They wander into the center of town, past the grocery and First Methodist, toward the central square. The air is livelier today than it’s been in what feels like forever. Two cars idle at the intersection, waiting for the light to change. The marching band must be practicing on the field because horns bleat in the distant air. Is it a school day? Her sense of time is measured in harvests lately, not weeks, and this harvest has been endless.

  Lil spares a moment of guilt for the pecans she hasn’t picked yet this morning, for the half day of work she’d done the day before. She’ll rise early and play catchup tomorrow.

  “So, volunteers. We’ll need the firemen to build stalls before the festival and on extra shifts during. Plus, the kids always loved seeing a truck at the square,” Lil says, passing the clipboard back. “Better hope they still like you over there.”

  “Everybody likes me. Or at least they do when they don’t think I’m calling them out to fake fires,” Jason replies, cutting her an amused look. “Do they like you over there?”

  Lil offers a poison-apple smirk. “You’d be impressed by how many friends I’ve made.” Not that she’s had a long-term lover since Jason. The orchard will always come first for her, and in the years since he left, the work has only grown, the margins only shrunk. Still. Let him imagine what he wants.

  Jason shakes his head, some of the amusement cut short at the suggestion. The heat from him doesn’t dissipate.

  The firehouse is a converted Main Street mansion; the most notable outside change is a set of truck-sized doors gouged out of the back. It’s especially fresh-faced today, pale blue with a saucy red door, sprawling porch, and gables bordered with white, like lace from a bride’s hope chest. Jason softens at the sight of it. Back when it was his kingdom, his twenty-four-hour shifts left the two of them as parched as drought-stricken grass for each other. Their reunions were an inevitable blaze. Every time.

  Warm, Lil palms the back of her neck.

  The crew today is small, and they gather to shake Jason’s hand. It’s like he never left. It’s like Lil has fallen back in time.

  “Not another prank fire, right, Finch?” Cesar says to Jason, offering Lil a conspiratorial smile.

  “Much better,” Lil replies, sweet as sugar, before Jason can start beating his chest. “An opportunity.”

  It goes well. Headily so. They get five volunteers for construction right off the bat, and that’s before Jason launches into a soliloquy about duty. By the time they leave, their volunteer setup team is secured.

  The day is beautiful. It’s a perfect Southern fall: the final remnants of summer heat that won’t let go mixed with changing leaves. And above them shines the crystalline sky that only happens in autumn.

  For once, there’s a light on behind the blue shutters of their squat, ivy-drenched library. So they catch Freddie next, the library’s wisp of a keeper. He’s stacking books in a cart labeled DONATIONS at his desk. He instantly volunteers to organize the book fair.

  “I want to do this kind of outreach. I keep seeing new kids in here, and so many of them look uncared-for,” he says, cradling a copy of The Shining like a baby. “Do you know, I don’t think their parents are bringing them. It’s like they’re coming alone.” Freddie was such a worrier, but Lil and Sasha used to walk to the library alone as kids. Mom made them hold hands the entire time.

  They’ve barely stepped outside when they’re flagged down by a couple of rotary club members who haunt the courthouse steps. The elders of town love Jason—think he’s a promising young man—and they shower him with questions, ideas, and dreams for the Pecan Festival. He tries to keep careful note of each and every suggestion while maintaining eye contact and his sunny smile, even when Millie Preston reaches over with a skeletal hand and actually pinches his cheek.

  “Let me offer some starting funds,” warbles Cork, a widower known for wandering too late at night, wrestling two dollars from his wrinkled wallet. Jason starts to take it, but he hands it to Lil. “For you, young lady. No offense, young man, but she’s got the better head on her shoulders.”

  They steal into the alley behind the library. Someone needs to empty the dumpsters; the air is thick with rotting meat. And yet, leaning on the brick, Lil meets Jason’s eye and they both burst out laughing.

