I told Mama. She told Lobo. They set me down and explained the sheriff would take me away if he knew about the plants in the basement. He would want them for himself. He would take the money, kill the last farm dog who hadn’t yet run.

There was nobody to come for me. We hadn’t heard much from my real daddy since he left. The phone calls had petered out, like water in the old house when we hadn’t paid the bill. The plants were a secret, but not a bad secret, Lobo and my mama explained. It was a treasure we couldn’t give away. It would deliver us, deliver me. There were promises—horses and bicycles—that never materialized. If only I would keep the secret.

I came to see the plants as the only magic, an end in themselves. They grew so quickly, they were sprinkled with golden dust, they made the ones who were supposed to take care of me transform back into children: selfish, stunned, and mewing for more. This was the marvel in itself, this plant grown from clones or seed. That we could do that: give something life.

How could I explain that to Grayson? Dirt settled in the cracks of my hand like it belonged there. I mounded seeds into the ground, patting them with a promise: I’d come back. They could depend on me, though I had no one to teach me how to love or be loved. The tender way seedlings sprouted, thin as hair. I ended each day coated in a sheen of grit. I had strange tan lines. I went to bed each night exhausted, achy, then got up early and did it all again. Alone with the earth. It had a kind of song. There was no way to explain it.

“I can make things grow,” I said. “Even in a basement. But for that we would need lights.”

“We’d need power, too,” Grayson said.

“We have power. So far.”

“I thought the world would just get warmer.”

“Well, we were wrong. It got worse.”

Grayson looked at the lights. “We can’t give these away. Not even for seeds.”

“We traded. I promised him.”

“You didn’t know what you were promising. Did you?”

“No.” I had thought the Pumpkin King had wanted something else. Just weed. What everyone wanted from me. To have a good time. To forget. To feel good. “But you don’t understand,” I said. “It’s different out here in the country. Things have a way they’re done in the holler. You keep your word. You take your payback, when it’s needed.”

Maybe what everyone wanted was changing. Not just to survive, but to live.

“We’ll bring one light,” I said. “And see if we can barter.”