Winter

It’s easier to tune out the newscasters from the other side as they speak of the newest bill that’s supposed to help those in the Tainted Zone.

Yeah, right.

There’s also a huge concert for our benefit. All the biggest celebrities and Fae have gotten together to raise money that will undoubtedly end up in the Millers’ pockets. Sometimes I feel like we’re the most forgotten place on earth.

“And where did the cat come from again?” Aunt Zinnia asks. Luckily she’s too busy overbaking her cornbread to notice I’m wearing long-sleeves in the middle of summer, or that I keep rubbing my tattooed arm.

I shrug. “He just sort of showed up?”

“Well, can he just sort of go away?”

“Shh,” I scold. “He can hear you. Besides, look how friendly and adorable he is.”

Aunt Zinnia throws a dubious glance over her shoulder at Chatty Cat, who’s made himself right at home on the kitchen island and is busy hissing at any kid who gets close. “I might be able to explain him to Vi, but”—she nods her head at the neverapples—“those will need more of an explanation. Where did you find them anyway?”

“Can’t we just say they came from the same place the fresh eggs and milk needed for that cornbread came from?” I ask hopefully, eyeing the basket of large brown eggs on the table.

Any hope that Cal didn’t know who the blonde thief was evaporated the moment I got home and discovered the wheelbarrow on the front porch. Cal personally delivered everything I stole to our house, plus a few extras.

For a block-headed idiot, his sense of irony is razor-sharp.

“Summer, you know the Miller boy would never trade in . . . well, whatever those are.” She waves a hand at the neverapples, piled high in an old bucket near the sink.

“Right,” I scoff. “Cal and his family have no problem stealing the pallets of aid sent from the other side and then selling them on the black market, but handling goods from Everwilde are way beyond their moral code.”

More like, they have to keep up appearances. The Fae have grown popular in the big cities outside the borderlands. And why not? They have the money, magic, and influence to hire huge PR firms and throw lavish benefits for us: the humans caught in a no-man’s land they swear is still tainted by magic.

While we’re unable to leave this little slice of hell on earth, the Fae have influenced their way into every echelon of society on the other side. But here, where we see their evil up close and feel the sting of their crimes, they’re reviled.

“So, did Cal say anything when he delivered all this?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant.

Aunt Zinnia tugs at the fuzzy strings of her robe. “Only that you would know how to repay him.”

The thought turns my stomach. Owing Cal is nearly as bad as being bound to the Evermore. At least once I’m there, I’ll be out of Cal’s reach.

Cal Miller has had a crush on me since ninth grade. He’s a walking, muscled-up cliché. The high school quarterback, prom king, and eldest son to the wealthiest family in town, he’s had everything in life handed to him.

Everything but me.

I had no idea he liked me. Not until he shoved his tongue down my throat after gym class.

I wasn’t the first girl he’s swapped spit with, but I was the first one who turned him down. That’s before I understood that guys like Cal Miller don’t get rejected.

At least, not by “orphan girls named Summer Solstice, who shop at goodwill and whose boobs aren’t even that big.”

His words, not mine. He said them right before pushing me against my locker and trying to touch said boobs.

So I informed him of the other rule. The one that states don’t-effing-touch-me-without permission. A well-timed knee to his man onions followed up by a right hook to his thick jaw made that clear.

Or should have. But some guys have rocks where their brain’s supposed to go, and his obsession has only gotten stronger.

No more Cal, I think as I lug one of the blue gallon water jugs over to the pantry. Silver linings, Summer. Focus on the silver linings.

The kids gather around the bar countertop, helping prep the influx of goods. Cal and his guards must have gotten lucky hunting because there’s fresh meat, too, although I don’t dare ask what kind.

Between that, the stolen goods, and the neverapples, we’re looking at three full meals a day for weeks.

“So,” Aunt Zinnia persists. “Are you going to tell me where they came from, Summer Solstice, or should we wait for Vi to come make a ruckus?”

“Near the Shimmer,” I admit, averting my gaze.

Not a lie; I just don’t specify which side.

Aunt Zinnia snaps her head up. “Darling, what have I said about going near that place? What if there are darklings roaming the woods? Or, worse. Faeries?”

“The sightings are overblown,” I assure her. “No one has seen a darkling or a Fae around here in months.”

No one but me. But he was on the other side, so it still counts.

