At first, Oliver thinks this is going to be a repeat of four years ago; mysterious girl appears, promises to come back, doesn't come back.  He expects her to show up at any moment, but by the end of the day, the only sign of her is a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that he is a complete fool.

"She'll be here."  Marylou smiles at him as she hands up her empty basket, the last one to be filled before work ends for the evening.  She's been surprisingly nice to Oliver since Avie came and went the day before.  "Maybe she got hung up, is all.  But she'll come.  You'll see."

Oliver's eye twitches.  He turns away from Marylou's hopeful face.  Optimism seems like a poor choice if he doesn't want to end up disappointed.  Why is he kidding himself anyways?  Has he actually been gullible enough to believe he's met a girl from another world?  Maybe she's just some kind of side-show magician.  Maybe she's a carnie who can't resist trying to trick impressionable townies with her admittedly impressive illusions.  Maybe this is all just a cruel magic act—a trick and nothing more.

A hand grabs onto Oliver's ankle.  He wobbles, gripping a branch to keep himself steady.  "What is wrong with you, Marylou? I could've—"

The next word gets stuck in his throat.  Avie appears below him, one hand still on his leg, the other clamped over her mouth to stifle a laugh.  She is blissfully unaware of his inner turmoil. 

"Oliver, you should see your face!"  A few pickers working nearby stare at Avie curiously.  It's clear that she's attempted to dress more appropriately for Oliver's world and it's equally clear that she has no idea how to do that.  She's curled her brunette hair into shiny tresses, but her outfit!  She wears bright green overalls with cuffed up pants legs over a silky, skintight black blouse. "What do you think, do I look like a girl from your realm?"

"First of all, you gotta stop calling it a realm.  That ain't right.  Second, you look like a Hollywood starlet forced to wear a pickle suit.  What're you thinking?"

Avie's face falls.  He should probably have worded things in a gentler manner, but she's getting more and more looks from the other pickers.  He already knows he'll have to answer a bunch of questions back at camp.  And what's he to say?  Fear coils around his heart.  He can't let anyone know where she comes from.  How would they react if they found out?

Oliver steps off of the ladder and grabs her arm.  "Come on, let's get you out of here."

"Oh, see, there she is.  I told you she'd come back, Ollie!" Marylou bounds up to them and gives Avie a kiss on her cheek. "You ain't got much fashion sense, do you?"

"Marylou, I need you to do me a huge favor.  I'll owe you whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?  Golly, I can't wait for them ponies to show up.  Or how about a house.  A real one, with my own bedroom and everything!"

"You know what I mean."

Marylou grins.  "Fine.  What's the favor?"

Fill the basket, get our pay and head on back to camp with the others."

"What?  Ain't you coming?"

"I'll walk back."

"But it's miles!"

"It ain't so far."  Oliver sighs at his sister.  "Look will you do it, or not?"

"I guess so."

"You're a peach." He tousles her hair.  Marylou pulls away, too old to have her hair messed with by her brother.  "Tell Ma I went to town with Jimmy."

"Oh!"  Her eyes sparkle at the prospect of being asked to lie so he can spend time with a girl.  "I get it." She winks at them.  "Your secret's safe with me."

"Somehow I doubt that."  Oliver slides his hand down Avie's arm until he feels her clasp her fingers around his own.  "Let's go."

Once they're well away from the other pickers, Oliver's unease begins to lessen.  He leads her past the tree they'd met under the day before and out into the golden field.  The chill of the evening will be upon them as soon as the sun dips behind the hill to the west.  Avie is already shivering, the skin on her bare arms rising in tiny goose bumps.

Oliver removes his jacket and sets it around her shoulders.

"I look so awful that I need covering up, huh?"  Despite her words, she accepts the jacket with a smile and grasps the collar tightly around her neck. 

"You could never look awful."

She blinks and turns away, the smile on her lips now playful.  She's silent a moment before twisting back around.  "I almost forgot, I have something for you!"

Avie tosses his jacket off of her shoulders, the cold forgotten as she searches the pockets of her overalls. "Here it is."  She hands him a twig with wilted leaves.  "It had buds, but they fell off."

"That's—that's nice.  Thank you Avie."  He's not quite sure what this gift symbolizes.  Maybe in her world, giving someone a dead plant is really meaningful.  Maybe it means she likes him, or doesn't like him.  Maybe by accepting it, he's just agreed to something and he has no idea what that something is.

