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Wrath&theDawn_FinalPass_REVISED

Wrath&theDawn_FinalPass_REVISED.indd 6 2/11/15 10:32 AM


For Victor,

the story at the heart of mine.

And for Jessica,

the first star in my night sky.



I once had a thousand desires,

But in my one desire to know you,

all else melted away.

Jalal al-Din Rumi


1


PROLOGUE

IT WOULD NOT BE A WELCOME DAWN.

Already the sky told this story, with its sad halo of silver beck-

oning from beyond the horizon.

A young man stood alongside his father on the rooftop ter-

race of the marble palace. They watched the pale light of the

early morning sun push back the darkness with slow, careful

deliberation.

“Where is he?” the young man asked.

His father did not look his way. “He has not left his chamber

since he gave the order.”

The young man ran a hand through his wavy hair, exhaling all

the while. “There will be riots in the city streets for this.”

“And you will put them to rout, in short order.” It was a terse

response, still made to a somber stretch of light.

“In short order? Do you not think a mother and father, re-

gardless of birth or rank, will fight to avenge their child?”

Finally, the father faced his son. His eyes were drawn and

sunken, as though a weight tugged at them from within. “They

will fight. They should fight. And you will ensure it amounts


2


to nothing. You will do your duty to your king. Do you under-

stand?”

The young man paused. “I understand.”

“General al-Khoury?”

His father turned toward the soldier standing behind them.

“Yes?”

“It is done.”

His father nodded, and the soldier left.

Again, the two men stared up at the sky.

Waiting.

A drop of rain struck the arid surface beneath their feet, dis-

appearing into the tan stone. Another plinked against the iron

railing before it slid its way into nothingness.

Soon, rain was falling around them at a steady pace.

“There is your proof,” the general said, his voice laden with

quiet anguish.

The young man did not respond right away.

“He cannot withstand this, Father.”

“He can. He is strong.”

“You have never understood Khalid. It is not about strength.

It is about substance. What follows will destroy all that remains

of his, leaving behind a husk—a shadow of what he once was.”

The general winced. “Do you think I wanted this for him? I

would drown in my own blood to prevent this. But we have no

choice.”

The young man shook his head and wiped the rain from be-

neath his chin.

“I refuse to believe that.”


3


“Jalal—”

“There must be another way.” With that, the young man

turned from the railing and vanished down the staircase.

Throughout the city, long-dry wells began to fill. Cracked,

sunbaked cisterns shimmered with pools of hope, and the people

of Rey awoke to a new joy. They raced into the streets, angling

their smiling faces to the sky.

Not knowing the price.

And, deep within the palace of marble and stone, a boy of

eighteen sat alone before a table of polished ebony . . .

Listening to the rain.

The only light in the room reflected back in his amber eyes.

A light beset by the dark.

He braced his elbows on his knees and made a crown of his

hands about his brow. Then he shuttered his gaze, and the words

echoed around him, filling his ears with the promise of a life

rooted in the past.

Of a life atoning for his sins.

One hundred lives for the one you took. One life to one dawn.

Should you fail but a single morn, I shall take from you your dreams. I

shall take from you your city.

And I shall take from you these lives, a thousandfold.


5


TEXT

SH

ORT

MEDITATIONS ON GOSSAMER AND GOLD

THEY WERE NOT GENTLE. AND WHY SHOULD THEY BE?

After all, they did not expect her to live past the next morning.

The hands that tugged ivory combs through Shahrzad’s waist-

length hair and scrubbed sandalwood paste on her bronze arms

did so with a brutal kind of detachment.

Shahrzad watched one young servant girl dust her bare shoul-

ders with flakes of gold that caught the light from the setting sun.

A breeze gusted along the gossamer curtains lining the walls of

the chamber. The sweet scent of citrus blossoms wafted through

the carved wooden screens leading to the terrace, whispering of a

freedom now beyond reach.

This was my choice. Remember Shiva.

“I don’t wear necklaces,” Shahrzad said when another girl

began to fasten a jewel-encrusted behemoth around her throat.

“It is a gift from the caliph. You must wear it, my lady.”

Shahrzad stared down at the slight girl in amused disbelief.

“And if I don’t? Will he kill me?”

“Please, my lady, I—”


6


Shahrzad sighed. “I suppose now is not the time to make this

point.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“My name is Shahrzad.”

