The following morning I woke alone in Katherine's bed, and after a few minutes of searching I found her outside, pulling weeds around our front door. She smiled in greeting and I drew her into a good-morning hug and a kiss before handing her a cup of coffee.
"What's going on?"
She looked around with a dramatic sigh. "They did so much inside for us I thought I should contribute, but I wouldn't make a dent in this if I worked on it every day for a month. How did they finish everything so quickly?"
"Magic," I shrugged, taking in the scrubby, brown weeds and patches of dirt, like an abandoned cemetery without the gravestones.
"Obviously, but if it was so easy why not cast a spell or two out here?" She cut herself short and gave me an apologetic look. "I don't want to sound ungrateful, I never dreamed I'd live anywhere so beautiful."
"You're right though, the outside doesn't match the inside."
She sighed again and bent down to yank at a creeping thistle. "Maybe we could pick up some weed killer?"
"For this much land? How much would that cost?" Between my savings and Rachel's checking account we had enough to keep ourselves stable for a few months, but we'd spend through it quickly if we weren't careful.
"I don't know, I'm not a gardener. What about the card Miss Gold gave you?"
"Used up. That was for herbs when there was only two of us. We burned through the balance just stocking up on necessities."
Katherine gave up on the thistle and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "We're going to need jobs, and soon."
"Doing what?" I asked. "We're cleared for short trips into the city, but the apartment still isn't safe for us, and that means the bad guys are still a threat. Eight hour shifts at the mall are probably too long to spend outside the protections here."
"My parents would give me a spending allowance if I asked."
"Enough to feed the four of us forever?"
"They have the money, but you're probably right, they'd eventually start asking uncomfortable questions. I think I'm done out here." She stood and brushed the dirt off her hands and pulled me toward the door. "I'm going to shower. Come keep me company."
Twenty minutes later, I sat on a carved bench while Katherine brushed her teeth, wrapped in a towel. We'd hung a sheet over the transparent wall which made the open shower slightly less stressful and it was the only reason I let her talk me into staying, but Becca and Rachel had appeared as she was finishing up so I was trapped in the bathhouse, staring at the floor, until they were done.
"You're awfully quiet," I said, more as a distraction than a need to fill the silence.
"Sorry. I'm still thinking about how we could make the outside a little nicer, or at least something a little less post-apocalyptic."
"Maybe it's a good thing," I suggested. "We don't want anyone to know people are living on an island that's been abandoned for decades."
"I suppose, but the frontage road isn't even paved, which means nobody uses it except us, and the woods on this side of the river go on for miles. The only things living there are deer and foxes, and there's been no water traffic at all."
"Sure, but—"
"I'm not complaining," she turned toward me and smiled. "I'm just dreaming a little."
"Complaining about what?" Rachel asked, pushing aside the sheet, wrapped in a towel but still dripping wet, and I turned my back on her reflexively.
YOU ARE READING
The Autumn Prince
FantasyHow do you cope with learning that your mother was murdered before you were born, your father is a fairy hitman, and you wield the power to raise an army of devoted love slaves... except you haven't the least idea how to control it? Tom Corwen's di...
