The details varied, but every day of Lilith’s life was more or less the same degree of awful. Lilith groped for toilet paper, hoping at least to wipe her foot clean. The tree roots outside were curling through their pipes, and her mom was supposed to have money to pay the plumber this afternoon, after she got a paycheck from one of her many part-time jobs. her mom’s note proclaimed on a sheet of loose-leaf taped to the bathroom mirror. “This is seriously uncivilized,” she scolded the dog, and hopped on one foot into the bathroom. Her mom called the dog a genius because of the tricks Lilith’s brother, Bruce, had taught him, but Alastor was four years old and refused to learn the only trick that mattered: being housebroken. “Alastor!” The little blond mutt trotted into her bedroom, thinking Lilith wanted to play. She drew her foot up, and the smell assaulted her. She slid out of bed and stepped in something warm and soft. Whose idea of a cruel joke was it to assign her two textbooks with precisely the same color spine? She was going to have to wing the test and pray for a C. She thought of the biology test awaiting her in fourth period, followed immediately by the sucky fact that last night she’d brought home her American history book by mistake. Her bedside clock flashed midnight, but her thin white curtains glowed gray with dawn.

It was wildfire season-it was always wildfire season-and her lungs were thick with smoke and ash from the red blaze in the hills.

Unforgiven lauren kate