The others are watching me, especially Jane. Her hazel eyes narrow, but she just keeps rolling the bright red strips of meat into the seasoning. Too smart for her own good, that one. At one point, Chatty Cat pads over to where she works, watches her for a moment, then tries to snag one of the strips of meat.

Jane hisses at him—hisses, for Fae’s sake—sending Chatty Cat to skulk in the corner.

Yep, they’re going to get along gloriously.

Aunt Violet comes bursting in the front door, the hem of her lilac-printed duster she wears over her jeans and camisole nipping at her cowgirl boots.

Compared to her sister, she’s tall and lean, all angles and ropy muscle, her face worn from years beneath an unforgiving sun. She wears her gray hair in a practical braid that snakes to her mid-back.

“What’s this?” she asks in her sharp, no-nonsense voice. She smells of feed and hay from her job at the feed store. I still can’t understand why she continues showing up to work. Money is nearly worthless, and a month’s wages could barely cover a package of toilet-paper.

“Summer brought home a feast, that’s what,” Aunt Zinnia calls in her sing-song voice, totally omitting the part about Cal or the neverapples. “Now get down here and help me, Vi.”

Aunt Violet breezes into the kitchen. “I was talking about that furry beast shredding my silk drapes . . .”

Her words abruptly cut off as her gaze finds the neverapples, piled high in an old bucket near the sink.

“What are those?” she demands, eyes wide with terror, as if I’d brought home the heads of my enemies instead of perfectly ripe fruit.

“Summer found them near the border,” Aunt Zinnia explains, shooting me an I’ll-handle-this look.

Aunt Violet’s light brown eyes darken to coffee with a dash of cream. “You know how I feel about anything related to them in our house.”

Aunt Zinnia pauses from cutting perfect little squares of cornbread. “Oh, Violet. Can’t we make an exception?”

“I looked neverapples up,” I offer carefully. “They’re safe.”

Aunt Violet pinches the bridge of her hawkish nose and gives me one of her famous stares. “If they’re not of this world, I refuse to keep them in my house.”

“Please, Aunt Violet. I’ve already promised everyone an apple tonight.”

Her lips press together, causing the lines around her mouth to deepen. “Summer, you know the rules of living here. Nothing from those creatures inside my house.”

Her hard gaze flicks to the portrait in the living room above the dusty beige couch. A family wearing denim and shiny boots smiles against a white background. It’s the kind of picture done at a department store, but that does nothing to cheapen the emotion I feel whenever I stare at the family she lost. Two strapping teenage boys and a husband.

I only lost my parents, and sometimes that grief is enough to swallow me whole. I can’t imagine children. What it would feel like to have them stripped away one day without a trace.

Aunt Violet strides into the pantry where she keeps the secret stash of cigarettes she doesn’t know I know about. As soon as she disappears somewhere on the back porch, the jar of moonshine she hoards clutched beneath her arm, Aunt Zinnia takes me aside.

“Don’t you worry,” she says. “Vi will come around. No reason to waste precious fruit such as this, even if it does come from . . . them. Now get washed up. You’ve done enough for today, Summer.”

My throat aches as I imagine not seeing Aunt Zinnia again. Will she hate me for leaving without saying goodbye? If only I could talk to her, tell her what happened. I rub my arm, the mark embedded in my flesh aching.

Midnight. When the moon crests the ridge. I have roughly five hours until my life ends.

My secret bubbles up my throat, begging for release. But if I told Aunt Zinnia, she would never let me leave. The scars from losing her family, while not as visible as Aunt Violet’s, run just as deep.

She would fight like a lioness for me.

I can’t let that happen. The Fae’s warning not to make him wait replays in my head, and I know I’m making the right choice.

Aunt Zinnia will be hurt, but she’ll live. That’s more than can be said for me.

6

I cross the peeling linoleum floor and inspect the neverapples. According to the few articles I could find before our internet crapped out, one bite of the golden fruit has more vitamins than a serving of spinach.

More importantly, they replenish themselves. You eat the apple, set the core on the windowsill at night, and in the morning it’s good as new.

Magic is so cool.

One apple a day, plus anything Jane can find from the traps I have set up around the land, and they might be okay. Upstairs is a scribbled list of instructions on everything they’ll need to know when I’m gone.

I hope it’s enough. It has to be.

The back screen door slams shut as Aunt Violet reappears, the tinny smell of smoke clinging to her. The furrows trenched across her weathered forehead have softened, and she quietly makes herself some sweet tea, her spoon tinkling against the glass.