By any measure, on any fucked-up timeline, it’s been a long time since anyone has been out here. The land in this direction is soggy, half swamp as they get closer to the grassy creek, the rainbow cypress knees jutting out from the low water. It’s nearly sunset, the tree line crowned with a tangerine glow. Their despondent day is breathing its last gasp, and no one has noticed their absence.

  The orchard house is away behind them, Lil and Wyn quietly at work on a five-hundred-piece Donald Duck puzzle Sasha found under the twin beds. Somewhere, too, the Pecan Festival is churring on without them, by the sound of it, a slightly discordant carnival tune jangling out over the woods. Cork is probably still loyally watching Autumn’s stand for her.

  Sasha stops at the sodden waterline of the creek, giving a hulking half-dead tree a critical once-over. Autumn pushes her hands in her pockets and follows her gaze.

  “The rope ladder is busted up,” Sasha says, frowning. “I’ll have to give you a boost to the higher rungs…” Autumn only stares. She sees the shape of the pieces, how they must fit together, but she can’t quite muster her courage to—“You game?” Sasha adds.

  Autumn looks at Sasha, caught in her honeyed eyes, and back at the sloping ruin of their tree house overhead. Even sunset’s light isn’t doing this place many favors. The smell of mildew and cypress drags hard at Autumn’s memory. She is eighteen again, her feelings unsullied by time and distance.

  “Thank you, tall woman, on behalf of all shorter women,” she says and steps up to the tree. “Go on.”

  Sasha cups her hands and hoists Autumn up to where the hairy ropes are still intact. She grapples her way up from there, on a ladder that trembles and bucks but doesn’t give. She hoists herself onto that uneven platform and scoots back to give Sasha room. Autumn half expects to see a discarded brownie tin covered in leaves in the corner, or a crumpled can of TaB. Some ghost of the girls they’d been.

  It certainly can’t be safe up here. It was barely safe when Autumn first found it in the 1970s or when they were acting a fool up here in the ’80s. The platform has soured, darkened with rot on the far end that jags out over the water. The safety railing has a big crack that never used to be there. But the tree itself is strong and accommodating, the branches growing around the tree house, forming a sturdy cradle for what’s left of their refuge. Overhead, the canopy is resplendent, despite the many bald spots that have begun to show as leaves fall. The view is the same. Water wending away toward the river and copse of trees. Distant dots of houses on the ridge.

  Autumn hears Sasha make the leap for the ladder; then she scrabbles into view. At the last second, there’s an awful snap! as one side of the rope ladder gives way. Sasha seizes the fraying knot and swings up into the tree house, gasping. “Well, we live here now,” she pants, giving Autumn a windswept grin.

  “We’re too old for this,” Autumn jokes. She rests her back against the trunk of the tree, where it presses against her spine. What would it be like if she found some key to twist to send them back to simpler times? When they could laugh and tease and while away whole days as sweet as cake, when they could look at each other, flush, and blame the innocent cold. When she could relax, knowing that just a short walk down neighborly streets, she’d find Mom and Dad, shouting to each other across their little house about what to make for dinner. A part of her has been restless since they passed.

  They sit in an idle silence for a while, catching their breath. The old composition is resumed. Now is when the deck of cards appears from a sleeve, or the gas station comic book, a portable radio, or the latest seventh-period gossip. Except Sasha is quiet, thumbs running over, under one another.

  Autumn is aware of the warm balm of her eyes on her.

  Crickets. A breeze turning chill.

  “Autumn,” Sasha says at last, after far too long, when the silence should be impenetrable and night is on the welcome mat. “I have to speak. I mean—I need to say something.”

  “Okay,” Autumn says. Her voice sounds sudden and high-pitched. “Sure. Go on—” She’s rambling. She stops, catches her breath. Waits.

  Sasha seems caught off guard by the invitation, as if that was as much as she’d planned. She huffs out a breath and adjusts from one casual position to another.

  “Look,” she begins—but there’s nothing to look at in the swiftly falling darkness. “I mean, didn’t you see? Everyone else saw everything!” She’s restless. “And now I’m thirty or almost sixty and having to figure out how to explain this thing that everyone knows and that I thought you didn’t want and I had to just…get over.” She swallows. “For a long time. You never noticed or—didn’t care?”