  “She’s got the better head on her shoulders,” Jason intones. “I can’t—he isn’t even wrong.” Lil can’t remember a day as golden as this one for months. A day when the ache in her back isn’t all she feels. A day when what she’s trying to fix—a fence, a pecan shaker, a familial bond—doesn’t resist with all its might. Lil never backs down from a fight; she and Jason would never have survived as long as they did if she didn’t like to fight a little. But she’s been fighting so long.

  Lil catches her breath and suddenly, her laughter begins to turn. Tears. Even though she’s so happy—she catches herself, a hand over her mouth.

  “What is it?” Jason asks. He leans close to her.

  “Nothing,” she murmurs against her palm. Her eyes are full and she’s smiling all at once. What is wrong with her? What is happening in her body? Hope isn’t gentle, but a wild, powerful invader. “I just—I needed this.” She takes a breath. A roach skitters between their feet, into the shadows. “I needed…this.”

  Jason sways into her space, eyes consuming her. Intense…and a little curious.

  “What?” Lil asks.

  Jason is wild-animal taut, eyes starved. Clumsily, like he doesn’t know how to be gentle, he touches just under her eye. But there’s nothing to feel. She hasn’t actually shed tears. She isn’t that far gone.

  “Never seen someone laugh-cry before?” she prompts when he doesn’t respond.

  “Huh,” he says. “I guess not. Lilith.” He rarely used her full name in the old days. Only when the lights were low, his hands were on her, and he wanted her to beg. Those eyes like oil. Dark. Ready to catch fire.

  Lil thrums with all the violent power of flint and stone, of lighters, of a match. There’s work to do. She steps back. But she’ll leave a bookmark nestled at this exact page. “Thank you. For helping. I know you probably can’t stay until the festival, but—”

  “Don’t worry about that.” He catches her free hand, sunny as ever. “I’ll be here.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Autumn wakes in bed and watches Sasha’s sleep-serene face, the gentle parting of her lips. As quietly as she can, she slips from beneath the covers and tugs her socks on. She’s particularly gentle with her injured ankle. This morning there’s a chilly bite to the air.

  Sasha flops over, easily sprawling to cover the whole space. But when Autumn looks back, her eyes are open, one hand stretched for her. “I didn’t say you could leave,” she complains, the visible hazel eye almost golden, like the exposed sheen of an acorn.

  “Sorry, lots of baking to do. I have A Plan,” Autumn explains, scavenging through Sasha’s drawers for a sweater. The one she finds is a little mothy and much too big. But it’s so soft, and it smells like home. She dons it like armor to combat the shard of fear from her ordeal yesterday, which hasn’t totally left her. Its urgency has followed her into the new day.

  Sasha grumbles into her pillow. “Why?”

  Autumn chuckles and relents, returning to pounce on the mound of Sasha and linen covers. She props herself up, peering over her shoulder. “Come with me and see.”

  “Well…” Long fingers brush just once through her hair. “Hold your horses. Let me check those bandages first.” Letting Sasha care for her has never been a hardship. So Autumn sits back down to let her do it.

  Later on, both dressed and Autumn’s ankle rebandaged, a tousled and yawning Sasha accompanies her to the bakery, shooting worried looks at the way she’s limping. But it’s just sore; no real structural damage.

  Sasha mans the counter and the espresso machine while Autumn gets to work. It looks, bizarrely, like they might actually have some customers in, so Autumn whips out some easy crowd-pleasers to get them started—chocolate chunk cookies, her quickest cinnamon coffee cake, an herb-loaded focaccia with cheddar sprinkles. A few of the essentials are prepped and waiting for the oven, so it isn’t long before they have the doors open for this surprise Saturday crowd. She loves it, she really does, but of course people are coming the one day she doesn’t want them, the one day she doesn’t truly want to be open.

  Sure enough, every time she pokes her head out into the storefront, Sasha is chatting with someone, effortlessly managing the register and running the place like it’s her own. She’s a natural. Though, by the sounds of it, and the messages Sasha flipped through on that ancient Clearwater answering machine before they left, Sasha’s actually been sort of running the town for a while now. While her customer-facing baking fills the building—and the block—with enticing layers of aroma (puff pastry, apple cinnamon, roasting garlic), Autumn gets busy with what she actually came here for today.