“I know, my lady.” The girl glanced away in discomfort be-

fore turning to assist with Shahrzad’s gilded mantle. As the two

young women eased the weighty garment onto her glittering

shoulders, Shahrzad studied the finished product in the mirror

before her.

Her midnight tresses gleamed like polished obsidian, and her

hazel eyes were edged in alternating strokes of black kohl and

liquid gold. At the center of her brow hung a teardrop ruby the

size of her thumb; its mate dangled from a thin chain around her

bare waist, grazing the silk sash of her trowsers. The mantle itself

was pale damask and threaded with silver and gold in an intricate

pattern that grew ever chaotic as it flared by her feet.

I look like a gilded peacock.

“Do they all look this ridiculous?” Shahrzad asked.

Again, the two young women averted their gazes with unease.

I’m sure Shiva didn’t look this ridiculous . . .

Shahrzad’s expression hardened.

Shiva would have looked beautiful. Beautiful and strong.

Her fingernails dug into her palms; tiny crescents of steely

resolve.

At the sound of a quiet knock at the door, three heads turned—

their collective breaths bated.

In spite of her newfound mettle, Shahrzad’s heart began to

pound.


7


“May I come in?” The soft voice of her father broke through

the silence, pleading and laced in tacit apology.

Shahrzad exhaled slowly . . . carefully.

“Baba, what are you doing here?” Her words were patient, yet

wary.

Jahandar al-Khayzuran shuffled into the chamber. His beard

and temples were streaked with grey, and the myriad colors in his

hazel eyes shimmered and shifted like the sea in the midst of a

storm.

In his hand was a single budding rose, its center leached of

color, and the tips of its petals tinged a beautiful, blushing mauve.

“Where is Irsa?” Shahrzad asked, alarm seeping into her tone.

Her father smiled sadly. “She is at home. I did not allow her

to come with me, though she fought and raged until the last pos-

sible moment.”

At least in this he has not ignored my wishes.

“You should be with her. She needs you tonight. Please do this

for me, Baba? Do as we discussed?” She reached out and took his

free hand, squeezing tightly, beseeching him in her grip to follow

the plans she had laid out in the days before.

“I—I can’t, my child.” Jahandar lowered his head, a sob rising

in his chest, his thin shoulders trembling with grief. “Shahrzad—”

“Be strong. For Irsa. I promise you, everything will be fine.”

Shahrzad raised her palm to his weathered face and brushed

away the smattering of tears from his cheek.

“I cannot. The thought that this may be your last sunset—”

“It will not be the last. I will see tomorrow’s sunset. This I

swear to you.”


8


Jahandar nodded, his misery nowhere close to mollified. He

held out the rose in his hand. “The last from my garden; it has

not yet bloomed fully, but I wanted to give you one remembrance

of home.”

She smiled as she reached for it, the love between them far

past mere gratitude, but he stopped her. When she realized the

reason, she began to protest.

“No. At least in this, I might do something for you,” he mut-

tered, almost to himself. He stared at the rose, his brow furrowed

and his mouth drawn. One servant girl coughed in her fist while

the other looked to the floor.

Shahrzad waited patiently. Knowingly.

The rose started to unfurl. Its petals twisted open, prodded to

life by an invisible hand. As it expanded, a delicious perfume filled

the space between them, sweet and perfect for an instant . . . but

soon, it became overpowering. Cloying. The edges of the flower

changed from a brilliant, deep pink to a shadowy rust in the blink

of an eye.

And then the flower began to wither and die.

Dismayed, Jahandar watched its dried petals wilt to the white

marble at their feet.

“I—I’m sorry, Shahrzad,” he cried.

“It doesn’t matter. I will never forget how beautiful it was for

that moment, Baba.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and

pulled him close. By his ear, in a voice so low only he could hear,

she said, “Go to Tariq, as you promised. Take Irsa and go.”

He nodded, his eyes shimmering once more. “I love you, my

child.”


9


“And I love you. I will keep my promises. All of them.”

Overcome, Jahandar blinked down at his elder daughter in

silence.

This time, the knock at the door demanded attention rather

than requested it.

Shahrzad’s forehead whipped back in its direction, the

bloodred ruby swinging in tandem. She squared her shoulders

and lifted her pointed chin.

Jahandar stood to the side, covering his face with his hands, as

his daughter marched forward.

“I’m sorry—so very sorry,” she whispered to him before

striding across the threshold to follow the contingent of guards

leading the processional. Jahandar slid to his knees and sobbed as

Shahrzad turned the corner and disappeared.

