Free First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen Page A

the threshold and the door closed just as he reached it. He turned the knob, but it was locked. He took out his key and tried it, but the door still wouldn’t open. He wasn’t surprised. It had done this for years.
    He knocked on the door and called, “Claire, I can’t get in!”
    He heard the tick of her heels on the hardwood floor as she walked back to the door and opened it. She smiled at him. “If you ask it nicely, it will open for you. All you have to do is talk to it.”
    â€œMmm–hmm,” he said, putting his arms around her and backing her up. He closed the door with his foot as he kissed her. “So you say.”
    He could no more talk to the door than accept the apple-throwing tree. He’d once even developed an elaborate system of strings and bells in the garden as an experiment. As long as the warning system was up, no apples were thrown in the garden, which he took as proof that the tree wasn’t really doing anything. He knew Claire wanted him to believe her explanation instead of trying to make sense of it. But, whether she knew it or not, she needed someone who believed in her, not everything else in this crazy house.
    Claire stepped away from him after a few kisses. “Go on upstairs. Check on the girls. I’ll be there shortly.”
    â€œWhere are you going?” he asked.
    â€œTo the kitchen,” she said. “I have some catching up to do.”
    Her dark eyes were tired. When he held her, he could feel the tension she was holding in her back muscles. The air around her was cool lately, as if she were creating a vacuum with her unhappiness. His wife would tell him what was wrong in time. He’d learned that long ago. He shook his head and took her hand.
    â€œNot tonight,” he said, leading her up the staircase. “Plans. I have plans.”

 
    4
    At that moment, across town, old Evanelle Franklin suddenly woke up. She stared into the darkness of her room, trying to grasp at what she’d been dreaming about. The steady whir of her oxygen machine was like white noise now. It used to bother her, that machine. Just its existence used to make her angry, angry that her body, which had been steady and reliable and treated well for over eight decades, had suddenly decided to fail two years ago. She’d been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and, without the oxygen, her lungs felt like they’d been zapped by one of those shrinking machines in the sci-fi movies she liked to watch with her companion Fred. With the oxygen, she felt okay, though the tube that sat at her nose and looped around her ears was damn uncomfortable and chapped the skin at her nostrils. She had to have oxygen all the time now, even when she went out. Fred carried the portable oxygen container for her when she had to leave the house. It looked like a big, unwieldy purse. Fred would put the strap over his shoulder and say, “It’s medical chic.” Gay men were a lot of fun.
    Evanelle sat up and moved her legs off the bed. She had to give something to someone. Every once in a while she would get this overwhelming itch that could only be scratched by giving someone a plum or a coffee grinder or a book on animal husbandry. She had no idea why she had to give these things, and she had no idea why the recipients needed them, but they always did, whether they liked it or not.
    That was her Waverley gift.
    There’d been times when she wished it had been different, that her special gift could have been more pretty, or at the very least she could have made a living by it. But she’d long ago accepted that this was what she was supposed to do—she was supposed to give people she knew, and sometimes people she didn’t know, people she met on the street, a strange gift. She couldn’t change who she was, and she no longer wanted to, even if she could. She knew that who you are is a stone set deep inside you. You can spend all your life