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The cabin door slams shut so hard behind Arlo that the single window rattles. Claudia has tears in her eyes as she disappears into the main house.
“Get back to work,” Crawly spits. He puts his hat back on and finishes getting the horses hitched onto the cart.
More than an hour passes before the large cargo truck sputters down the gravel road toward Crawly’s gate. Marian’s in the driver’s seat, hollow eyes trained on the road. She pulls through the rusted gate and right up next to the loaded wagon.
“Load it up,” Crawly shouts from his rocking chair on the porch. He doesn’t even spare a glance at Marian as she slips out of the truck and slams the keys on the hood.
Sable slips down onto the porch stairs to rest, her thin shoulders shaking with every cough, and I help the others pack the remaining crates onto the cargo truck. By the time Arlo quietly joins us, we’re nearly finished, and his eyes are colder than I have ever seen.
Mr. Crawly stands, rubbing warmth into his worn hands. “We’ll head for the markets now before another farm has a similar miracle,” he announces. “Arlo, grab those keys. You’re driving.”
Arlo glares hard at Crawly as he swipes the keys, then he turns and pulls me into his chest. His body is stiff, and when he pulls back, I can’t seem to find the normal light in his hazel eyes.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
He answers with cold silence.
“Enough of that,” Claudia snaps from the porch. Her voice pours down my spine like ice water. “Hands off unless you want a flogging!”
Arlo’s hands fall away as if she’s burned him. He steps back, working his jaw like he’s biting back words that would get him killed. “So you’re only okay with a man putting his hands on one of your servants if you’re getting something out of it?”
“Get in the truck, boy,” Crawly squawks from the open passenger door. Claudia’s composure slips, her head dropping, and she chews her bottom lip to stop them from trembling.
Arlo gives me one last searching look, then he turns toward the truck.
The yard noise rises again as Mr. Crawly commands some of the other larger men to cram onto the wagon and truck bed.
Claudia comes to stand next to me as we watch them drive away, and I imagine the heads that will turn once they hit the town square. A harvest from frozen earth isn’t a story that can be contained. People will question when no other farmer is gifted the same blessing. I just hope no one comes looking before the smell of magic evaporates.
Claudia bumps my shoulder and passes me a tomato from her apron. “Eat,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “And for Sable,” she mutters, handing me another.
The fruit feels a hundred times heavier than it should, and when I turn to Sable, seeing that familiar spark of life in her soft features, I sigh.
The same morsels that have saved Sable’s life may soon be the very thing that damns it.
CHAPTER 5
• Alessia •
SLEEP REFUSES TO come as I’m lying next to Sable in the dark barn.
My body is exhausted, but my mind is wide awake. When Arlo and the others limped home from the market, it wasn’t a surprise to see the devastation. The truck returned first, half full, and the mostly empty cart rolled in half an hour later, holding broken crates and squashed tomatoes. The men looked ragged, and red juice stained the wagon floorboards like blood.
Or maybe it was blood.
Mr. Crawly must have expected this. It’s why he was so adamant he needed the truck. Faster getaway for him as the others likely had to fend off a starving mob.
Sable’s breathing evens out beside me, slow and shallow. I watch her in the dark, counting each time her chest rises and falls. She’s warming now, her fever trying to grip her once again. The cough syrup has done little to help her other symptoms.
My eyes flutter closed as I try to fight sleep, determined to listen for any sign of the Guard’s approach. Soon, my exhaustion finally wins, and as darkness swallows me, everything turns red.
Not the hopeful bright red of tomatoes bursting through frost. It’s the color of fire, blood, and the memories that won’t stay buried.
The cold draft through the barn grows warm and humid, and when my eyes open, I’m huddled in the crawl space under our mother’s cottage. Heat slips through the slats surrounding me, and the smoke is so thick it burns my throat.
Screams rend the silence as women are hauled from their homes. Footsteps from above rain dust down on me and Sable as our mother is dragged outside and down the rickety porch steps. Sable’s small fingers cling to my shirt as I peer out from beneath the stairs.
“Lissa?” she hisses, tugging my shirt.