With her father’s grief resounding through the halls, Shahr-

zad’s feet refused to carry her but a few steps down the cavernous

corridors of the palace. She halted, her knees shaking beneath the

thin silk of her voluminous sirwal trowsers.

“My lady?” one of the guards prompted in a bored tone.

“He can wait,” Shahrzad gasped.

The guards exchanged glances.

Her own tears threatening to blaze a telltale trail down her

cheeks, Shahrzad pressed a hand to her chest. Unwittingly, her

fingertips brushed the edge of the thick gold necklace clasped

around her throat, festooned with gems of outlandish size and

untold variety. It felt heavy . . . stifling. Like a bejeweled fetter.

She allowed her fingers to wrap around the offending instru-

ment, thinking for a moment to rip it from her body.


10


The rage was comforting. A friendly reminder.

Shiva.

Her dearest friend. Her closest confidante.

She curled her toes within their sandals of braided bullion

and threw back her shoulders once more. Without a word, she

resumed her march.

Again, the guards looked to one another for an instant.

When they reached the massive double doors leading into the

throne room, Shahrzad realized her heart was racing at twice its

normal speed. The doors swung open with a distended groan,

and she focused on her target, ignoring all else around her.

At the very end of the immense space stood Khalid Ibn

al-Rashid, the Caliph of Khorasan.

The King of Kings.

The monster from my nightmares.

With every step she took, Shahrzad felt the hate rise in her

blood, along with the clarity of purpose. She stared at him, her

eyes never wavering. His proud carriage stood out amongst the

men in his retinue, and details began to emerge the closer she

drew to his side.

He was tall and trim, with the build of a young man proficient

in warfare. His dark hair was straight and styled in a manner sug-

gesting a desire for order in all things.

As she strode onto the dais, she looked up at him, refusing to

balk, even in the face of her king.

His thick eyebrows raised a fraction. They framed eyes so

pale a shade of brown they appeared amber in certain flashes

of light, like those of a tiger. His profile was an artist’s study in


11


angles, and he remained motionless as he returned her watchful

scrutiny.

A face that cut; a gaze that pierced.

He reached a hand out to her.

Just as she extended her palm to grasp it, she remembered to

bow.

The wrath seethed below the surface, bringing a flush to her

cheeks.

When she met his eyes again, he blinked once.

“Wife.” He nodded.

“My king.”

I will live to see tomorrow’s sunset. Make no mistake. I swear I will

live to see as many sunsets as it takes.

And I will kill you.

With my own hands.


12

Wrath&theDawn_FinalPass_REVISEDTE

XT S

HO

RT

ONLY ONE

THE FALCON DRIFTED THROUGH THE BLEARING MID‑

afternoon sky, its wings held aloft on a passing sigh of wind and

its eyes scanning the underbrush below.

At fleeting signs of movement, the raptor tucked its wings

against its body and hurtled toward the dirt in a blur of blue-grey

feathers and flashing talons.

The mass of fur, screeching and scurrying through the un-

derbrush, had no chance of escape. Soon, the sound of clattering

hooves drew near, a swirl of sand curling in its wake.

The two riders paused a respectful distance from the falcon

and her kill.

With the sun at his back, the first rider, sitting astride a

gleaming, dark bay al-Khamsa stallion, extended his left arm and

whistled, low and soft.

The falcon twisted his way, her yellow-rimmed eyes narrowing.

Then she took to the air once more and landed with her talons

firmly embedded in the leather mankalah cuff bound from the

rider’s wrist to his elbow.


13


TEXT

SH

ORT

“Curse you, Zoraya. I lost another bet,” the second rider

groaned to the bird.

The falconer grinned at Rahim, his friend since childhood.

“Stop complaining. It’s not her fault you’re incapable of learning

a single lesson.”

“You’re lucky I’m such a fool. Who else would stomach your

company for so long, Tariq?”

Tariq laughed under his breath. “In that case, perhaps I should

stop lying to your mother about how smart you’ve become.”

“Of course. Have I ever lied to yours?”

“Ingrate. Get down and collect her kill.”

“I’m not your servant. You do it.”

“Fine. Hold this.” Tariq stretched out his forearm, with Zoraya

still waiting patiently on her perch. When the falcon realized she

was being passed along to Rahim, she ruffled her feathers and

screeched in protest.

Rahim reared back with alarm. “That godforsaken bird hates

me.”

“Because she’s a good judge of character.” Tariq smiled.

