Chapter 175 Don't Enter the Fairy Ring

Chapter 175 Don't Enter the Fairy Ring
Nanna
I told her.
I bloody well told her.
Don’t enter the fairy ring.
Clear as day. Simple as anything. Four words. Five, if we’re counting the don’t properly, which I am, because every word mattered and the child still managed to ignore all of them.
What does Rae Meadowlark do?
Enters the goddamn fairy ring.
On her first day alone after my death, no less.
If I had not already been dead, I would have dropped on the spot. Heart clean out of my chest. Gone. Finished. Heaven would have had to send someone down with a broom and dustpan for whatever was left of me.
I was already watching, of course.
Couldn’t help myself.
People talk about resting in peace as if peace is something a woman can just sit down inside while the child she raised is wandering about with grief in her hands and no sense in her head. Maybe some souls manage it. Good for them. I was never built that way.
So I watched.
I watched her walk through my cabin, touching all the things I had left behind, looking so small and angry and lost that it near split what was left of my heart in two. I watched her stare at the salt bowls as if they were foolish. Watched her pull the iron nails from the doors. Watched her take down the rowan thread I had tied with my own hands, muttering under her breath as if I had been some old paranoid woman filling the house with nonsense.
Heavens above.
That girl.
Always poking the honey pot to see what might sting her.
Always peeking under stones, opening cupboards, asking why, why, why until I had to send her outside before she drove me mad. She had scraped knees more often than clean ones. Mud on her cheeks. Leaves in her hair. Some wild little thing in her pocket that she insisted needed rescuing.
I loved every stubborn inch of her.
Which is exactly why I kept the salt filled.
Why I hammered the iron into the wood until my wrists ached.
Why I tied rowan thread over every window and whispered old words I only half understood, praying understanding would not be required if love was strong enough.
I knew what she was.
Heartroot. Such a grand, heavy thing for a girl who used to cry when snails dried on the path.
But it was plain as day. The air shifted when Rae cried. Plants bent toward her little hands. The old ring in the garden grew brighter whenever she was near.
I knew the world wanted her, and I was selfish enough to want her more.
So I kept her.
I fed her porridge with too much honey. Taught her which herbs soothed a burn and which berries not to touch. Let her sleep in my bed when storms shook the windows. Sang when she was frightened. Lied when I had to. Smiled when I could.
I gave her every ordinary thing I could fit around an extraordinary life.
Then I died.
And the foolish child walked straight into the ring.
I shouted. Of course I shouted. But no one heard me.
I shouted when she vanished.
I shouted when she found him in chains.
I shouted when she fed the terrifying fae prince berries as if that was a sensible thing to do. I shouted when she made bargains, opened roads, cried over monsters, loved too hard, trusted too quickly, and kept putting those bare feet exactly where old magic wanted them.
But I watched too.
I saw Cian look at her as if she had dragged dawn into the dark with both hands.
I watched Hollow Hill soften around her.
I was able to see my girl, my wild, grieving, impossible girl, become something no salt bowl could have contained.
And slowly, painfully, I understood what every mother and grandmother before me had to understand.
Protection can only hold a door closed for so long.
After that, love has to become a voice.
A warning.
A hand offered.
A place to come home to if the world is cruel.
Then came Rowan. Named for protection.
Would you believe it? Rae named her daughter after the very thing she pulled from my windows.
I laughed for three days and cried for longer.
I watched that little girl grow in the garden, silver-eyed and sharp-chinned, with curiosity spilling out of her faster than anyone could catch it. I watched Rae hold her hand near the mushrooms and speak the words I had once given her.
Don’t enter the fairy ring.
This time, Rae understood it wasn’t out of fear or control; it was out of love.
But children are children, and blood remembers what warnings try to quiet.
So when Rowan stands before her own ring, older now, listening to a song no one else can hear, I find myself leaning close to the veil between here and there.
I want to shout, to scold, to tell her that mothers are not trying to ruin adventures when they beg you to stay whole.
But I also know this.
A girl cannot become herself by living only inside someone else’s fear.
So I do what I have always done.
I love her.
I watch.
And when Rowan lifts her foot toward the circle, I whisper the warning one more time, not to stop her, but to follow her.
Don’t enter the fairy ring, sweet girl.
But if you do, remember the way home. 

Author’s Note
If you made it all the way to the end of Rae and Cian’s story, thank you from the bottom of my dramatic little author heart.
This book has been a journey of roots, grief, love, stubbornness, terrible decisions, soft moments, dangerous doors, and one very important warning about fairy rings that apparently no one in this family knows how to follow.
Rae’s story was never just about finding a fae prince or surviving another realm. It was about learning that love can protect, but it can also let go. It can warn. It can wait. It can plant gardens in impossible places and hope something beautiful grows there.
Thank you for loving Rae, Cian, Menace, Nanna, and every wild little piece of Hollow Hill with me. Thank you for every comment, every theory, every emotional breakdown, and every moment you chose to spend inside this world.
If you need somewhere to yell, cry, recover, or look for another book to ruin your schedule, you can find me at:
sheridanhartinauthor.com
And please remember, sweet reader…
Don’t enter the fairy ring.
Unless, of course, the story is calling.