Laughing, Evangeline had pulled all the stones and carrot nubs out of their faces. By the time Red had come back, Evangeline had returned to the house. She’d obscured her footsteps in the snow with a broom, and the snowmen were facing the other way, waving at Red’s house. Hello back. Hello back. Hello back.
That little lark and an occasional basket of cookies was the limit of friendliness she allowed between herself and the boy next door, no matter how lonely she’d gotten in her five years of isolation. He had chosen to treat her honorably, but the history between their two families made things . . . awkward.
After closing the door on New Boy’s weird kobold, Evangeline made herself breakfast and cleaned up as she went along, making sure the only evidence of her meal was the mysterious disappearance of one egg, one slice of bread, and one tea bag. Outside and next door, a voice bellowed, “Jax?” Evangeline peered around the edge of the curtain in the kitchen window. Red stomped down his front steps and into the yard. New Boy’s bicycle was gone from its usual spot, and Red turned in a circle, noting its absence. He paced up and down the length of the yard, then turned toward the Unger house and made a shrugging gesture as if to say, I don’t know where the darn boy’s gone.
He couldn’t see her, but he assumed she was watching. That was a little conceited of him, but she usually was watching. What else did she have to do?
When Evangeline heard the motorcycle depart a little while later, she slipped a weapon into the back pocket of her jeans—just in case—and ventured into Mrs. Unger’s backyard. She stretched out her arms, relishing the sunlight and admiring the pink sky. Evangeline knew the sky was supposed to be blue—she’d seen pictures. But she didn’t know why it should be blue. A rosy sky seemed much more natural.
Then she got to work. She hadn’t been outside in two days. Instead, she’d watched from her window while New Boy ran amok through the neighborhood, then was tutored in the basics of the eighth day by Red. Entertaining, perhaps, but those two days had equaled two weeks for the weeds in Mrs. Unger’s flower beds.
While she was pulling up dandelions near the fence at the back of the yard, a flutter of color caught her eye. A butterfly! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen an eighth-day creature that wasn’t vermin. Brownies, of course, went everywhere. Her little brother, Elliot, had even kept one as a pet for a few months, until their mother had caught him with it.
Evangeline watched the butterfly fly from one azalea bush to the next, thinking about Elliot’s secret pet and about Adelina, who had wanted a pony and never gotten one.
“Um, hi?”
Evangeline shot to her feet and whirled around.
It was New Boy, standing in the middle of the yard, holding his bicycle and staring at her with his mouth hanging open.
Startled that she’d allowed him to come up behind her while she was preoccupied, she bolted for the kitchen door, but he dropped his bike and raced to beat her there. “No, no, no—wait!” He flung himself in front of her and threw out both arms.
Anger flashed through her. How dare he block her path?
Evangeline pulled her weapon out of her back pocket and ran straight for him.
14
SHE CAME AT HIM so fast, Jax didn’t have time to react. She tackled him with the ferocity of a small panther, and he went down. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, and she had her knee on his chest. She waved an object menacingly in his face.
Pepper spray.
“Don’t move,” she said, her voice low and hoarse.
“Not going to,” he promised.
He did, however, tilt his head, looking around the pepper spray and into the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. They darted restlessly from side to side. Jax realized she didn’t know what to do with him now that she’d caught him.
“Show me who you are,” she said finally.
“I’m Jax,” he said. “Jax Aubrey. Didn’t you get my note?”
“Names change. Show me who you are.” Her eyes flicked toward his left hand. Jax turned it over, so she could see his tattoo.
He didn’t know what information she got from his family crest, but she looked even more unhappy. The pepper spray got a little closer to his face. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I was wrong to get between you and the door. I wanted to say hello”—and find out who you are— “but that was a stupid way to do it. If you let me up, I’ll get on my bike and leave.”
She seemed to mull that over, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth. Then she stood up and backed away. Jax sat up. He expected her to flee, but instead, she watched him, holding the pepper spray in her hand.
“I’m sorry I scared you.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you alone from now on.” That was what Riley had told him to do in the first place, but darn it, he didn’t want to. She was too big a mystery, and this was too good an opportunity. “If I could just say one thing first. . . .”
She raised her eyebrows and waited.
“If you had sprayed that when you were kneeling on me, you’d have gotten some in your face, too. You have to hold it at arm’s length.” He paused, then went on. “Plus, you didn’t twist the safety cap open.” He demonstrated with his hands. “It won’t go off that way, and someone could knock it away and overpower you. I wouldn’t, but someone more dangerous would.”
She twisted the lid and looked at Jax. “Like this?” She extended her arm to point the spray at him.
“Yeahhhh,” he said, wondering if he was about to get a faceful of pepper. But her lips twitched as if she were fighting a smile, and he dared ask a question. “Is it Mrs. Unger’s?”
She nodded. “She put it in a drawer and forgot about it, I think.” Her voice sounded rusty, like it was rarely used.
Jax picked up his bike and straddled it. “I’m sorry I bothered you. I was just trying to be friendly. Maybe that breaks some kind of rule. I didn’t know.”
“You don’t know much, do you?” She tucked her hair behind one ear nervously, and it rippled down her shoulder like a silvery waterfall.
Jax shook his head. “Not really, no.”
“Why hasn’t he explained things to you?” She nodded toward Riley’s house.
“He did tell me not to bug you. But I’m not a good listener.”
She smiled, finally. “You don’t have to leave,” she said. “I haven’t talked to anybody in a long time. I’m out of practice.” She twisted the pepper spray closed and put the can into her back pocket.
Jax didn’t need any more invitation than that. He got off the bike, grabbed one of the rusted folding chairs that had probably been left leaning against the house by the previous owner, and deliberately placed it over the property line, on Mrs. Unger’s lawn. Then he unfolded another one opposite, on Riley’s lawn, and sat down.
The girl dragged the chair a little farther away and sat on the edge of it, poised to run. She reminded Jax of a half-tamed deer.
“How long?” he asked. “Since you’ve talked to someone?”
“Long,” she said.
Jax wasn’t sure what to say next, and while he fumbled for a topic, she filled in the silence. “Maybe five years, for me. Longer, in your world.”
“In my world?”
She held up one finger. “I have one day for every seven in the Normal world. Figure it out.”
Did she mean what he thought she did? “Are you saying you haven’t talked to anyone in thirty-five years?”