I moved to the kitchen, unboxing the emergency mac-and-cheese stash I’d picked up last week after discovering Winnie’s aversion to anything green that wasn’t a sprinkle or candy. Then I moved toward the fridge and pulled out a bag of broccoli florets.
Winnie groaned as she walked in. “No. No green trees. I already had fruit today.”
“You had half a strawberry yogurt for breakfast,” Selene said as her head popped back into the kitchen.
“And I sniffed a grape,” Winnie added.
“Not the same thing,” her mom muttered under her breath as she listened to the voicemail.
I cleared my throat. “What if we made a deal?”
Both turned to look at me. Selene’s eyebrow crept toward her hairline. Winnie narrowed her eyes like a seasoned negotiator.
I pointed a spoon at the pot. “If you try one bite of broccoli tonight—just one—I’ll build a vegetable garden out back. You get to pick what we grow. I’m talking candy-striped carrots, purple beans, weird tomato hybrids ... whatever you want. Then, if it’s okay with your mom, the only veggies you have to eat are the ones you grew.”
Winnie considered this, tapping her chin dramatically. “I want a fairy pumpkin.”
Selene’s eyebrow creased. “What is a fairy pumpkin?”
“It’s very small and glows in the moonlight,” Winnie explained with a gap-toothed grin. “Obviously.”
I leaned toward Selene. “Is that a real thing?”
She lifted her shoulders and I laughed. I nodded solemnly at Winnie. “We can start planning tomorrow.”
Winnie gave me a regal nod and disappeared back into the living room.
Selene mouthedthank youat me over the stove, and I just shrugged, but something about it stayed with me—how she looked when she said it. Grateful. A little surprised. Like maybe she wasn’t used to backup.
Selene held her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone. “I’ll be back soon.”
I waved her off and then found Winnie sitting cross-legged on the couch, absorbed in a book about underwater fairies and their pet dolphins. We made up a game—trading turns reading in the voice of the sea witch, trying to one-up each other in dramatics until we were both doubled over with laughter.
Selene returned twenty minutes later to find Winnie curled up beside me, her cheek resting on my arm.
I started to pull away, unsure—but Selene shook her head and whispered, “She’s fine.”
“I’m heading out,” I said quietly, carefully slipping out from beneath Winnie’s cheek.
Selene walked me to the door. “Thanks again,” she said. Her voice was warmer this time. Closer.
I hesitated on the porch, one hand still on the knob. “You work too hard,” I said, nodding toward the carriage house. “Did you even eat lunch today?”
“I’ll devour that broccoli mac and cheese.” She waved me off. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
I didn’t say anything then, but I gave her a faint smile and walked back to my side of the duplex.
TEN
SELENE
The storm had passed justbefore bedtime, leaving the windows streaked and the air heavy with the scent of wet pine and pavement. Thunder had rolled through earlier like a giant dragging furniture across the sky, but now only the occasional drip from the gutters broke the quiet.
Winnie padded down the hallway ahead of me, her blanket trailing behind like a cape, one fuzzy sock half off her foot. She clutched the book we’d checked out earlier from the library—The Legends of Star Harbor—her fingers smudging the worn cover. The library tag was worn at the corners, and the binding had nearly come undone. I’d found it tucked between old maritime histories and out-of-date census ledgers in the reference section that no one but retirees and weirdos like me ever touched.
Winnie had spotted me looking through it and begged to take it home. I almost said no—ghost stories weren’t exactly on my list of calming bedtime reads—but she’d been so insistent, so sparkly-eyed and earnest, that I gave in. We could read it at bedtime and I’d leave out any part that might seem too scary. I figured it was better than letting her spiral down another YouTube hole of haunted dolls and cursed playgrounds.
On the way to bed, her stuffed unicorn dangled from the crook of her arm, well loved and trailing ribbons from its tail.