  Sasha swipes at her hair. “But now it’s the end of the world, and I’m just sick to death of trying not to look like an idiot in front of you. I tried to preserve this friendship for too long.” She sits up to glare at Autumn. Sasha straightening up in the tiny space is enough to bring them very close together. “We may live in hell, but the Pecan Ball is happening on the riverboat and I’d like you to go out with me.” She pauses. “Romantically. On a date. A lesbian date.” She pauses again. “With me.”

  Autumn’s ears fail her. She can’t hear anything beyond the stutter of her own lungs. Sasha has spun sentences out of thin air that change everything, a spoken-word riot of color and possibility.

  But there’s one thread that snags her, holds her fast. “I—I cared,” she stammers. “Oh god, I always cared. So much. You don’t know how I’ve thought about you, obsessed about you—Sasha—” Autumn scrambles into her space. Her fingers want the edge of her jaw, the soft curve of her neck, to be buried under her hair. She doesn’t know where to grasp so instead, she finds her hands. “Yes, please. Please, yes.”

  Last time, a lifetime ago, here in this same space, Sasha kissed her. But she may have spent her share of courage, and whatever is left should be saved, because outside of their tree house…their world still has teeth. So Autumn inches closer, gives in to the urge, and touches Sasha’s face, tilts it toward her. This time, she kisses Sasha.

  It’s a tentative touch, and for a moment, Sasha is stiff, tense from grand declarations and nerves and exhaustion. But Autumn gives her a chance to catch up, and Sasha warms, easing into her. There’s something familiar in this, but also new. They’ve both lived a lot since that first on-purpose accident they crafted together here during that last summer. How have they concocted this second chance? Sasha winds around Autumn, tipping her gently off balance so they’re flush on the splintery tree house platform.

  They explore. It feels easy, dreamy, high. And then, with a sudden roar of heat, intense. Breath catches in little stairstep hitches. Hasty, impatient, Sasha shrugs free of her shirt, and Autumn presses flush with her, her fingertips running hard down her back. She catches the clasp of Sasha’s bra to toss it up into the branches of the tree. Autumn’s sweater is soft and heavy, and Sasha nuzzles the bare skin beneath it, making her gasp. They roll, and someone, one of them, shrieks, because they’d almost toppled from the tree but for a well-placed knee. There will be bruises. A lower lip drags over exposed flesh, sending tremors up two spines. Sasha’s hand is buried in her own hair as she moans, and Autumn watches devilishly, hungry, urging them farther, faster. She has three decades of desire to spend, of experiences to share—because they waited too long already. Damp leaves prickle under her back, the tickle of pine needles. Sasha touching her. In the wake of that fluttery schoolgirl anxiety, there comes the steady slow burn, and the glow of safety, utter belonging, that Autumn remembers.

  And the space is rough and damp, but no cold can touch them as they tangle together, with not even birds to overhear.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lil hasn’t seen Sasha like this for a long time. Sasha is usually well-veiled, concealed beneath her humor, the casual drape of her facade. Now there’s something irrepressible in her, a hope busting through her seams.

  Autumn and Sasha returned from their walk together holding hands, declaring that they were going to the party—if Lil didn’t mind babysitting, of course. Lil’s idea of a good time is certainly not the festival’s party on the riverboat, surrounded by people who don’t know the frightening truth. But she empathizes a little with why they’re happy to have found a spot of joy in their wasteland. Why they want to spend their frozen time with each other.

  Yeah, of course, she says. Take all night if you want. Just be safe.

  No one in town called today to ask where the Clearwater girls have been. No one’s called at all.

  Jason hasn’t called.

  The past days have left her burned, and she can’t think of a single thing to do to fix it. Going to Honeysuckle House accomplished nothing. Going to town to look for help was even worse. Lil’s fear, her anger, her grief, they’re overwhelming her. But at least Sasha and Autumn can have one night to be happy. In order to make that happen, Lil would sacrifice much more than one evening to babysitting. Besides, Wyn is a pretty interesting child.