Avie snatches back the twig and waves it in front of him.  "You don't know what this is, do you?"

"It's, um, from a tree?"

"Yes!" She brings the twig in front of her and grasps it with both hands as though she's holding a flag in a parade.  "But not just any tree.  It's from one of your trees, here in this orchard! Or I mean, it sort of is.  Remember when I took the seed from the apple I ate?"

Oliver nods.  He remembers every moment from that day.

"Well, I took it home and planted it, and it grew into a tree and I took this from it!"

"That's impossible.  You said it had buds.  Apple tees don't grow from seeds and produce fruit in four years."

"But this tree isn't four years old, it's nearly twenty!" She describes to him the jump in time that can take place when journeying through the Fold.  "I just wanted you to see it, to know I was thinking of you.  Really, I was."

A laugh shakes Oliver's entire body.  So she's a time-traveler too.  Does he really buy all of this?  "Avie, you boggle the mind."

"I don't know what that means."

He laughs again, and pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her.  He can feel the twig pressed against his heart where she holds it.  Oliver smells her spring-time hair and brings his lips next to her neck.  "How long can you stay?"

Avie lays her head against his chest.  "I should have left already, probably."  She pulls away and turns her face to the western hills.  "But I'm glad I haven't."

Oliver picks up his jacket, shakes it out and places it over her again.  They settle down on a rock, shoulders grazing.  He asks what her home is like and Avie does her best to describe it to him.  She lives with her stepmother, the woman who first brought her here.  There is also a hotel with a pool—an actual pool.

"You must be rich!"

Avie laughs.  "Hardly.  It's not like I own an orchard.  You have so many trees Oliver!"

Now it's Oliver's turn to laugh.  "These ain't my trees.  I'm just a picker."

"Oh.  Back home collectives own farms.  Everyone who works the farm owns a share."

Oliver's expression hardens.  "Ain't no sharing here."

Avie rests her head against Oliver's shoulder.  They sit in silence as the evening closes in, the birds of twilight chirruping from the nearby trees.  Oliver wonders what Avie thinks is happening between them.  She's so comfortable with their closeness but doesn't seem to expect anything more from him. Maybe the idea of being anything more with a person like him is laughable to her, especially now that she knows he's nothing but a poor, common picker.  All the boys she knows must be so sophisticated and educated compared to him.

"Avie, I gotta know..." He straightens himself up and she lifts her head from his shoulder.  "Why'd you come back?  And don't say it's because you promised.  I mean, why'd you wanna promise such a thing in the first place?"

Avie leans in towards him, the dying light catching in her clear brown eyes.  "I woke up four years ago, Oliver, and I hadn't even known I'd been asleep.  Not until I saw you.  You're my alarm clock."

"The rooster's caw."  He takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly.  Never would he have imagined that her feelings echoed his own so closely.  She has awakened in him the longing to set forth on a journey, to explore invisible realms.

"Yes." She punches his shoulder playfully.  "A rooster."  She hops down from the rock.  "I better go.  It's really hard for me to calculate my returns at the precise moment I left.  The longer I'm gone the more off I seem to be."

"If you don't come back, Avie..."

She's already chanting, already tracing the air, calling forth that strange white substance she refers to as the Fold, but she pauses at his words. "Nothing's going to keep me away." 

She slips into the Fold.  As he watches it collapse around her, he can't help but note the fact that although she sounds perfectly sincere, this time, her words include no promise.

A/N: Avie came back! It looks like there's mutual affection between our two MCs, but will that be enough to see them through whatever turmoil lies ahead?  And just what does lie ahead?  We are slowly building towards some pretty big moments, everyone!

If you are still hanging out with us...hurrah!  Believe it or not, we're fast approaching the half-way point of the story, but there is still so much more to come!  If you like what you've been reading, please consider voting for the chapters and feel free to jump into the conversation in the comments thread.  Unheeded's comments have taken on a real discussion-like feel. It's truly become a read-along book club thanks to my amazing readers!  And guess what?  There's always room for more members!

Today's dedication is for a well-established author whom many of you are probably familiar with.  @scottwesterfeld, author of the influential Uglies series, has been putting chapters of Uglies up on Wattpad. If you haven't read this series, I highly recommend it to you.  It is dystopian fiction at its very best and the Wattpad community is very fortunate to have him sharing part of it with us.  Get thee to his profile page now!