It’s just like old times. Lil and Sasha haul empty gallon baskets out to set at intervals along the trees and get to work picking through the husks on the ground. There’s no need to bargain with the finicky old shaker today, or even break out the cane poles to rattle the treetops. Pecans fall plentiful enough to the ground. While the daily rigors are old hand to Lil, Sasha folds right back into the rhythm of it. They learned the land young, climbing trees, napping in their shaded branches, the chalky smell of pecan blossoms all around. The orchard’s care isn’t the kind of thing you forget, not after doing it for eighteen years straight. Together, they clear a section of the Elliots—good small pecans that are perfect for baking.
“Maybe a nice gift for Autumn,” Lil suggests. “At this size, they’re perfect for pies. Barely even need to be chopped.”
“Good idea,” Sasha says breezily, shading her eyes. “Hopefully all the baking for the festival will be a nice change of pace for her.”
The worst of the work is simply bending, over and over again. It used to be easier as children, Lil thinks. Closer to the ground. Bones like rubber. Easy to bend and bounce back, all day long. Mom used to send them out in matching coats and boots, and would tell them to stay on one tree at a time and not to leave her sight. Lil and Sasha rarely listened; the world was too big and exciting, so they were prone to wandering off, playing witches in the barn, or cats in the brambles, or lost girls among the trees, gathering pecans for their dinner. Once, they found a baby frog, which Mom grudgingly let them raise in a bowl—for one afternoon before he leaped to freedom from a low window.
Now, Sasha whistles little snatches of tunes, takes surreptitious breaks to rub her back, and fills her baskets without complaint. Lil moves fast, methodical, with one eye on the fence line as she works. Theon doesn’t show his face, but she still feels his stain.
The sun is nearing afternoon when they pack it in for the day for hurried sandwiches, showers, and fresh clothes for the ride into town. Sasha’s braid is still wet when they pile in the truck.
Lil lets Sasha twiddle the radio dial, looking for music, but there’s still nothing but static. Sasha swears she hears Led Zeppelin in the noise, and Lil’s in a good enough mood to let her.
The energy as they reach the center is palpable. Speakers are being tested, crackling in random jolts. It looks like the entire fire department and most of the church folks are down here today, making this somewhat slapdash festival happen.
Lil parks at the bakery, where there’s a light on. Autumn is surely in the back. And Jason sits at one of the little red tables, head tipped back into the weakening fall light, until the truck pulls in and he snaps back up, eyes finding her through the windshield. She breathes in, a giddy rush of cool air, and turns off the car. In unpracticed unison, she and Sasha hop out, crunching down onto the gravel parking lot.
Jason has a mountain of supplies arrayed around him, plus the clipboard. It seems that the picnic table is his current HQ. “Can’t wait for you to see,” he says. His smile is a little long-suffering, maybe from coordinating volunteers all morning. “Things are really coming together out here.”
“Hey, Jason,” Sasha offers, though she’s glancing back at the bakery. In her hand is a plastic grocery bag full of pecans they’d gathered that morning. “Lil said y’all were hoping to have a party out on the river. Great idea. I’ll get the boat polished up.” The riverboat isn’t terribly big, and the party tends to feel a little cramped, but it’s always served them faithfully before. A closing party on the river is a Pecan Festival tradition.
“Really? That’s going to be fantastic.” He grins at her, eyes crinkling. “As if you needed another job though.” She rolls her eyes in agreement, and they both laugh.
The bell over the door chimes and Autumn leans out. She has a bit of a crowd inside, people milling over full display cases, and suddenly everything smells like vanilla and mulling spices. “Am I dreaming, or are there two Clearwaters on my doorstep?” she asks. “I should have made something special for the occasion.”
If Lil hadn’t known from Sasha that there were bandages under her jeans, hadn’t known about the blood and the wild children, Autumn’s meringue-light smile would have utterly snowed her. “Autumn, thank you so much for taking on a stand on short notice,” she says.
“‘Short notice’ is kind of this festival’s middle name.” Jason laughs. “Whatever you’re working on right now smells amazing. Makes me hungry.”
