The casserole is still warm in my arms when Aunt Maeve insists on driving me to the cottage "just this once." Which is Aunt Maeve code for "until I wear you down."
Her perfume is white flowers and warning labels. Her gold—that proud, tidy color that's as much a part of her as her pearls—sits on her shoulders like epaulettes. As we walk up the path, I watch her emotional double peel away, a shinier version of her with the same designer blazer and an even sharper smile. It paces ahead like it already owns the door.
"Keys, Red?" she asks, hand outstretched.
"It's open." Elara never locked the place. I won't either. Rule Number One that was never written down: Don't make fear a roommate.
We step inside, and the cottage exhales.
I've always loved that about this place—the way it breathes. The floorboards expand and settle with the temperature, creaking out a rhythm that sounds like a big animal making room for you on its back. Copper pans wink from their hooks in the kitchen. The air smells like cedar and dust and home.
Aunt Maeve sets the casserole on the counter like she's delivering a ransom payment. Her gaze sweeps the room—the old telephone with its spiral cord, the worn floorboards, the mismatched furniture that Elara collected over decades. I can see her mentally cataloging, pricing, planning.
"We'll start with the kitchen," she announces. "New cabinets will double the resale value."
"I'm not reselling," I say, hanging my coat on the hook Elara labeled RED with masking tape and a lopsided heart drawn in Sharpie.
Maeve pretends not to hear. She's good at that. "And the roof. There's water damage. You can't handle that alone, sweetheart."
"I can handle a YouTube tutorial and a hardware store." I start unloading cutlery from a moving box into the drawer labeled KNIVES in Elara's careful handwriting. "Plus, there's a neighbor kid who'll do anything for homemade cookies."
Maeve opens the fridge. Inside: butter, a jar of capers that's probably older than I am, and a note I've already read three hundred times. Keep the porch. It keeps the wolves off.
Maeve doesn't see the joke. She sees an empty shelf. "You need a plan, Red. A real one."
"I have a plan. Don't sell Grandma's house to the first contractor who says 'charming' and 'open concept' in the same sentence."
Her gold double snaps its fingers at the air like it's summoning a waiter. I watch it, let my vision unfocus slightly. The room lights up in my second sight—lines and smudges and knots of emotion that most people never see.
Gold is spine and self-story. It can be kindness or vanity, depending on who feeds it. Maeve's gold runs neat and hungry. I reach for the cooler blue in the air and brush it along the edges of her aura with a thought, like pressing a cold cloth to a hot forehead.
It doesn't change her mind. But it takes the sharp off her voice.
"Sweetheart," she says, softer now, "you're eighteen years old."
"Exactly. Legal adult."
"College starts in the fall. Campus housing is safer, more convenient. Who will you call when the kitchen floods? When the power goes out? When—"
"Who did people call before cell phones?" I lean my hip against the counter, crossing my arms. "I'm the moon's favorite daughter. The sink will behave."
"Be serious, Scarlett."
"I am serious." I point to the corkboard above the counter, where Elara's handwriting covers various notes and lists. At the top, in red marker that's faded to the color of old blood: ELARA'S RULES.
There are little doodles around the edges—birch leaves, stars, a wolf that looks like a dog who's been told to be slightly worse at being a dog.
I read them out loud, because it makes me feel less alone.
1. Stay on the road. Trails go where they want, not where you do.
2. Don't wear red on the border nights (new moon, full moon, the night it smells like rain but doesn't). Red is a story. Stories look back when you look at them.
3. If the forest talks, answer like a neighbor. Kind, firm, brief.
4. Kindness feeds faster than fear. (Leave bread. Don't leave apologies.)
5. Never step into a ring you didn't draw.
6. Count to thirteen before you say yes to anything beautiful.
7. If you hear your name in a voice you love, check the clock. If it says 12:13, don't answer.
Aunt Maeve makes a delicate sound in the back of her throat, like a wine glass judging you. "She wrote those after reading too many mystery novels."
"Or not enough," I say softly. I press my palm to the corkboard, feeling the marker ridges ghost against my skin. The colors stir around my hand—green (safety), silver (watch carefully), a thread of red braided with gold that feels like laughter.
Elara wrote rules the way some women write recipes: with substitutions and winks in the margins.
"You can't live by a list, sweetheart." Maeve taps the paper with one manicured finger. Her gold double turns the rules over and mimes tearing them in half. "You need people. Community. Support."
"I have people. They keep trying to sell my walls."
She breathes through her nose—that particular sigh that means she's counting to ten in her head. "You're being difficult."
"I'm being honest."
There's a clip of heels on the porch, followed by voices I don't recognize. Maeve brightens like she swallowed a small sun. "Ah—Dan must have brought Mr. Wolfson. He's not a realtor," she adds quickly, seeing my face. "Just a friend who does cash offers. No pressure."
"You brought a real estate speculator to my grief?" My voice comes out flat and dangerous. "Get him off my porch."
"Red, he's just here to—"
"I don't care. I'm not signing anything." I plant my feet, feeling that stubborn Elara-shaped thing in my spine lock into place. "If his shoes cross my threshold, I'll hex his clipboard."
