The rising sun melted leftover snow into pools of murky water.

Betsy, Odin, and Grew-Ella left together.

Quig worked on his latest book. Dot left a dozen phone messages.

"I know you're hurting, but please talk to me. I have big news."

He listened to another message.

"Answer your phone, or I'm going to drag you out of your apartment."

He attempted to call Dot, but a little boy answered.

"Uncle Quig, Ida visited me, but she isn't a ghost or a zombie. Boo! I expected her to be undead."

"I wish she'd visit me... Tell Aunt Dot, I called her."

"Did you see the monster and his pet snake at my party?" Snake Boy asked.

"He was your birthday clown."

"Uncle Quig, there is a ghost in the loft. Tell me a ghost story," the boy said.

They talked for an hour before Quig's grandmother dialed, and he ended the phone call.

"Dot has been emailing me all day. Call her back."

"Every time I try, Snake Boy answers. I think she accidentally left her cell phone with him. Maybe he is right, and Ida is visiting us. I keep dreaming about her. She demanded that I find that nuptial bracelet you and I designed when I was a teen."

"She visited last night, and I mailed it, but you better not be getting back with Ann."

"I'm not," he said.

"Nan-Gran, I gotta go secure my housing and buy groceries." He peered into his near-empty kitchen cabinets, and he ended his phone call.

Only sacks of rice and a bag of dried onions remained. Quig needed to supplement his food printer. Hungry cooks didn't rely on them alone unless their taste buds were dead.

He left and drove over the university roads. The campus grocery store was closed as workers repaired the weather-beaten doors and windows.

He kept driving, parked at a Celebrity Pawn Shop, and entered the freshly painted building. Fine art, silks, and celebrity memorabilia covered the walls.

Salesmen polished red Royal Moth Cars in the center of the showroom floor.

The shop owner waved at him to approach her. She stood behind a long steel table, positioned goggles over her bunny ears, and pulled them over her eyes.

Quig slid a nuptial bracelet, a watch, and a few rings out of his pocket. "Please, place half directly into the university's campus housing account. I'm behind on rent. The rest I need in cash."

She sent the payment via her tablet and handed him the money. "I sold your cabin, car, and speedboat as a package deal. After I take my cut, it'll go into your account."

He walked next door to the government-owned store when the ready button dinged.

Photo-shopped posters of Sean-Mack covered every inch of the once-gray walls, making the elf man with long, flowing gray and white hair appear younger. A fur cape flung over his black suit.

Dingy and once-grand chandeliers hung and cast a foggy glow around the store.

Quig bought a similar grocery box as the elite man and badged woman who stood beside him at the pickup counter.

The tall, pudgy cat woman waved her cash, her second badge newly pasted on her soft flesh.

The unacceptable woman paid double the elite male.

"You haven't paid the extra ugliness tax," the salesman said to her.

She handed him more money. "Why steal from unacceptable women and reject men? The taxes drive us to shop at underground markets."

"You're a creature and deserve to live in the workhouse with other criminals." The salesman pointed to her teeth.

"She isn't a creature," Quig said.

"When she receives her third badge, she will be." The salesman winked at Quig.

Her voice became softer. "You know nothing about the workhouses. They were once sweatshops, and the private prisons ran out of murderers and thieves, so they filled their walls with innocent people."

"Ugly women and offensive rejects are not innocent. Men rejected publicly are weak," the salesman said.

"Sir, I hope you earn reject status."

"They will never cancel me," the salesman said.

She handed him her money. "Men lose status for being rejected or saying something another person deems offensive on the internet. Well, unless they're noble elites. We all say and do stupid things or look imperfect. Intentions should matter." The woman positioned the boxes of groceries inside a pine wagon and dragged the load behind her.

Quig waved at the salesman. "Sir, you forgot my second order." Quig pointed to a massive box. He showed the salesman his identity card along with another order slip, and the man handed him pallets of canned food of all kinds and packages of crunchy peppermint drops.

The elite male purchased an additional box filled with frozen lobsters. Only for elites was written on the packaging.

Elite black and gold-labeled merchandise was a type of bragging, but most elites loved to gloat that they could buy luxuries from government markets.

Quig left to shop at a tent village on Pigeon Street.

Men and women erected multicolored tents in once-abandoned lots, tossing piles of branches into brick fire pits to survive the bitter cold of winter. Earthy-scented smoke comforted their surrounding noses.

Quig waved at a few villagers, and he drove on their main road toward their shopping district.

Men wore muted green clothes with insults sewn into their clothes. Villagers and their guests strung homemade necklaces to light their shadowy paths.

Females wore scratchy wool muted green sack dresses with knit caps. Plastic identity cards dangled around their dominant wrists to signify they were the lowest ranking of acceptable women. If not married, considered ugly, or in debt, they could have a badge sewn into their skin at any moment.

They boiled water under a tin-roofed open pavilion for warmth and cleanliness. Some moved jugs or laundry toward their tents.

In another pavilion, shop owners made soap.

Quig drove past a makeshift stone barn erected in the middle of the village.

Sheep bleated and chickens clucked as the smoke lifted from its chimney.