Autumn startles, and for a moment it’s as if she doesn’t even recognize him, she’s so strained and suddenly pale. It must be the toll the past days have taken on her. But Lil can’t blame her. Too many nights alone in the Clearwater house, too many unanswered calls as folks move away have taught Lil the horror that ensues with certain change, when a familiar, beloved place twists itself into a stranger. But Autumn’s spell doesn’t last; her answering smile comes a second later.
“Thanks.” She rummages in her pocket and pulls out a folded and floured sheet of paper, covered in her messy scrawl: hummingbird Bundt cakes, caramel buns, nutty bunnies, praline brownies, spicy nut mix, cookies, hand pies, maple bars. “This is my final lineup for the festival, but if there’s something you’d suggest I don’t already have listed, just let me know.”
“You’re my hero.” Lil hands the paper to Jason, who will invariably file it away, alphabetically, numerically, and possibly color-coded. The man likes his organization. “It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“That’s me. Local hero.” Autumn’s tone is a little flat. She’s already turning to Sasha, flower to the sun. “Are you going or staying?”
“I’m with you, kid.” Sasha gives Lil and Jason a little salute, then bounds into the bakery.
Lil and Jason walk toward the square, where most of the action is. “Cesar has been on my last nerve all day,” he admits. “But the guys built the stage after you left last night in record time. I couldn’t believe it.” Jason takes a deep breath, stopping them just before they reach the middle of the chaos. As soon as they enter the fray, there will be two dozen people simultaneously asking them questions. Facing her, he leans against one of the majestic old trees. “How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen Sasha in forever.”
“Good. Really good, actually. As of this morning.” Lil tucks her arms around herself. “If you haven’t seen Sasha, it’s because she hasn’t really wanted to be around me.” The respite is nice. Lil doesn’t always think to give herself a respite. “Fighting with her felt so wrong. And I can usually fight with anyone. I can fight with you.”
He smiles, his thoughts probably going with hers to their most memorable, heated play-fights. Flirt-fights. Even the real, bitter, no-way-back fights. “You and I always kind of liked fighting,” he remembers, winking at her. Those Jason Finch winks will be the death of her.
“But Sasha?” Lil shakes her head. “It’s not like that. It’s like fighting myself. Knocks me in my most vulnerable places.”
“Well there’s no one quite as stubborn as you are—except maybe her.” He catches the elbow she aims at his gut, snickering. Then he looks more earnest. “It’s a low-stakes game though. You could say anything to her, and Sasha would still lock herself in a burning house for you and throw the key down the sink.”
She leans on the tree, shoulder to shoulder with Jason. “Yeah, well. You think I wouldn’t do the same for her?”
He gives her a very serious glance. “Oh I know you would.”
They survey their work together. “Hey.” He turns his head to look at her, cheek against rough bark. This brings his eyes very close to her. They’re warm as they run over her face. “Come over for dinner after we get everything set up tomorrow night.” His mouth twists, rueful. “It’ll probably be late, but you know we’ll be starving.”
She raises an eyebrow, but she’s smiling too big to hide it. It’s dangerous. Stupid. But it’s nice to know the person who always saw the heart of her—even when he seemed to hate her—hasn’t lost his knack for it. “Not if you’re cooking. I remember what you did to those scrambled eggs.”
He winces. “How did they get so…gray?”
“But I’ll bring something over,” she compromises. “That’d be nice.”
He chuckles. “I’m actually reasonably okay at using the grill these days. I’ll make rib eye.”
“Deal.” She pushes off the tree. “Shall we? Lots to do before you poison me tomorrow.”
Looking immensely satisfied with himself, Jason follows her into the festive chaos.
Much like the bustling town outside, the bakery is full of activity. Sasha takes in the aromas in a daze. Clearly, Autumn has thrown herself into festival preparations. From the looks of that list she gave Jason, it’ll take every hour she has left to get it all done in time. As for Sasha—she checks her digital watch, but it only blinks blank zeros up at her. Again. She gives it a couple of slaps, sighing. If the crowds Lil is optimistically expecting really do show up, Sasha will be running the ferry six times a day at least, not to mention trying to get the riverboat ready for the grand-finale fancy dress thing they have in mind.
