Ninety days before the sun less

Chapter 1

“Caspian, please! Open the door!”

My fists hit the steel door again and again. My hands were bleeding. I could not feel them anymore. The wind behind me screamed like an animal, and the ash was so thick that I could not see my own feet.

“Caspian! It is me! It is Elowen!”

On the other side of the door, I heard a small voice crying. It was Pip. He was only six, and he was calling my name. “Aunt Elo! Aunt Elo is outside!”

Then a woman’s voice snapped at him. It was Briar. “Be quiet, Pip. Come here. Now.”

I pressed my face to the cold metal. It was day thirty-one of the Sunless. The sky had been black for a month. The power was gone. The streets were full of frozen cars and frozen people. I had been out all night looking for medicine for Odette, my mother-in-law, because she said her heart was bad. I had found it, and I had carried it for six miles through the ash.

I had a bag of pills on my back. I had a family inside this shelter. I thought that was enough.

For thirty days, I had been the one who went out. Caspian said his knee hurt. Odette said the cold was bad for her chest. Cordelia said she must stay and pray for all of us. So I went out into the black wind alone, again and again, and I came back with water, canned food, and wood for the small stove. Every night, I came to this same door and knocked, and every night someone opened it. I told myself that this was what love looked like. Love was work. Love was giving until you had nothing left.

Tonight, no one opened it.

“Caspian,” I whispered. “I have the medicine. Please.”

A long silence came. Then, at last, I heard him. His voice was low and tired, the same voice he used when I asked him to take out the trash.

“Elowen, the food count is not enough,” he said. “Mother did the numbers. We cannot take another person.”

“I am your wife.”

“I know.” He stopped. “But you are strong. You always find a way. You will be fine.”

I laughed. It came out as a cough. “Caspian, I paid for this shelter. I sold my grandmother’s ring for the water tanks. I carried every box down those stairs.”

“And we are grateful,” said Odette’s thin voice. “Truly. You have always been so useful, dear.”

Useful. That was the word. Not loved. Useful.

I heard Cordelia, my sister-in-law, say softly, “Let us pray for her.”

My knees gave out. I slid down the door and sat in the ash. The cold was already crawling up my legs. My lips were cracking. In the last light of my small flashlight, I saw my wedding ring. It was thin and plain. I had worked two jobs to help Caspian’s family business, and he had bought me nothing but this.

Behind the door, Pip cried again. Then I heard something I will never forget. Caspian said to his mother, in a whisper, “She will understand. She always does.”

That was the moment my heart broke for good. I thought of Pip’s small hand in mine the day he lost his first tooth. I thought of Odette’s birthday cake, which I stayed up all night to bake. I thought of every year I said “it is okay” when it was not okay. I did not scream. I did not beg anymore. I only thought one clear thought. I gave them everything. And they let me die for a bowl of soup.

The cold took my hands, then my arms, then the rest of me. The last thing I saw was my flashlight going dim in the dark.

And then I was gone.

• • •

“Elo? Elo, honey, are you awake?”

Someone was knocking. Sunlight was on my face. It was warm, so warm that I thought I was dreaming. I sat up so fast that my head spun. My chest was heaving. My hands were not bleeding. They were not even cold.

I was in my old bedroom in the Vale mansion. The curtains were yellow. The fan was turning slowly. A glass of water sat on my nightstand, the one I always forgot to drink.

“Elo?” Caspian opened the door and leaned in with his easy smile. He was in his gray robe, and his hair was perfect. “You were making noises in your sleep. Bad dream?”

I stared at him. This was the man who locked the door. This was the man who said I would understand.

My whole body wanted to scream. I wanted to jump out of the bed and tear his face. But something strange happened. Something inside me went very still, like a pond after a stone sinks.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “A bad dream.”

“Well, hurry up. Mother wants breakfast, and she wants her eggs the way she likes them.” He winked and shut the door.

I sat very still until his footsteps faded. Then I grabbed my phone from the table with shaking hands. The screen lit up. I read the date once, twice, three times.

It was ninety days before the Sunless began.

Ninety days. I counted it again on my fingers like a child. In the old life, the sky went black on the ninety-first day. At 4:12 in the afternoon, on a Tuesday, in the middle of a grocery store line. I remembered it perfectly because I had been holding a carton of milk.

I was alive. I was back. And I had ninety days.

I pressed both hands over my mouth so no sound would come out. My eyes burned. My whole body shook, and I laughed and cried at the same time without making a single noise. I felt something on my wrist and looked down.

There was a mark on my skin. It was small and brass-colored, shaped like a tiny old key. It had not been there before.

I touched it with one finger.

The room flickered, and everything went white.