BONUS CHAPTER: "THE GARDENER'S LAMENT"

I. THE UNBURIED CHILD

The thing in the nursery crib was growing teeth.

Sabrina watched from the doorway, her nails carving half-moons into her palms, as the sprout-that-was-not-a-sprout stretched toward the moonlight. Its stem had thickened overnight, the bark splitting to reveal pulsing violet veins beneath. The eye on its largest leaf tracked her every shudder.

"It needs a name," Julian murmured behind her.

His hands settled on her shoulders—too cold, like the roots that had once cradled her in the grove. When she turned, his pupils were dilated black, his lips stained with something darker than wine.

"You fed it," Sabrina accused.

Julian smiled, his teeth ever-so-slightly sharper than before. "Only what it cried for."

He held up his wrist. The fresh bite mark there dripped sap, not blood.

II. THE FIRST SABRINA'S DIARY (PAGES RECOVERED FROM THE GROVE'S BELLY)

Entry dated 1782:

I buried her at the crossroads where the willow roots run deepest. My sweet babe, still slick with my shame. Grandmother says she'll grow back purer, fed on moonlight and the bones of dishonest men. But when I pressed my ear to the earth at dawn, I heard her weeping. Not the babe—the grove itself. *It mourns what we've made it do._

Entry dated 1783:

She came back last night. Not as the babe I lost, but as something wearing her face like ill-fitting gloves. Her skin splits at the seams when she hugs me. She calls me "Mother" with Elias Thorne's voice. I think Grandmother is laughing *at us._

Final Entry:

The thorns are growing inward. I feel them twining around my ribs, piercing my heart's chambers. Elias says this isn't what we promised each other in the orchard that night. But the grove remembers our vows better than we do. It will make us keep them.

III. THE NAMING CEREMONY

They held it at midnight, as all proper rituals should be.

Julian had built a cradle from willow branches (the very ones that had once imprisoned Sabrina), lining it with moss and the shredded remains of her wedding dress. The thing in the crib cooed as he lifted it, its stem twining around his forearm like a possessive lover.

"Lyra," Sabrina blurted.

The moment the name left her lips, the nursery window shattered inward. A gust of wind carried:

The scent of rotting blackberries (from their first summer)

A lock of Elias' hair (graying at the temples)

A single word, whispered against Sabrina's throat: "Liar."

The child—Lyra—laughed. Her blossom-mouth split open, revealing rows of thorns.

"That name belongs to the dead," she chided, her voice the creak of bending branches. "I am alive."

To prove it, she plunged a root-tendril into Julian's wrist. His back arched, his groan of pain shading into something suspiciously close to pleasure as the vine burrowed deeper.

Sabrina lunged, but the floorboards sprouted thorns, pinning her in place.

"Shhh," Lyra soothed, petting Julian's sweat-damped hair as he shuddered. "Father understands now. Don't you, Father? Blood is just sap waiting to be spilled."

Julian's answering smile sent ice down Sabrina's spine.

IV. THE WEDDING BED

Later, when the thing they'd named was sleeping (or pretending to), Julian took Sabrina to the grove.

Not the new, white willows—the old ones, the ones that had watched their first fumbling couplings beneath the harvest moon. The earth here was still warm, still hungry.

"We could run," Sabrina whispered as Julian pressed her back into the moss.

His teeth scraped her pulse point. "Where?"

She had no answer. So she let him reclaim her in the grove's shadow, their bodies moving together with the same desperation as the night they'd broken the curse. Except now—

Now when Julian came, his release was streaked black with sap.

Now when Sabrina bit his shoulder to muffle her cries, the wound bloomed violets.

And high above them, the willows sighed in approval.

V. THE LAST PAGE OF THE DIARY (FOUND IN SABRINA'S OWN HAND, THOUGH SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER WRITING IT)

Dearest Reader,

If you're reading this, the grove has already won. Lyra walks in daylight now, wearing the face of our stolen child. Julian smiles at her with too many teeth. And I—

I wake each morning with soil under my nails and the taste of sap on my tongue.

But here's the secret the grove doesn't know you know:

Even cursed love is still love.

And love makes such excellent fertilizer.

Yours in root and ruin,

Sabrina Thorne