“With a temper for the ages,” Rahim grumbled. “Honestly,

she’s worse than Shazi.”

“Another girl with excellent taste.”

Rahim rolled his eyes. “A bit self-serving in that assessment,

don’t you think? Considering the one thing they have in common

is you.”

“Reducing Shahrzad al-Khayzuran to such a notion might

be the reason you’re always on the receiving end of her temper. I


14


assure you, Zoraya and Shazi have a great deal more in common

than me. Now, stop wasting time and get down from that blasted

roan so we can go home.”

Under continued grumblings, Rahim dismounted from his

grey Akhal-Teke—her mane shining like polished pewter in the

desert sun.

Tariq’s eyes skimmed the stretch of sand and dry brushwood

along the horizon. Blistering waves of heat rose from a sea of umber

and adobe, rippling into patches of blue and white across the sky.

With Zoraya’s catch now stowed in the leather pouch affixed

to his saddle, Rahim swung back onto his horse, employing the

grace of a young nobleman trained in the art since boyhood.

“As to the earlier bet regarding the bird . . .” Rahim trailed off.

Tariq groaned when he saw the determined look on Rahim’s

face. “No.”

“Because you know you’ll lose.”

“You’re a better rider than I am.”

“You have a better horse. Your father is an emir. Plus, I already

lost one bet today. Give me a chance to even the field,” Rahim

insisted.

“How long are we going to play these games?”

“Until I beat you. At every one of them.”

“Then we’ll be playing forever,” Tariq joked.

“Bastard.” Rahim suppressed a grin as he gripped his reins.

“For that, I won’t even try to play fair.” He dug his heels into the

mare before taking off in the opposite direction.

“Fool.” Tariq laughed as he released Zoraya into the clouds

and leaned over the neck of his stallion. At the click of his tongue,


15


the horse shook out its mane and snorted. Tariq pulled on the

reins, and the Arabian reared onto its massive hooves before

launching across the sand, its powerful legs kicking up a vortex

of dust and debris.

Tariq’s white rida’ billowed behind him, the hood threatening

to blow back in spite of the leather band holding it in place.

As they rounded the final dune, a walled fortress of tan stone

and grey mortar rose from the sands, its vaulted turrets capped in

spirals of copper tinged by the turquoise patina of age.

“The emir’s son approaches!” a sentry cried out as Rahim and

Tariq neared the back gates, which swung open with barely a mo-

ment to spare. Servants and laborers scrambled out of their path

as Rahim barreled past the still-screeching iron with Tariq on his

heels. A basket of persimmons crashed to the ground, its contents

rolling across the expanse before a grousing old man bent for-

ward, struggling to collect the wayward orange fruit.

Oblivious to the chaos they had wrought, the two young no-

blemen reined in their horses near the center of the sprawling

courtyard.

“How does it feel—being bested by a fool?” Rahim taunted,

his dark blue eyes bright.

One side of Tariq’s mouth rose with amusement before he

swung down from the saddle and knocked back the hood of

his rida’. He ran a hand through his unruly tangle of wavy hair.

Grains of sand fell into his face, and he blinked hard to fend off

their attack.

The sound of Rahim’s choked laughter rang out from behind

him.


16


Tariq opened his eyes.

The servant girl standing before Tariq looked away in haste,

her cheeks blooming with color. The tray she held with two silver

tumblers of water began to shake.

“Thank you.” Tariq smiled as he reached for one.

Her blush deepened, and the rattling grew worse.

Rahim lumbered closer. He took his own tumbler and nodded

to the girl before she twisted around and ran as fast as her legs

could carry her.

Tariq shoved him. Hard. “You oaf.”

“I believe that poor girl is half in love with you. After another

wretched display of horsemanship, you should be extra grateful

to the hand of fate that dealt you those looks.”

Tariq ignored him and swiveled to take in the sights of the

courtyard. To his right, he noticed the elderly servant stooping

above a gaggle of persimmons scattered across the granite at his

feet. Tariq glided forward and bent on one knee to help the old

man place the fruit in a basket.

“Thank you, sahib.” The man bowed his head and touched the

fingertips of his right hand to his forehead in a gesture of respect.

Tariq’s eyes softened, their colors flickering in the shade. Their

bright silver centers blended into rings of darkest ash, with black

lashes that fanned against the soft skin of his eyelids. His brow

had an air of severity that faded with the ready appearance of

his smile. A day-old beard shadowed the square line of his jaw,

further accentuating its finely wrought symmetry.

