“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.