For now, she loiters in Autumn’s kitchen, lulled by spices and the whir of the convection oven. Autumn has given her the very simple job of stirring some sweet-smelling goo with a wooden spoon, and she swirls it absent-mindedly. The back door is open several hopeful inches, just in case a small and mysterious guest happens to reappear.
“Doesn’t it feel a little strange to be getting ready for this cutesy town froufrou when there’s so much shit going on? The fires?” Sasha wonders aloud. The instant it’s out of her mouth, she wishes she hadn’t said it, hadn’t even thought it. It was this kind of seasonal tradition that kept the sinews of the town from atrophying completely. Don’t prod it, something in her urges. But she has to find out what Autumn is keeping to herself. Or at least invite her to share.
Autumn puts down her scoring knife. She has been working miracles as Sasha stirs her goo. Beyond Sasha, cities are being built in brown sugar and egg, and row after row of sweet-smelling confections are leaving the oven. Even now, she’s devoted to carving leaves out of raw pie crust, to top each and every miniature pecan pie.
“You’re right,” she says and brushes her hand against her hair, tightly bound under a net. “It’s strange to be celebrating…under the circumstances.” Sasha could see how hard Autumn was trying when they’d lingered outside, talking to Lil and Jason. She’s holding herself together with candy floss. Her smile is full of cracks. Sasha knows without her saying that she’s thinking about Wyn and Neel.
Sasha scoops super sticky marshmallow fluff into her mixture as the plot thickens here on the stovetop. “You think the Pecan Festival might bring the kids to town?”
“It’s more likely to scare them,” Autumn says, and her knife presses too hard. An easy fix, but she curses, balls up the misshapen leaf, and tosses it into the trash. “But Wyn says he’s been to the library, right? So he must not be too afraid. I don’t know. I don’t know.” She stares down at her baking sheet.
“Pip…” Sasha turns her back to the stove to face Autumn. She keeps her voice very gentle. “I—you know you can always talk to me, right? If there’s something bothering you, I mean.”
Autumn picks at the baking sheet. She spreads flour here and there in the corners, where it tends to clump. The back of her head tells Sasha nothing. Until the tense set of her back falls and she lets out a shaky breath. Autumn slumps across the room and pushes her face into Sasha’s shoulder. “I’m that obvious?” comes her voice, muffled against her shirt.
Sasha loops an arm around her automatically, rocking them a bit. With her other hand, she reaches back to take whatever she was stirring off the heat. “You’ve just been a little quiet since we got run out of the woods.”
“Here I thought I was being coolly aloof.” Autumn tugs the netting off her hair and her messy bun droops down over one ear. “I’m bothered,” she says eventually and extricates herself just enough that she can talk, so that her eyes aren’t just a blue squint under Sasha’s chin. They are as full and expressive as always. “And I want to tell you. I want to tell you everything.” Autumn chews her lip. “I will,” she adds. “I just need a little time to finish processing. Soon—I’ll tell you everything.”
“Hey. That’s okay.” They are very close together, near enough that Sasha can breathe the faint fragrance of Autumn’s skin. Sasha shows her the blank hours and minutes on her digital watch. “All we have is time.” And because she is on an emotional roll that day, coming up double sixes with every brave conversation she starts, she says, “You know, I think there’s going to be a party out on the river at the end of the festival.”
Autumn peeks around her at the goo, left cooling midsimmer on the stove, and they disentangle so that Autumn can reach the thermometer that waits on the counter and stick it in the pot. She hums her approval, exchanges the thermometer for a spatula and gives the sludge a few encouraging stirs. “I heard about that. It’s a lot of responsibility for you and your riverboat. Will you need a crew, Captain Clearwater?”
“Sure will.” Though a crew was not what she’d been about to ask for. Once again, they’d dodged each other, the latest feint in a long dance. Sasha holds the pot for her as Autumn steers the contents into molds.
Autumn salutes with her sticky spatula. “Then count me in as skipper.”
Nodding, Sasha shoves down her disappointment. All they have is time.