Tariq nodded at the elderly man and returned the customary

gesture.


17


Above them, Zoraya’s cry resounded from the sky, demanding

immediate attention. Tariq shook his head in mock irritation

and whistled for her. She swooped down with a wild shriek that

cleared another portion of the courtyard. Again, she landed on

Tariq’s outstretched mankalah and preened as he carried her to

her mews to feed her.

“Do you not find the bird a bit . . . spoiled?” Rahim studied

the falcon as she guzzled an entire strip of dried meat without

pausing for breath.

“She’s the best hunter in the kingdom.”

“Nevertheless, I’m convinced that accursed bird could get

away with murder. Is that your intent?”

Before Tariq could retort, one of his father’s closest advisors

appeared in the nearby archway to the vestibule.

“Sahib? The emir requests your presence.”

Tariq’s eyebrows drew together. “Is something wrong?”

“A messenger arrived from Rey not long ago.”

“Is that all?” Rahim harrumphed. “A letter from Shazi?

Hardly worthy of a formal audience.”

Tariq continued studying the advisor, taking in the deep lines

marring his forehead and the tight weave of his interlaced fingers.

“What happened?”

The advisor hedged. “Please, sahib. Come with me.”

Rahim followed Tariq and the advisor into the columned

marble vestibule and past the open-air gallery, with its tiled foun-

tain of mosaic glass. Sparkling water fell in a steady stream from

the mouth of a lion constructed of gilt bronze.

They entered the main hall to find Nasir al-Ziyad, emir of the


18


fourth-richest stronghold in Khorasan, sitting with his wife at a

low table. Their dinner lay before them, untouched.

It was obvious Tariq’s mother had been crying.

He stopped short at the sight. “Father?”

The emir exhaled and raised his troubled eyes to meet his son.

“Tariq, we received a letter from Rey this afternoon. From

Shahrzad.”

“Give it to me.” The request was soft. Sharp.

“It was addressed to me. There is a portion of it that was

meant for you, but the—”

Tariq’s mother burst into tears. “How could this happen?”

“What happened?” Tariq demanded, his voice rising. “Give

me the letter.”

“It’s too late. There’s nothing you can do,” the emir sighed.

“First Shiva. Then, lost in her grief, my sister took her own—”

She shuddered. “And now Shahrzad? How could this happen?

Why?” Tariq’s mother wept.

Tariq froze.

“You know why,” the emir rasped in a low tone. “It’s because

of Shiva that she did this. For Shiva. For all of us.”

At that, Tariq’s mother rose from the table and fled, her sobs

growing louder with every footstep.

“Oh, God. Shazi. What did you do?” Rahim whispered.

Tariq remained motionless, his expression blank and

inscrutable.

The emir stood and moved toward his son. “Son, you—”

“Give me the letter,” Tariq repeated.

With grim resignation, the emir relinquished the scroll.


19


Shahrzad’s familiar scrawl swam across the page, just as im-

perious and heavy-handed as usual. Tariq stopped reading when

she began addressing him directly. The apology. The words of re-

gret for her betrayal. The gratitude for his understanding.

No more. He couldn’t stand it. Not from her.

The edge of the scroll crumpled in his fist.

“There is nothing you can do,” the emir reiterated. “The

wedding—it’s today. If she succeeds . . . if she—”

“Don’t say it, Father. I beg you.”

“It must be said. These truths, no matter how harsh, must

be said. We must deal with this, as a family. Your aunt and uncle

never dealt with the loss of Shiva, and look what came of their

daughter’s death.”

Tariq’s eyes closed.

“Even if Shahrzad survives, there is nothing we can do. It is

finished. We must accept this, however difficult it may seem. I

know how you feel about her; I fully understand. It will take time.

But you will realize you can find happiness with someone else—

that there are other young women in the world. In time, you will

see,” the emir said.

“There’s no need.”

“Excuse me?”

“I already understand. Fully.”

The emir eyed his son with surprise.

“I understand your points. All of them. Now I need you to

understand mine. I know there are other women in the world.

I know it’s possible for me to find a measure of happiness with

another girl. Given time, I suppose anything may happen.”


20


The emir nodded. “Good. It’s for the best, Tariq.”

Rahim stared, dumbfounded.

Tariq continued, the silver in his eyes flashing. “But under-

stand this: no matter how many perfect young women you put in

my path, there is only one Shahrzad.” At that, he cast the scroll

to the floor and whirled on his heel, slamming his palms into the

doors to thrust them aside.