"You don't hex," Maeve says, but she sounds uncertain.
"I'll learn today."
She hesitates—I can see her weighing options, calculating the path of least resistance—then goes to intercept the visitor. Through the window, I watch Uncle Dan's broad shoulders and catch a glimpse of a large man in an expensive jacket, the kind of smile you practice in mirrors.
The colors cluster near the doorway, my emotional shadows drawn to the drama like moths to flame. My blue props her chin on the doorframe, curious. My green sits cross-legged on the welcome mat. My gold—thinner than Maeve's but twice as stubborn—leans against the refrigerator, arms folded, eyes on me like, Well? What are you going to do?
I don't make these emotional doubles. They just... step out of me when my feelings get loud enough. When I was a kid, they used to scare me half to death. I'd find a duplicate of my mother's sadness rolling marbles under the couch at 2 AM. Elara taught me to nod at them like neighbors and not to invite them to stay for tea.
I break that rule constantly. Tea helps.
I refill the kettle and open the bottom cupboard, looking for mugs. Instead, I find the cedar trunk.
It's been years since I've seen it—Elara must have moved it from the attic. The lid has a note in her fading marker: Until you feel like you should.
That's it. No other instructions. Just Elara's typical cryptic guidance, trusting me to know when the time was right.
"Red?" Maeve calls from the porch, her voice too bright, too cheerful. "Mr. Wolfson would love to see the—"
I unlatch the trunk.
Cedar breath floods up, warm and sweet, smelling like the hug of someone who loved you first and best. Inside: folded blankets, a broken metronome, a photograph of Elara with lipstick on her front teeth that makes me smile and cry at the same time.
And there, wrapped in tissue paper that's gone yellow-soft with age, is the scarf.
Even before I touch it, I feel it.
The room tilts one degree, like a boat changing its mind about a current. My fingertips prickle. The emotional shadows that were lounging by the door stand up straighter. My red walks forward like a girl who knows the chorus is coming and doesn't want to miss the verse.
I lift the scarf out.
It's not store-bought red. This is the color of roofs in fairy tales, deep and fox-bright, threaded with something that catches light without being shiny. When I shake it out, it snaps like a flag and falls back into my hands with weight and temperature.
The fabric is warm. Not from the trunk. From itself.
And the aura—
I've never seen anything like it. Colors pour off the scarf like steam after rain, so thick they're almost solid. Red braided with gold, yes, but also a bloom of green that hums like photosynthesis and a thin ring of silver that whispers this is a border, respect it.
If feelings leave emotional doubles, this scarf has a city of them. Shadows touching shoulders, walking past each other in loops, love in every possible tense: love waiting, love staying, love refusing to be asked twice.
I press the scarf to my face and breathe.
"Red—" The door bumps open behind me.
"Not now." The words come out softer and sharper than I intend, carrying a strange weight that makes the floorboards settle under my feet.
I wind the scarf once, twice around my neck. The ends fall to my ribs, heavy and sure. Something clicks in my chest—not a bone, not a thought. The way a seatbelt clicks when you stop pretending you don't need it.
The emotional shadows that are mine crowd close. Red rolls her shoulders like a boxer. Blue tucks her hair behind her ear and stops the kettle a breath before it boils. Gold nods at the window, approving.
Aunt Maeve steps into the kitchen with Uncle Dan and Mr. Wolfson, whose smile is architectural. "Mr. Wolfson, this is my niece—"
"Scarlett Rowan." He offers a hand I don't shake. His gold is bright and false as brass. His black—that hungry emptiness that shows up in people who see others as resources—is polite but unmistakable. "First, my deepest condolences. Second, maybe we can make this easy for everyone—"
"Third," I interrupt, "you're in my kitchen uninvited."
Maeve winces. "Red, I invited him—"
"I didn't," I say flatly.
Uncle Dan steps forward, his face arranged in that particular expression men use when they think they're being reasonable. "We're family, Red. It's all the same."
"It isn't."
Mr. Wolfson's smile doesn't falter. He's had practice. "I totally understand the attachment, honey. These old places have character. But they can be... burdensome. I pay cash, no inspections, no contingencies. You could be free of this responsibility by Friday."
Aunt Maeve's gold double claps once—silent, delighted. My own gold glares at her. The scarf slides against my throat like a second pulse, warming at the word free like it knows better than to trust it.
"I don't sell family," I say.
"We're talking about a building—" Dan starts.
"Then why are you standing in it?"
Mr. Wolfson opens a sleek leather folder. Papers whisper like they're sharing secrets. "Market value is here. I can go five percent over asking. For you, because of the circumstances."
"For me," I echo, and let a little blue slip out between us. Not sadness—coolness. The kind that fogs up mirrors. His voice stalls mid-pitch. He doesn't know why.
"Scarlett." Aunt Maeve's voice has gone sharp. "Be reasonable."
"I am." I point my chin at the corkboard. "Elara's Rules. I'm following them."
"Those are... superstitions," she says, laughing to soften the word. "You can't live by a list of paranoid warnings."