  She catches Sasha in her room getting ready and leans in the doorway. Down the hall, Autumn and Wyn are in their room, Autumn’s laugh bursting out here and there.

  “That’s a good color on you,” she offers.

  Sasha has delved into some of her clothes from New York, from those moldering boxes in her closet, that don’t quite fit in in town. She’s wearing a tailored suit in emerald velvet. The long jacket is slung over her arm as she stands in her shirtsleeves and stares out over the dark yard. She turns to give Lil a rueful smile. “I know this is kind of a strange time for this,” she admits, drawing closer. Lil can follow the bow of her dark brown lip liner. There’s a bolo tie at her throat, clasped with one of Mom’s broaches—an amber tiger’s eye. “But, you know, there’s never really a good time, or much space for—for us.” She sounds a little apologetic nonetheless. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Lil crosses the room, fiddling with the tie even though it’s perfect. “This is a good thing.” In another life, she and Jason would have been the queen and king of the Pecan Ball. She would have worn that slippery lavender dress and a spritz of her best perfume. Surrounded by lights and happy, tipsy people, she would have danced with him. They’d have been the last to leave, the Clearwaters and their dates. But that won’t happen. Jason isn’t here. She can’t even voice the horrible idea that’s begun to creep into her head, heavy the way only truth is, that maybe—no. She can’t. “Seems like nothing here has been real. For a while. You deserve something real,” she says instead.

  Sasha steps in, wrapping her arms around her. They’re two halves, together, a complete whole. “This is real,” she promises, against Lil’s ear. “Us. And the orchard. We’ll figure this out. I swear.”

  Lil nods against her shoulder. There’s the creak of footfalls in the hallway behind her.

  They pull apart to see Autumn. With the help of a couple of safety pins at the bodice, Lil’s old dress from junior homecoming fits her well: off-the-shoulders mauve satin with ruffled sleeves. It’s distinctly out of time, but she’s charming with her sneakers, a wide grin, and her eyes falling full and awed on Sasha.

  “Hi,” she says, without looking away from her. “Here to pick up my date.”

  Sasha skids across to her in sock feet, grinning all over. She leans in the doorway to say something to her, very quietly, but Lil hears it anyway: “You’re kind of perfect, you know that?” Autumn tilts into Sasha’s space like she’s a gravitational center.

  “Go on then,” Lil says. “I’ve got Wyn. And everyone will be lining up for the boat by now.”

  “Thanks, seriously,” Autumn says, sobering a little and glancing at Lil. “We’ll try not to be out too late.”

  Sasha shrugs noncommittally. Her smile is a little roguish. “Well, time is fake, so…”

  They go downstairs, where Wyn is stirring the Rice Krispie blob he and Lil have been putting together. He looks up at them for a moment, but he’s busy with his project, which is best. He seems to do pretty well with tasks, little steps to focus on, to keep his mind calm.

  Sasha takes the truck keys from the peg and steps outside, waving to Lil from the porch.

  She watches the truck trundle down the dark rows of trees until they reach the fence and the turn off to the road. Lil flips the porch light on to illuminate their way back and returns to the house.

  ***

  The night deepens, but Lil and Wyn are both too alert to sleep. He’s kept night-owl hours his whole life, knowing the dangers that come out in the dark, so she hasn’t the heart to send him to bed. Instead, they retreat to the kitchen, where they’ll be able to see the moment the front door opens—maybe Autumn’s return will allow him to drop his guard and rest. Lil teaches him to play Go Fish with their battered old deck, some novelty thing with oversized cards and colorful cartoon fish. Some are stained with indefinite substances, but Wyn stares at them with deep concentration.

  “You have—um—do you have—seven,” he asks.

  Lil hands over her sevens. “You’re getting good at this, kid.”

  He offers a small smile, just a slip of his gap teeth.

  Her mind will drift to Sasha and Autumn if she doesn’t distract herself. It takes her whole stubborn will to ignore the dark premonition that anyone who steps foot outside the Clearwater orchard will be gone like they never existed.

  “Sixes,” Lil calls. With that same tiny smile, he shakes his head. Lucky the kid knows how to count. Neel taught him, he’d explained and then gone very quiet.