Rahim exchanged a thoughtful look with the emir before fol-

lowing Tariq. They retraced their steps into the courtyard, and

Tariq signaled for the horses. Rahim did not speak until both

mounts were brought before them.

“What’s the plan?” he asked gently. “Do you even have one?”

Tariq paused. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“And now who’s the fool? Are you the only one who loves

Shazi? Who loved Shiva? I may not be blood, but they will al-

ways be my family.”

Tariq turned to his friend. “Thank you, Rahim-jan.”

The taller, lankier boy smiled down at Tariq. “Don’t thank

me yet. We still need a plan. Tell me, what are you going to do?”

Rahim hesitated. “Is there anything you can do?”

Tariq’s jaw tightened. “As long as the ruler of Khorasan draws

breath, there is always something I can do . . .” His left hand

dropped to the hilt of the elegantly curved sword at his hip.

“What I do best.”


o n e

When they pull me onto the yacht, I can’t even stand I’ve been adrift in the ocean so long. A young crewman sits

me on a teak bench while he calls out for someone to bring him blankets and water. He asks me my name but my tongue is too thick and my throat too raw from screaming and salt water to answer.

I’m alive, I think to myself. The words run on an endless loop through my head as if with repetition I’ll somehow be-lieve it. I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.

And Libby isn’t.I should be feeling something more. But it’s all too much too

fast. Inside I’m awash with numbness that cocoons a brightly burning knot of rage and despair. Protecting me. For now.

A pair of crewmen pull Libby’s body from the life raft, roll-ing her onto her back on the yacht’s gleaming deck. I think about how birds have hollow bones and how easy it must be to break them.

DaughterOfDeep_BOM_INT.indd 1 12/19/14 12:30 PM

2 C A R R I E R Y A n

That’s how she looks right now: hollow. Her cheeks sunken, her wrists twigs wrapped in tight skin that’s turned to leather from relentless heat and exposure.

A crewman presses his fingers against her neck, a palm in the center of her chest. His expression slides from desperate hope into a mask of efficient resignation. He looks up to where an older man with a ring of white hair around his otherwise bald head hovers, waiting. The crewman shakes his head.

The older man lets out a cry, his face crumpling as he falls to his knees by Libby’s side. He only says one word over and over again as he pushes a tangle of wet hair out of her face: no. His voice cracks and his shoulders slump, shaking, as he sobs.

If I had any tears left in me I’d be crying too, but I’m so dehydrated that all I can do is shake, my lungs spasming with hiccups. I try to talk, my mouth forming a wh– sound over and over again.

“Shh.” The crewman who rescued me drapes a blanket around my shoulders. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

I want to believe him. But all I can do is stare at Libby’s body. An hour earlier, and they’d have found her alive. She might have survived. Seven days adrift in the middle of the ocean, and she’d lost it in the last hour.

It doesn’t seem fair. We were supposed to make it together. We’d promised.

Her body is so light and brittle it takes only one person to carry her inside the ship. The older man does it, clutching her against his chest, his eyes red and lips pressed tight together.

“My baby,” he whispers against her temple. Understanding hits with a physical force: This is Libby’s father. He glances at


d a u g h t e r o f D e e p S i l e n c e 3

me as he passes, his expression bewildered, and I know he’s wondering the same thing I’ve already been thinking: Why am I the one who survived? Why couldn’t it have been her pulled alive from the raft?

I want to apologize, but seeing him with Libby—a father cradling his broken daughter—I can’t. The unfairness of it is monstrous. I would give anything to have my father here now, to feel him holding me and protecting me the way Libby’s fa-ther does.

And he would give anything for his daughter to still be alive.I close my eyes, unable to stand it. Because in this moment

I truly understand just how alone I am. How no one will ever again hold me and care about me the way Libby’s father does her. My parents are dead. Libby is dead. I have no relatives—no other family waiting for me.

I am alone. Utterly and irrevocably alone.Memories storm through me, fast and sharp, in an unrelent-

ing strobe of sensations—sounds, smells, fragments of sen-tences. I feel my mother’s hand against my forehead checking for a fever some night, years ago. I hear the way she sneezes, big and loud, and my father laughing in response the way he always, always does.

There’s the smell of the car on the winter morning we go to pick out a Christmas tree, my father singing along to the carols on the radio with his voice always just slightly out of tune. I taste french fries—my fingers slick with fast-food grease—my mom’s treat to me as she drives me home from summer camp.

