Free First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen Page B

trying to dig that stone out, or you can build around it. Your choice.
    Sitting there in bed, she thought about what it was she was supposed to give. A spatula. Good. She had one of those. No need to go out and buy one. Now, who did she have to give it to? She thought about it, then shook her head. No, that was silly. But the name kept coming back.
    Her cousin Mary Waverley.
    Who had died twenty years ago.
    Huh. That was a new one.
    Evanelle hoisted herself out of bed and put on her slippers. The home oxygen machine was located in her bedroom. It was squat and square, like a dopey monster just sitting there, humming to itself. There was an extremely long oxygen tube attached to it so that Evanelle could walk around the house. She had to roll up the tubing like a rope and loosen it as she walked, leaving a trail. Fred told her that her hide-and-seek days were over.
    She gathered up the long, clear tubing and shuffled out of her room to the kitchen.
    Once there, she rooted around in her green-painted cabinets until she finally found an old spatula, the sturdy kind with an old wooden handle. It had been years since she’d used it. Come to think of it, her cousin Mary was the one who had given it to her.
    She heard Fred’s footsteps on the attic steps. He had a nice apartment up there. He could afford his own place, but he liked it here. He didn’t like being alone. He’d moved in with her after he’d broken up with his boyfriend years ago, spending months renovating her attic—in a way, renovating his life, too. It was an odd little relationship they had but, Evanelle had to admit, she liked having him around. But as much as she needed him, she thought he needed her more.
    She didn’t know how much time she had left on this earth, a thought that didn’t bother her as much as it did fifty years ago. She knew a lot more people on the other side now. Even though it sure took a long time to get Mary’s granddaughters on the right path, Claire and Sydney had each other now, had their husbands. It was Fred that she worried about the most. What was he going to do when she left him?
    He turned on the kitchen light. He was in a pair of old plaid pajamas, the kind you wore for comfort, not style. She’d given him a pair of silk pajamas, monogrammed on the pocket and everything, for Christmas last year, but he never wore them. He was too set in his ways, Evanelle thought, and told him so often. He was only in his sixties, with a nice square face and sharp eyes, too young to be hanging out with an old lady all the time. He hadn’t dated anyone in years. Maybe he just forgot how. She was going to have to help him along a little.
    â€œSleepwalking or midnight baking?” he asked with a smile, leaning against the doorjamb and crossing his arms over his chest.
    â€œNeither. I woke up and needed to give my dead cousin Mary a spatula.” She held up the spatula and Fred’s brows rose. It sounded crazy, even for her. She laughed. “Oh, don’t look at me that way. I know it’s crazy. I probably have to give it to Claire. I was having a dream about Mary when I woke up. Wires probably just got crossed.”
    â€œDo you have to give it to her tonight?” Fred asked, because sometimes her Waverley gift worked that way; she had to give something to someone immediately. Which was pretty inconvenient for someone with a plastic hose connected to her nose. Going out took planning these days.
    Evanelle reached under the sink for one of the hundreds of paper bags she’d collected from the grocery store, because you never know when you’ll need a good paper bag. She put the spatula inside, then set it on the counter. “No. I’ll give it to her when I see her next,” she said, already out of breath.
    Fred pushed himself away from the doorjamb. “How about I make us some nice pumpkin spice coffee?”
    â€œYou know, that’s exactly what I need,” she