He turned right at a semi-truck labeled, showers, parked his station wagon, and entered a three-hundred-person-sized tent labeled Pigeon Street Market.

Customers moved in and out with groceries bought from handmade or discarded tables.

Dot approached him. "Nan-Gran said you might be here. I've called you ten times. Dad told me Ida fled."

"I didn't wish to burden you."

Her eyes softened, and her tail slumped. "Did you feel I was a burden when Trent murdered Cutter and left me parenting his kid?"

"Of course not."

"Quig, I'll give you the same advice you gave me." She carried a large crate of groceries and a muted green suit.

Happiness and joy reached her face and eyes, even though she appeared sad at the same time. Conflicting emotions fighting each other in the battle within her heart. "I married Ruby this morning, and if you returned my messages, I could have told you."

"Snake Boy took your phone..." Quig paused. "You said that you weren't ready. And while I don't understand gay marriage, you know I'll love you forever, but... um... why didn't you invite me? I wouldn't have ignored a message that you were getting married."

"Ruby was uncomfortable about being the center of attention." Dot clutched her brother's arm. "I asked Grew-Ella to let me tell you first, but squad members tried to toss Ruby into the workhouse."

"That is terrible." He tapped his foot on the floor mat.

She purchased cheese while talking to him and added it to her massive box.

"Don't tell me you'd refuse to do the same for Grew-Ella if her life was at risk?"

"Can we talk in your van? I... know that most people here won't gossip, but..." Quig paused.

Dot nodded, 'yes.' She picked up her box of groceries and left the tent market.

They both climbed into her vehicle.

"Could you come over for a family breakfast?" Dot asked.

Quig checked his phone and coughed. "Three in the morning! You better be joking. I have to go to Karen's potluck later that day."

"Ruby is on swing shift."

He tucked his phone away. "If I don't oversleep, I'll be there, but why is Grew-Ella listed as my plus one?"

"You're not seeing anyone." She repositioned her grocery box and squeezed it next to rows of carnations.

"Stop playing matchmaker. Grew-Ella's not attracted to me, and I have given up," he said.

"She could be badged as a reject. Chase is a toad, and I think she became engaged to him out of desperation."

Quig pointed to himself. "Why isn't Grew-Ella desperate enough to choose me as a boyfriend or a husband? What is wrong with me? I mean, besides my speech impediment." He pouted. "That sounded better in my head. She rejected me, and I'm fine being friends."

"Both of you lie to yourselves."

"Grew-Ella picks hunky guys."

She smirked. "Bro, you're considered attractive. Yoleta's boss calls you a dark-haired hottie, and your battle scars make her desire you more."

"Lana also said that about Dad." He grinned, but sadness reached his large, misty eyes.

Dot wrapped her arms around her brother. "Let me explain it this way. Ruby isn't neurotypical. While she doesn't understand social norms, she is amazing. The media made her feel unattractive. Don't let your fears make you doubt yourself."

Quig hugged her back before pulling away. "I'm glad I didn't marry Ann after all the things I found out about her, but Grew-Ella's rejection makes me doubt myself."

"Once Grew-Ella's self-image improves, she'll be ready. Chase tried to force her to go back to him," Dot said.

"Did you say Chase forced her?"

"Yes, he wasn't wrong about Avery-Joy's ex-boyfriend, but he's Stanton's delivery boy. Madd-Ox emailed me, and Stanton offered Junior's safety for Grew-Ella."

"Stanton is disgusting," Quig said.

"Grew-Ella can't tell you anything because she was forced to sign an NDA. While I don't know what is in it, most of those contracts contain an out clause that a marriage to a broken elite nullifies it. Broken elite is your new status. Go for her. Vex can't stop you."

"He has in the past. He tried to give me reject status because I turned Zill down. They were in Dean's Frog's office when those nasty posts mocking Ann were published."

"Ask Grew-Ella to marry you. You'll have the combined income to pay all government debts."

"I'll ask her around Christmas, but she'll turn me down again."

She grabbed his shoulder. "Grew-Ella jumped through hoops to keep you alive. She resuscitated you twice. Bro, Grew-Ella is love personified, and she never said she doesn't love you."

"Dot, Grew-Ella strings me along, but an NDA explains everything." His shoulders slumped. "I'm not exactly over her, but my heartbreaking wing spasms have stopped. Sorry for sounding grumpy. I feared getting reject status, but life is better because my cabin and the rest of my junk are selling."

"If you marry Grew-Ella, neither of your statuses will dip further. You're the only brother I have left."

"If I receive the dreaded reject status, I'll buy a dog or a rat. Polite society might avoid me, but maybe that is unfair to whatever pet I adopt."

Dot hugged him. "I'll never avoid you, and if you lose your apartment, you will stay with me."

"If Ida was here, she'd know what to say, but she fled."

"Lonely holidays are worse. I wish to take Cutter and Ida to the movies and eat Christmas breakfast with them." She talked to Quig for another fifteen minutes.

He climbed out of the delivery van and walked into the tent.

A large man grabbed him and tightened his arm around his throat.