Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dinner was slow-cooked pot roast—fall-apart tender—served with buttery mashed potatoes and a rich gravy made from the cooking juices.
There were green beans with bacon that tasted like the best thing that ever happened to me, and of course, Madeline’s homemade biscuits—hot, soft, and unfairly perfect, especially considering she’d “somehow whipped them up” while I was having an existential crisis in her living room.
And then, as if she wasn’t already showing off, dessert.
Homemade peach cobbler with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream.
I was pretty sure I’d died and gone to heaven. If heaven came with homemade cobbler, I’d like to file a formal complaint for being kept from it this long.
I was also so stuffed I didn’t know how I was going to get up from the table again without assistance and a forklift.
Between bites, I was regaled with tales of Owen and his older brother, Colt, growing up and getting into all sorts of trouble. Owen, however, looked less than amused—chin tipped down, that familiar warning in his eyes.
“… the time Owen decided he could jump the creek on Colt’s ten-speed,” Dougal was saying.
“Dad,” Owen groaned. “Please, stop.”
“What happened?” I asked, smiling.
Dougal ignored him with the confidence of a man who knew how to embarrass his children. “Didn’t make it. Fell right in. Came home dripping wet and covered in mud.”
I giggled.
“Maddy made me hose him off before she’d allow him to step foot in the house,” Dougal added.
He reached for Madeline’s hand and gripped it. She was grinning at him—soft and bright, like the story lived somewhere warm inside her.
“I’d just mopped,” she said. Then her gaze met mine. “And there was no way I was allowing muddy footprints on my clean floors.” She sounded indignant even now.
I laughed.
“Colt was mad for weeks,” Dougal said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I ruined his precious bike,” Owen said, a grin breaking through despite himself.
“He’d saved all summer for that bike,” Madeline said.
“How old were you?” I asked.
“Eight. Colt was fourteen,” Owen said. “I thought he was going to murder me. He didn’t talk to me for days.”
As I sat there listening, I realized something that made my throat tighten.
This was what had been missing from my childhood. Family that felt warm instead of… managed.
Iris wasn’t exactly fun to grow up with, and Clay only cared about rodeos and when he could start riding bulls. And my parents?
They were never like this—casual, playful, trading stories like they liked each other.
The longing hit me harder than I expected.
Because I’d built an entire life pretending I didn’t need this.
And sitting at the McAllister table, it was obvious I was lying to myself.
I blinked hard and lifted my tea glass to my mouth like I could drink my emotions back down.
Owen noticed, because he noticed everything.
“We should probably go,” he said then.
“Let me send you home with some leftovers,” his mother said.
Madeline pushed up from the table and grabbed her empty dessert plate. Then reached for mine. But Owen snatched it up before she could along with his and his father’s. He gave her warning look, one that said he’d done this before and she better not argue.
“That’s not necessary,” I said.
“Nonsense,” she said as she started for the kitchen. “I cooked enough food for a small army.”
I glanced up at Owen who gave me a nod. “She did.”
Then he headed off to the kitchen with the dirty plates. I sat there with his father listening to the clink of dishes and their low murmuring voices.
“Today was a good day,” Dougal said, almost to himself. Then he added, “The visit and the flowers made her day.”
And something about that one sentence warmed everything inside me.
“I’m glad,” I said.
Minutes later, Owen returned with his mother. She carried several clear containers with lids. Inside, pot roast, gravy, potatoes. In another container, green beans. Biscuits. Cobbler.
“Mrs. McAllister, you’re going to make me fat,” I said with a laugh as she handed it over.
“Nonsense. And I told you to call me Madeline.”
Then she stunned me by kissing my cheek and hugging me. I glanced at Owen over her shoulder. Surprise then delight crossed his face.
Like he’d won a prize.
“Owen, you bring her back here to see me, you hear?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned, then kissed her cheek and hugged her.
“You two best get going. The Crossroads are waiting,” she said.
Owen’s smile faded at the word Crossroads. His gaze sharpened as if flipping a switch.
“I’ll tell you on the way,” I said.
I gathered my things and then we were out the door. It was already early evening as we walked to the truck in silence. He opened the truck door for me. Before I climbed in, his hand wrapped around my arm and stopped me. I turned to him. His hand rested on my waist, his gaze fixed on mine.
“She loves you,” he said softly.
“Oh,” I breathed. “Well… that’s good, isn’t it?”
He leaned in, kissed me, and said against my mouth, “Yes. I knew she would.”
“I love her, too.”
It was an admission I hadn’t intended to make, but now that the words were out, I didn’t want to take them back. His hand tightened on my waist. The way he was looking at me made my heart jolt and for a second, I stopped breathing. Like he wanted to say something but somehow kept it back.
“I’m glad.”
Then he took the containers from my hand so I could climb into his truck. When I was settled and my seatbelt on, he handed them back, shut the door and rounded the hood of the truck.
I watched him. The easy way he walked. The way his held himself with confidence—the same way he’d always held himself even in high school. That hadn’t changed. What had changed was he was older and even more attractive than I remembered from those days.
It was a good and bad thing. Good because, well, he was attractive. Bad because I didn’t want to think of him with anyone else.
Once he was in the truck, he started it and put it in reverse.
“Your mother told me how to temporarily seal the Crossroads.”
He hit the brakes hard enough to jar me and then turned to face me. “That’s what you were talking about before dinner.”