  Wyn knows the secret darkness she has been blind to. Lil wishes she could ask about it. Something like: Do you think people can just disappear here?

  Waking up alone in an ashy relic of a house has altered something in her. Some anxious piece of herself is unbound now, whispering warnings in her head. But any insight he could give her isn’t worth how it would further terrorize him to relive it.

  “Do you want more hot chocolate?” she offers instead. “I’ve got—”

  Beyond her, beyond the house, beyond the trees, she feels the heavy tread of footsteps. She’s always felt it on some level. When she’d wake in the night disturbed, or look out the window just before a car flashed past. When she’d feel eyes on her neck and turn to see him haunting her gate. Someone is approaching. That sensation heavy in her ribs is the oily press of an unwelcome presence at the boundaries of her land.

  Lil stands and lays her cards as calmly as she can on the table. “Wyn, I’m going to step outside for a couple of minutes,” she says. He stares up at her with narrowed eyes. He is not a tender child and is not fooled. “Stay here,” she adds, a plea in it. “I’ll be right back.”

  Lil steps into her boots and casts a look over her shoulder to make sure he’s staying put. He’s perched on the edge of the couch, watching her. “I’ll be right back,” she promises again and grabs the old fireplace poker she left by the door. Just in case.

  Out in the night, the trees rage, a gust of leaves slapping against her as she strides down the road toward the gate. And standing outside the barrier, he waits, shrouded in shadow.

  Lil refuses to be goaded into shouting. She keeps her pace, steady and unrelenting, and keeps her silence too.

  Theon shows up in pieces: the white of his wrinkled shirt, the glint of eyes in the darkness, the sharp cut of his jaw. He isn’t smiling this time. One hand stays in his pocket. On anyone else, it would look relaxed, but she sees the heart of him. He is never relaxed. He is a coyote sleeping with one eye open in tall grass, ready to break a deer’s heel in his jaws.

  She stops within arm’s reach of the gate. Lets him look, taking in her expression, her weapon.

  “You can’t come in,” Lil says with no small sense of satisfaction; the wind flares against her back. “You aren’t welcome here.”

  His mouth twitches. “I just want to talk.”

  All of her instincts rear. She wants to rebuff him, bowl him over with her refusals if she can. But she won’t. She knows better now. In a way, he must love the fight as much as she does. As Jason does. What else could be keeping him here? “So talk,” Lil says.

  Theon’s expression softens. Maybe he’s confused.

  “Well?” Lil prompts. She forces herself to stay calm. In her mind, she is as cool and still as the pond in its peace.

  “Every time I try, you leave.” He watches her every breath.

  “You’ve got permission. Talk. This is your only chance.”

  Theon is too still today, she realizes again, too still and too proud. He isn’t standing in his usual lazy slouch. “You don’t like me. But this isn’t what you think. There’s a lot I can explain to you.”

  When she doesn’t respond, Theon leans forward, something like hope in his eyes. “I’m not what you think I am. When I came here, I knew this place, your place, was special. I thought…it doesn’t matter what I thought would happen. But I changed.” His face transforms, and flicker of passion and righteous—

  Lil blinks.

  For a single moment, she thought she saw—but no. Theon is back to normal. He is himself again, the familiar face she’s come to dread. But the whispered warning in the back of her mind is beginning to rise.

  “I changed, Lil. Because of you.” He grips the fence with both hands, eyes wide and pleading. “So many years, so many cycles of this, this same old story with you,” Theon continues.

  A flash: his dark hair changes. It burns blond.

  “I’ve been everywhere. I could tell you everything—” His mouth is suddenly plush and loved. Then it is Theon’s again. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

  Lil sees, even if she can’t comprehend. But she can’t deny it.

  She’s incapacitated with horror that is quickly congealing into grief. She can’t even hear his words. They don’t matter. Because Theon is changing. He is flickering like a burning-out light bulb. With each awful flicker, each impassioned word—there, hateful eyes turn to eyes that smolder in her dreams—he doesn’t notice it. He doesn’t know what he’s showing her, clear and damning as a death knell.