I lick my lips and gag at the taste of salt. The memories come faster, running over one another, drowning me. Panic claws its



way up my throat. My nails are soft and cracked from so long in the water and they split past the quick as I try to dig them into the skin along my thighs, wishing I could gouge it all out of me. The memories. The loss. The pain. The refrain that’s been unspooling in my head for days: gone, gone, they’re all gone, your life is gone.

And inevitably, images from the attack come next: the gun pressed to my father’s head. The blood drenching my moth-er’s shirt. She’d begged, but it hadn’t mattered. It didn’t matter for anyone on that cruise ship. They’d all been massacred.

Three hundred twenty-seven. That was the total number of passengers and crew on the Persephone. It was one of the things we’d learned during the safety drill before leaving port. In the end, it never mattered how many people a life raft could hold. It never mattered where each cabin’s muster station was.

Nothing we learned during the safety drill mattered.The attack had come swift and hard in the middle of the

night. One minute life on the Persephone was normal, the next the ship was rocked with explosions. They blocked the exits while armed men went room to room, systematic in their as-sault. Faces passive, expressions detached from their actions, they’d pulled triggers and reloaded magazines with sickening efficiency.

Killing them all.The bodies. Oh God, the bodies. And the blood and the screams

and the smell of it all, like overripe peaches stuffed with pennies.I gasp and shudder. It was only luck that allowed Libby and

me to escape. We talked about it relentlessly during those next seven days adrift, the impossibility that we’d somehow survived.



All of that and she’d ended up dead anyway. It’s so brutally unfair.

The young crewman pushes a plastic bottle of water into my hand, forcing me back into the present. My throat clenches. The bottle’s cold—freezing against my palm—and there’s con-densation dripping along the outside. I fumble to open it, my fingers useless, my muscles too weak to even lift it. Finally he takes mercy and twists the cap free.

“Drink slow,” he says, but in my world there’s no such thing and I press that bottle hard to my lips. If I’d died the instant that water rushed across my tongue I wouldn’t have cared. I’m sharply aware of each drop as it cascades down my throat and into my hollow belly. Nothing exists then but that taste—that sensation.

“Easy now,” the man says, gently prying the bottle from my lips. “You don’t want to make yourself sick.” He’s too late; al-ready my stomach revolts in painful cramps. I turn and vomit.

The man rubs my back as I heave, telling me again that I’ll be okay. That I’m safe. “What’s your name?” he asks when I’ve recovered enough to sit up again.

I press the back of my hand to my mouth. My skin tastes like salt, making me retch. “Frances,” I try to tell him, the sound nothing more than a tattered thread.

The storm that had been threatening at the edge of the sky all day finally breaks, sending fat drops of water crashing to the deck. “Let’s get you inside,” the crewman says as he slides his arms gently around my shoulders, lifting me as easily as Libby’s father lifted her. As he carries me, I tilt my head back, letting the rain wash across my sun-cured skin.



If it had come a few hours sooner, this rain would have saved her.

I barely pay attention as the man maneuvers me through a large salon, down a flight of stairs, and along a hallway to a stateroom. He sets me carefully on the bed.

“I’m a medic,” he explains. He pulls over a large red bag emblazoned with a white cross and slides on gloves. “Is it okay if I examine you?”

I nod and he’s ginger as he probes at the sores covering my legs and back, unable to hide his horror at what’s become of my body. “You’ll be okay,” he tells me again, but I get the im-pression it’s more to convince himself than me. He unzips his bag and begins pulling out various medical supplies.

“You’re severely dehydrated,” he explains as he runs an alcohol-soaked swab across my inner arm and presses a needle against the flesh. “So the first priority is to start getting fluids in you.” It takes him several tries, his forehead creased in frus-trated concentration as he searches for a vein. I feel none of it.

Eventually he’s satisfied and drapes an IV bag from a hook on the wall. “For now, just rest.” He starts for the door but I force the sound up my throat.

“How many survived the attack?”He looks at me, not understanding the question. “Attack?”“The attack on the Persephone,” I croak in a salt-crusted

voice. “How many others survived?”Frowning, he opens his mouth, reconsiders, and closes it.

Finally he says, “Two others: Senator Wells and his son.”I don’t even dare to breathe. “Grey?” I whisper.



He nods and I slump back into the nest of pillows, press-ing the heels of my hands against my eyes. Grey’s alive. Grey’s alive! It seems so impossible, that after losing everything else, this one small part survived. Like suddenly there’s a bright spark of hope in the cavernous blackness my life has become.