“Yes,” I said with a nod. “She’s MM but you knew that, didn’t you?”
His hands tightened on the wheel. He regarded me then finally nodded.
“I suspected, but I wasn’t sure.”
“She was helping Alice. She didn’t tell anyone. Not even your dad.”
He swallowed hard and looked away, back through the windshield at the house. Like his mind was trying to understand that his mother was helping Alice like his father. They were both entwined with Alice in different ways. He said nothing.
“We have to go to the Crossroads tonight,” I continued. “I need the Sun Disk and a flower from the shop.”
His gaze traveled back to mine. “She told you this?”
I nodded. “The torn page I found was part of the grimoire.”
He stared at me, then blew one breath out through his nose. “What else?”
“It’s a lot.” Honestly, I didn’t know where to start.
“Then you better tell me everything.”
He backed the truck, then turned and headed down the driveway toward the road.
“I will. And Owen?”
“Yeah?”
I studied his profile. “You’re right. We are a team.”
“Good,” he said. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
As we drove, I told him everything his mother and I talked about—the grimoire, the potion, the planetary alignment, the fact that we had to be there to say the enchantment at exactly 10:47 pm.
The sun was already burning toward the horizon and soon it would turn the sky into that pinkish-indigo of dusk.
We stopped at the antique store and picked up the Sun Disk.
Watching Owen climb the ladder again and reach was not my favorite thing.
Then we went to the flower shop and I picked two Moonpetal flowers.
One that wasn’t open yet and another that was.
In case I screwed up the potion and needed a do-over.
The second I removed them from the cooler, they started to wilt.
“Are they supposed to do that?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I think so?”
“Then we better hurry and get back to your house so you can make that potion.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Back at my house, the Red Queen was lounging on the sofa. She’d traded her enormous red gown for sweatpants and one of my navy t-shirts. She had the remote in one hand—QVC again—and a package of cookies—my Chewy Chips-Ahoy—in the other.
“Red, where did you get those clothes?” I demanded.
“Tani helped,” she said, her tone accusatory.
“I raided your dresser,” Tani called from the kitchen.
“Oh, God,” I groaned.
These two were getting far too comfortable here.
Next to me, Owen chuckled, but I was already on my way to the kitchen. He was right behind me.
“You didn’t ask permission to do that,” I said.
Full-size Tani lounged against the counter, her chin in her hand, flipping through one of my fashion magazines while waiting for the kettle to boil. The second she saw Owen, she straightened.
“Oh, you brought Mr. Hottie.” She beamed.
He snickered.
“Please stop calling him that,” I said as I pulled open the fridge and placed the leftovers inside. “And stay out of those containers.”
She eyed the fridge with a curious glint in her eyes. “Why?”
“It’s my food.”
Then I took Owen’s hand and led him out of the kitchen to the basement.
“Those two are going to be the death of me,” I muttered.
He laughed.
The basement was still a terrible disaster—papers and file folders everywhere. I hadn’t bothered to clean it up after last night, and I wasn’t going to start now. I shoved stacks to one end of the worktable, then cleared off a space I could use.
Owen stopped at the edge of it. “What do you need?”
I pulled out the grimoire and placed it on the table, then flipped to the torn page—now fused back together like it had never been ripped.
He leaned over to look at it and went still. Then he reached out, his fingertip tracing the healed seam.
“This book was Alice’s,” he said.
I winced. I’d forgotten to tell him that part. “Yes. And your mother thinks she hid it in the town archives.”
“Hoping you’d find it?” he asked.
“Or it would find me,” I said with a shrug. “Either way, I have it. And now I know how to make the potion to temporarily close the Crossroads.” I tapped the page. “But we have to move fast. We need to be there before the planetary alignment.”
Owen pushed his sleeves up higher to his elbows. “Put me to work, boss.”
Together, we made the potion—adding one drop of my Guardian blood like Madeline said.
And shockingly—I didn’t mess it up.
I measured, poured, stirred, and followed Madeline’s translated instructions like my life depended on it. Because it did. When the last ingredient hit the vial, the liquid shimmered a pinkish-blue, almost luminous.
We both stared at it.
“I sure hope this works,” I whispered.
“Me too.” Owen checked his watch. His expression tightened. “We should go.”
“Right. Give me a minute to change.” I pressed the vial into his hand. “Guard that with your life. And do not let Tani anywhere near it.”
He nodded once, serious as a vow—and followed me anyway, up the stairs.
As we passed through the living room, Tani and Red were sitting side by side on the sofa watching How the Universe Works.
Willow was on the back of the sofa, her long orange body stretched out. Neither queen seemed to care she was there.
I halted. Stared.
Then blinked.
“At least they’re not throwing things at each other,” Owen murmured near my ear.
“Valid,” I said faintly.
They didn’t even look up. Or if they did, they refused to acknowledge us like two teenagers sneaking out past curfew.
Owen loitered in the hall while I changed out of my cute sundress into something more Crossroads/might-die-in-the-woods appropriate: faded jeans, my favorite I’m Optimizing Joy T-shirt, and comfortable shoes.
I ran a brush through my hair, checked my pockets—phone, keys—and decided that was as ready as I was going to get.
Ready to face whatever waited at the Crossroads.
I opened the bedroom door and met Owen’s eyes.
“Here goes nothing,” I said. “I hope this works.”
“It will.” He sounded confident.
Together we headed for the stairs.
Ready or not, the Crossroads was waiting.