like a dream—smoke curling into the twilight, crystals glowing in the flickering firelight, soft chants rising like a tide of devotion and bliss. It was beautiful. Soothing.
And I couldn’t focus on a damn thing.
I tried.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I placed my palms together and bowed when Windwalker led us in a moment of collective intention. But inside, my thoughts were tangled up in steel-toed boots and leather jackets, in skeptical stares and a jawline sharp enough to cut glass.
Julian Reed hadn’t come.
Which honestly, was probably for the best.
He didn’t belong here—not in this circle of trust, this little cosmos of soft hearts and softer boundaries. He would’ve rolled his eyes at the communal chanting, scoffed at Windwalker’s tunic, and audibly gagged at the disgusting mead.
Still… the absence of him left a weight in my chest, like I’d spent all day preparing a seat at the table and now had to accept that it would remain empty.
“Jude,” someone murmured beside me. I turned to find Indigo—long silver hair braided with feathers, her hands cupping a small wooden bowl filled with rose petals and salt.
“Would you…?” she asked gently, offering me the bowl.
It was a request, not a command. And I nodded, pasting a smile across my face like war paint.
“Of course,” I breathed. “Let’s raise the vibration.”
I stepped forward into the center, the firelight dancing on my skin, and lifted the bowl over my head.
“This offering,” I began, “is a call to clarity. To compassion. To release what we no longer need—fear, grief, bitterness—”
The crowd had fallen silent, the usual serene reverence descending like mist.
I was about to speak the blessing when—
Crunch.
A footstep.
A shift in the air.
Every hair on the back of my neck rose like a tide, and I turned toward the treeline just in time to see him.
Julian.
He stepped into the clearing like some reluctant oracle, half in shadow, half bathed in the last glow of the sun as it dipped behind the trees.
He looked out of place and sinfully gorgeous—black boots, dark jeans, a flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves, revealing muscular forearms and a watch glinting in the firelight.
His hair was tousled, probably from the wind, and his face… his face was unreadable.
Curious. Guarded. A little amused.
But he was here.
And suddenly I couldn’t remember what I’d just said. Or where I was in the ritual. Or whether I’d added too much mushroom to the cacao mix.
My breath hitched. My cheeks warmed.
A grin broke across my face before I could stop it.
He caught my eye. And something flickered in his. Not mockery. Not derision.
Something like wonder.
Maybe.
I lowered the bowl slowly, unable to tear my gaze from his.
Everyone else in the circle was still, waiting, as if they knew something important was happening too.
Was this a coincidence?
Was this a cosmic test?
I didn’t know.
All I knew was this:
What the hell was I supposed to do with a man like Julian Reed… if he turned out to be the one who needed healing most?