  Oatmeal cookies. Sausage rolls. Many sausage rolls. Hearty seedy breads and fruit, dried and dehydrated in the sun. Honey cake, which could cure all ills. Autumn whips up a special survivalist storm, not just her best food but the things most packed with nutrition: oats, grains, protein, and vitamins anywhere she can.

  Because she’s not giving up.

  Even with cool fall air drifting in the open door, Autumn dabs sweat from her brow as she kneads dough.

  “So you wanted one of these amazing brookies, two perfect scones, and two coffees? Great…” Sasha’s voice drifts back to her from the front. She probably gets fantastic tips at whatever shift she was covering. Even in all her years outside this town, Autumn has never seen a face quite like Sasha’s. With the warm tan of her skin, her pouting mouth, those pale golden eyes, she looks like some kind of Greco-Roman river spirit, a nymph brushing her hair on a bank. She’s the taller sister, both of them more powerful than thin in build. Of course, both of them have a stark, raw beauty. Forces of nature.

  In her youth, Sasha got so sick of hearing about her looks from the geriatric population of the town that she’s now almost allergic to compliments. People are used to Sasha here, and something about her relationship with this place, with Sasha being quietly but stubbornly gay and not running the land she half owns, means she is often ducking into the background, her head down, trying to assure the world that there’s nothing to see—but there’s no doubt she must have turned heads those years she was in New York. If she’d had any interest in modeling, she would’ve been snatched up in a second, but Sasha always preferred to be the eye, happiest behind the camera.

  Maybe that’s why she likes Autumn, because Autumn never cared about her last name, the novelty of her being a twin, or even her beauty quite as much as she cared about her. The things she said. The way she laughed. How she could feel the world so deeply but wear her cares so loosely. Autumn never wanted anything from her, only more time.

  Autumn dodged Sasha’s question about the special brownie night—hypocritically, since she’d technically been the one to bring it up. In a moment of brandy-soaked bravado, she bulldozed her way into that forbidden territory. The night. The fireflies, the stir of heat in Autumn’s stomach, the young confused fumble with Sasha out of the safe realm of friendship. They’d never been more than a step away from the boundaries.

  It’s been uncountable years. Out there in the world beyond town, Autumn has talked it through with friends, with partners, unpacked it many times over in her own head. So Autumn believed she was ready to talk about it with Sasha—only to open her mouth and be tongue-tied. Maybe it’s just what Matt calls the Homecoming Effect. Truths that are accepted, even celebrated out in the world, can choke you in the town of your birth.

  It’s like, I’m at my parents’, and they know I’m gay, but suddenly, I get the urge to make up a fake girlfriend. Just in case. Like an insurance policy, he once said morosely after Christmas.

  She sighs, driving her foolish knuckles into the dough. Maybe in a century, they can talk.

  After Sasha sells the last slice of quiche and all the snickerdoodles—besides the one hanging from her mouth—she starts to close. She hasn’t badgered Autumn, hasn’t asked what she’s doing back there. Sasha isn’t one to emotionally crowd; she probably senses that Autumn is working through what happened in her own way. She’s sweeping when Autumn appears with the two heavy baskets, their insides lined with water bottles and all the things she made, many of her creations still warm.

  Sasha glances up from the floor and immediately shakes her head. “No. No way.”

  “Yes. Yes way,” Autumn replies. “You don’t have to come, but I’m going.”

  Sasha groans, leaning the broom against the wall. “I knew you were going to say that.”

  ***

  This time, they stay out of the woods, walking along the highway, then cutting toward the railroad on one of the dirt roads between properties. They’d follow the tracks and…hope for the best.

  Sasha chivalrously hefts both baskets, leaving Autumn the job of carrying herself. It’s slow going with the ankle, but it’s lucky there wasn’t a sprain. It’s late afternoon now, and the day feels changeable, a weather system making the air charged and heavy. Though it was sunny and open in town, now they trip along beneath a low sky. It’s very quiet out here, and Autumn finds herself avoiding the clang of her feet on the tracks, in favor of the soft ground between them.

