Serena thought of the first time her grandmother taught her to make juniper berry jam, the kitchen sticky with sugar and laughter. She saw it so clearly: the flour on her grandmother's cheek, the way she said "just a pinch more" even when it was already perfect.
"Yes?"
Not a door—a throat. She stepped into a tunnel lined with roots like veins, and emerged into a clearing where the sky was the color of rusted gold. There stood the village: clapboard houses, a church with a broken bell, and in the center, a second juniper, this one enormous, its branches strung with glass bottles that caught the non-light and turned it into a soft green hum. serena hill juniper