"Watch me." I take the pen he's nudging across the counter and place it deliberately back in his folder, closing it with a snap. "Rule Two says don't wear red on border nights. Want to guess what I'm doing?"
Mr. Wolfson blinks. "Excuse me?"
"Drawing a border." The scarf hums—I swear to God it hums—and the air around my ankles feels denser, like the kitchen just remembered it has a foundation. I'm not consciously making a circle, but the idea of one draws itself in my mind, powered by the red of my attention. The emotional shadows respect it.
Wolfson's smile tightens at the edges. His black leans forward, hungry and annoyed. I lean back and pluck a thread of green from the scarf's aura—that particular shade of love's patience, the kind that doesn't rise to bait—and wrap it around my words.
"This house isn't a flip or an investment property. It's a spine." I meet his eyes. "We're keeping it."
"You can't afford the property taxes on a part-time coffee shop salary—"
"Then I'll get three jobs."
"College—"
"I'll sleep less."
"Safety—"
"I am not prey."
The kettle clicks off like applause. Mr. Wolfson glances at the stove as if it has personally betrayed him. Aunt Maeve studies the scarf, eyes narrowed, her business-school mind working through the problem I've become.
She sees what I feel even if she can't see what I see: this isn't just fabric. This is a line drawn in the sand. This is my grandmother's voice saying no from beyond the grave.
Uncle Dan opens his mouth to launch into another speech about being practical. I let blue pat his words gently. "No," I say, quiet as a winter morning. "Thank you for the casserole."
Mr. Wolfson clears his throat, gathering his papers with slightly less confidence than he entered with. "You'll change your mind once the first heating bill comes. You have my card."
"No."
He glances at my scarf one more time—and I see it, just for a second. The way his pupils contract. The slight shiver that runs through him. Like some animal part of his brain recognizes something his conscious mind refuses to acknowledge.
Then he's heading for the door, Uncle Dan following with a backward glance that screams we'll talk about this later.
Aunt Maeve lingers.
"Why this hill?" she asks, softer than she's been all day. Her gold has dulled to a warmer color, less metallic. Her emotional double sits on the counter and kicks its heels, looking almost human.
I could say: because I want something that doesn't leave. Because everyone else does—my parents, now Elara, and someday you too, Aunt Maeve, everyone leaves eventually. Because this house with its breathing floorboards and impossible rules is the only thing that feels mine in a world that's been taking and taking since I was seven years old.
Instead, I say, "Because she told me to keep the porch."
Maeve's mouth creases into something complicated. "She said a lot of things, sweetheart."
"They were all true." I turn and touch the corkboard again, then the scarf, which feels like a hand that never pushes, only holds. "At least, they were true to her. That's enough for me."
We look at each other for a long moment—me in my grandmother's kitchen wearing her scarf like armor, her in her black funeral dress calculating whether this battle is worth the war.
"Fine," she says at last, and it costs her to say it. "Prove me wrong, Red. I hope you do." She kisses my forehead, and I feel her genuine affection beneath all the gold and worry. "But call me when—not if, when—you need help. Promise me."
"I promise."
After she leaves, the house expands. Not emptier—just less crowded by other people's plans and fears and ideas of who I should be.
I make tea because that's one of Elara's unwritten rules. The steam paints patterns on the kitchen window, and for just a second, I think I see letters forming. Not mine. Not Maeve's. A looping, antique hand that loved flour and capslock: By thorn and—
The kettle hisses louder. The letters slide away like water.
I carry my mug out to the porch because Elara wrote keep the porch and I obey instructions when they feel like love.
The scarf slides against my collarbones like it knows the route. Evening seeps in through the trees. The forest leans close, pretending to be tired.
"Okay," I tell it, because Rule Three says answer like a neighbor. "I'm staying. Don't be weird about it."
A bird scolds somewhere in the canopy. A branch knocks the gutter twice, then once—rhythm, not accident. The emotional landscape of the woods brightens in my second sight: green in the ferns, blue in the strips of sky visible between leaves, silver threading the path like embroidery.
My own red sits cross-legged at my feet, chin in her hands, eyes fixed on the trees.
The scarf warms.
Not hot—warm, like a palm over a pulse. It smells faintly of rosehips and winter apples, the kind of sweetness you only notice after you've learned to stop craving candy. For a moment, my chest aches with it—a quiet pain like the beginning of a sturdy cry.
Then, from the woods, so soft I could pretend it's wind if I wanted to start lying to myself early:
"Scarlett."
My name, spoken in a voice I don't know but that sounds like every story Grandma ever told. The colors in me stand at attention. The hair rises on my arms. I look at the porch clock purely out of reflex, because of Rule Seven, because Elara wrote it in red marker and I trust her rules more than I trust my own heartbeat.
12:13.
The second hand stalls. Thinks. Ticks on.
The tea cools in my hands. The scarf settles against my throat like a decision I'm going to have to live with.
"Rule Seven noted," I whisper to the forest, which is definitely eavesdropping and definitely not sorry about it.
Somewhere in the darkness between the birches, something that might be a smile happens without a mouth.
And the evening continues, patient as a wolf that knows you'll eventually have to sleep.