Tangled Roots (after the foreboding Prologue) begins with Charlotte’s birthday weekend. Her best friend Ivy has driven up from Chicago, and the pair celebrate with the Tennesons – Charlie, Mike and Sarah – at Boards and Brews. Charlotte receives three gifts.

Sarah and Mike give her a bird feeder with a built-in camera. I see these all the time on Facebook and elsewhere. I suspect the one gifted wasn’t terribly fancy like some of the ones I see online, but Charlotte’s not that fancy herself. For Sarah, the feeder was a tie-in to their time working on the flowerbeds at Casten House over the summer, the perfect gift.

Ivy gifts Charlotte a professional book scanner, a practical tool that will help immensely in Charlotte’s study of the Casten House journal and other research. This device also exists in real life, to quickly scan pages of books into searchable text. As Ivy is an attorney, she learned about this device on her LinkedIn network and immediately saw how useful it would be to her best friend. A little pricier than the bird feeder, but Ivy can certainly afford it.

Charlie, as Charlotte’s boyfriend, gifts her jewelry:

Charlie passed her a small box next.  “This one’s from me.”

As she accepted the present, her heartbeat quickened and she smiled shyly.  She took the wrapping off with great care, saving the ribbon.  When she opened the hinged box, she found a vintage-looking pendant inside on a delicate silver chain.

“A local artist collects historical wax seals and uses them as the basis for her jewelry,” Charlie explained.  “I had a hard time choosing which design suited you best until this caught my eye.”

She pulled her phone from her pocket to shine its light on the pendant.  A fox stood at the base of a tree and a rooster sat above him on a branch.  Tiny letters wrapped along the top and down the right side of the scene.  She squinted at the phrase but couldn’t quite understand it.

“It’s Italian,” Charlie supplied.  “It reads ‘Astuto Contro Astuto.’  That means ‘Cunning Outwits Cunning.’  There’s an Aesop’s fable about a rooster and a fox on which this seal was based.  Basically, the fox tries to trick the rooster into becoming its meal but the rooster outwits him.”  He placed his hand on her arm lightly.  “You already outwitted at least one fox that I know of.  You also bought that rooster quilt at the craft show last month and there are other roosters around your house as well.  I figured either you’ve taken a liking to them or they find you.  I think that’s fitting.  Roosters are brave, watchful and have very good instincts.”

I actually shopped on Charlie’s behalf online until I found his present for Charlotte. I couldn’t believe my luck in finding something that fit the story so perfectly. The rooster finials on the corner fence posts at Casten House have been mentioned since Driftless Spirits (Book 1). Suffice it to say, they have a very special purpose. Charlotte also has a final villain to outwit before the series is done. The rooster has practically become Charlotte’s spirit animal.

The fox-and-rooster charm was so absolutely perfect, I had to own it myself. It arrived just this week, and I love it. It’s my writing talisman now, a reminder of Charlotte’s character and where this series is headed. And someday, when I’m very old, the necklace will still remind me of my stories, however many I write.