  “I don’t know his name,” Autumn murmurs. “We could…call out?”

  “Um—forest children,” Sasha shouts, her voice cracking. She clears her throat and gives it another try. “Little masked monster, where are you?”

  They both wince. Breaking the silence feels wrong.

  Nothing to do but continue to trudge forward, counting the rivets in the railroad tracks. After a couple of hours, they’re several miles from town and may as well be a hundred. Nothing stirs in the tired landscape, the ground a mix of hard dirt and trash, rusted beer cans and fifty-year-old tires.

  The pain in her leg is getting harder and harder to ignore, and sweat runs freely down Autumn’s back. Finally, she relents. “Let’s just sit a minute?” she suggests, unable to mask the fatigue in her voice.

  Sasha lays down the baskets, then offers Autumn her hand, easing her gently onto the pine needles. Then she sits, throwing her legs out over the ground. “Good thing we wore long pants,” she says. “We’d be eaten alive out here by creepy crawlies.” There’s no judgment in her tone, no frustration. Sasha is relaxed. She’s not an I-told-you-so type. They’ll walk as far as Autumn wishes, and then Sasha would probably give her a ride home on her back.

  She picks up a cluster of pine needles and peels them away from each other with her long fingers. “Lil and I are in a fight,” she admits, eyes down.

  “Uh-oh.” Autumn digs around for one of the water bottles for them to share. It is never good news when the Clearwaters are on the outs. They often bicker, but it isn’t so often they go days in conflict. At least, that’s how Autumn remembers it. “What about?”

  “Honestly?” Sasha’s brow is furrowed as she tosses one of the pine needles over her shoulder. “I think it was about me being jealous of Jason. Again.” She doesn’t look over, her voice low and embarrassed.

  Autumn waits. With Sasha, it’s better to hold the silence for her as she gets the thoughts out. Sometimes it takes a little while.

  Sure enough, Sasha goes on. “I know Lil loves me. I do. But I don’t think she really…likes me very much?” It is a tremulous confession, and Autumn brushes a hand across the wings of her shoulder blades.

  “She did when we were kids. But ever since she moved out of our room and started spending every second out in the orchard, I don’t know how I fit here.” She snorts. “Which made living in New York a huge relief, actually.”

  “I bet it was a relief for a lot of reasons,” Autumn murmurs. They haven’t directly addressed Sasha’s sexuality since Autumn’s return, but it’s been openly understood between them since Sasha told Autumn about her first girlfriend on a spring break from college. The same isn’t exactly true in the other direction; Autumn has never told Sasha everything about herself. Eventually, things unsaid build up. Autumn has quite a pile of things she hasn’t told Sasha.

  “It was.” Sasha glances at her. “But when I came back and the situation was so bad here, with the orchard, with losing Mom, I stayed. I thought we’d be closer. But we aren’t, and now Jason is back and immediately he’s the one she confides in.” She stabs the end of a pine needle into the knee of her baggy jeans until it breaks. “She just—likes him more than me. Even if she thinks she doesn’t love him anymore.”

  The hair on the back of Autumn’s neck begins to rise. She knows this feeling: curious eyes hidden in the trees. They aren’t alone anymore. “You’re her twin,” Autumn points out gently. “You’re two halves of one biscuit.”

  Sasha smiles faintly at that, then grimaces. “I wish I had a biscuit right now. I’m starving.”

  Autumn sighs, waves of mingled disappointment and relief hitting her at Sasha’s redirect. The topic is closed, for now at least. Autumn darts a glance toward the dense greenery of the woods only a few yards away. “I think he’s watching us.”

  “Really?” Sasha asks quietly.

  Autumn nods. There’s a patch of shadow in the corner of her eye.

  “Hey, if you’re there, come on out,” Sasha calls, her voice very gentle. “It’s okay. We brought you some more food.”

  Silence, not quite the same silence they’ve been disrupting this whole time. A held-breath silence. Rustling. They share a hopeful look. But then it quiets again.