“You okay?” I asked.

“It’s funny how people complain about stuff that happens in the big city, but I’ve never had my tires cut back home. It threw me.”

I angled myself toward her. “I’m sorry. We’re out here because of me.”

Mo reached over and squeezed my hand. “No, love. Don’t be sorry.”

“Do you regret coming out here?” I asked.

“Do you?”

“No,” I said. That wasn’t the whole truth. “Maybe a little.”

“Why?” Mo asked. “You’ve been running around here with Karter. You seem happier than you’ve been in a minute.”

“Yeah, but this has to be weird for you and Mom. I know we talked about it and you said you’d support me, but we’re living in a place with people who knew my birth mother and her family. We’re living in a house that belonged to them. That has to make you and Mom feel some type of way.”

“We’re being honest?” Mo asked.

I took a deep breath. That was Mo’s way of saying she was willing to have a tough conversation. “Yes,” I said. “We’re being honest.”

Mo nodded. “I don’t know why your birth mother chose adoption. You were, and still are, the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen. I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, and for the longest time, I asked myself how anyone could walk away from you.”

A knot formed in my throat. Mo kept her eyes forward as she continued. “But my thinking was flawed. I wasn’t as knowledgeable about the adoption process as I should have been. I have no right to judge anyone, especially when your birth mother’s decision made it possible for you to come into my life. What she did, for whatever reason she did it, was a choice that allowed us to be together.

“I think about her a lot and being here makes me think of her even more. I hope she didn’t come to her decision under any circumstance other than it was the right choice for her and for you.” She cleared her throat. “And now we’re here, in her space, making it our own, and I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t worried about how all this is affecting you.”

“And I’m worried about how all this is affecting you and Mom.” I couldn’t keep the tears from spilling over. “I didn’t come here because I wanted to know more about my birth family. I came here because I knew it could help us out.”

“But that’s the thing,” said Mo. “You don’t have to choose, love. You can do both. Of course you’d want to know more about these people, about their past, about their lives, and I—we support you. You love me and Mom, right?”

“More than anything.”

“And the feeling is mutual, baby girl. I love you more than I love myself, and you know how much I love myself.”

I laughed through the tears. Mo was the best at making a heavy situation feel lighter.

“Talk to people, research, look at pictures, ask questions. We both know that you got something running in your veins that can’t be easily explained. Maybe this is your chance to get to the bottom of it. Me and Mom are here for you no matter what. We are a family. Nothing is going to change that, understand?”

Mom and Mo were so different in most ways, but not in the way they loved me—unconditionally and with their whole hearts. I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

We pulled up in front of the house, and she leaned over and hugged me tight. Mom came out to meet us.

“Why are y’all cryin’?” she asked.

“Just having a heart-to-heart with our baby,” said Mo.

We climbed out of the car and stood around, looking at the new tires. Mom put her arm around my shoulder and wiped my tearstained face with the sleeve of her shirt. “Anything I need to be aware of?”

“Nah,” Mo said. “We were mourning my waffles and thinking about how much better they’ll turn out next time.”

Mom pulled me closer dramatically. “Oh, baby, I’d cry too if I had to eat any more of her breakfasts.”

“Next set of waffles is gonna be lit.” Mo winked at me.

“I thought we agreed to no more buzzwords,” I said.

“That wasn’t a buzzword,” Mom said. “She’s telling you her next set of waffles aren’t gonna just be burned, they’re actually going to be on fire. Lit.” She glanced at the shiny new set of tires and rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe this. Why would somebody slash our tires?”

“The people at the tire place said it happens,” Mo said. “Local kids, you know?”

“They need an ass whoopin’,” Mom grumbled as we climbed the porch steps.

Billowing ash-gray clouds rolled across the sky. The smell of rain hung in the air. My plants would love that and it would give me a break from watering.

I went inside and up to my room. I studied the drawing Mrs. Redmond had given me—a black-and-white sketch, it didn’t have the details of the illustrations in the big book. I wondered whether it had been Circe or Selene who drew it, and what the three lines there at the bottom meant.

After making sure Mom and Mo were occupied downstairs, I opened the hidden door behind the fireplace. I slipped inside and studied the crest carved into the desk more closely. There were no lines anywhere around it. I pulled open the drawers and searched for any markings, symbols, anything that might help me figure out what I was missing but there was nothing.

Frustrated, I slumped into the chair and stared down at the crest. The lacquered finish was dull in the area directly in front of the symbol, as if it had been worn away over time. I traced the faded mark and found it ran under the lip of the desk. Scrambling out of the chair and crouching down, I swept the light from my phone across the underside of the desk. Three lines were etched deep into the wood, and a shallow divot sat directly on top of them.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, my heart thudding in my chest.

I pressed my finger to the indentation. There was a soft click and a compartment fell open with a heavy thud. I jumped, knocking my head on the edge of the desk. I clamped my hands down over the ache. The plants in my bedroom crowded in on me, stretching their roots across the floor.

A sketchbook sat tucked inside a hidden compartment the size of a small drawer. I lifted it out and paged through. The Absyrtus Heart was drawn there in even more intricate detail than it was in the big book. The inner workings of the plant were unlike anything I’d ever seen. The stalk appeared to be covered in something more like skin than plant matter. The lobes were shown splayed open and the voids inside were draped with pale, cobweb-like structures. On the last page was a recipe and some notes scribbled in the lower corner.