“Hey, I’m Grey,” he says, standing next to my deck chair, cast-ing me in shadow. I have to squint when I look up at him and though I’ve been ogling him all afternoon I still can’t stop my eyes from dropping to his chest, skimming down to the strip of bare skin just above the waistband of his swim trunks.

They skim low on his hips, almost like a promise.I’m fairly certain he notices and my cheeks heat. But I know

the reason he’s here—what he’s really after. He’s made that abundantly clear.

“Her name’s Libby,” I tell him, gesturing to where Libby’s hanging out over by the towel stand. She has her elbows propped on the counter and is leaning forward slightly, hoping to catch the hot attendant’s attention. “I’d move quick if I were you,” I add.

“Oh, um.” He shifts from one foot to the other, and I assume he’s nervous because he can’t figure out how to politely ditch me to go after my friend. But I’m already expecting it—I’ve noticed him looking our way for a while now.

“Do you mind if I join you?” He points at Libby’s empty chaise next to mine. It’s so unexpected, I stare at him perhaps a beat too long. Finally I realize he’s waiting for my response and I shrug.



He’s barely settled before I ask, “So, what do you want to know about her?”

He smiles and ducks his head. “Actually,” he says, “I was hop-ing to learn more about you.”

While on the raft, I’d daydreamed of Grey rescuing me, even though I knew it was impossible—that he must have been killed with everyone else on board. Over and over as we drifted toward death on the empty ocean, I’d imagined him coming for me.

It didn’t matter than I’d known him barely a week, it had been long enough to fall for him with an intensity I’d never experienced before.

He was my first love. And he’d told me I was his.He’s alive.In the black horror of what my life has become, that single

point of light now shines. I’ve lost my parents. I’ve lost Libby. Nothing will ever be the same again. I have no other family, no long-lost relatives to take me in. There is nothing left.

But Grey. I still have Grey.I cling to the thought as though it is a life raft, knowing that

if I hold on tight enough and don’t give up, I’ll somehow be able to survive.

I drift asleep imagining our reunion. Already feeling his arms around my shoulders, his hands pressing against my back, holding me tight against him. He’ll brush his lips against my temple and whisper over and over that it’s okay, he’ll keep me safe, and I’ll believe him.



Because he also saw the horror. He also survived it. He also understands. In the protection of his arms finally, finally, my tears will come again.

The same four words cycle endlessly through me, giving me comfort for the first time since that opening shot was fired on the Persephone: I am not alone. I am not alone. I am not alone.



t w o

I wake in darkness, raw and confused. There’s this moment of lightness as I roll over, the soft bed beneath me and the

sheets sliding along my skin. For a fraction of a heartbeat it feels right.

And then I remember. It comes as a physical sensation first, a crushing on my chest as my mind struggles to bend and stretch to take it all in.

The gun pressed so hard against Dad’s head that it caused the skin around the barrel to wrinkle and pucker. All down the hallway, shots firing, one after another after another. System-atic. My dad’s top teeth scraping against his bottom lip, starting to say my name.

Gasping, I bolt upright, pressing my palms over my ears as though that could somehow stop me from hearing. But of course it doesn’t.



The gunshot, shattering bone.

It never will.Beneath me, the yacht rocks softly, the thrum of its engine

a low vibration through my bones. The stateroom is empty, the windows dark. It’s too quiet. I’m too alone. Memories of the attack circle around like hungry sharks and I reach for the television remote, hoping that sound and distraction will keep them at bay.

When it flickers on, the TV hanging on the far wall is glar-ingly bright and colorful, stinging my eyes. But it’s something other than silence and that’s what I crave. I flip through chan-nels absently until a familiar name stops me. Persephone.

My hand falls limp to the bed. Heart pounding, I watch as a news anchor shuffles papers while an image of the cruise ship floats behind her. “Breaking news on last week’s Persephone disaster,” she announces. “Sources are confirming that another survivor from the ship may have been located. As of now, authorities haven’t released any information about the potential survivor or survivors. While we wait for more information to trickle in, let’s take a look at the dramatic footage of Senator Wells and his son taken shortly after their own rescue.”

The scene on the TV shifts to a sprawling marina bustling with activity. The camera zooms in on the gangplank of a large US Coast Guard ship, focusing on a small group making its way toward the pier.

Senator Wells leads the pack. Even with a sunburned face he manages to appear debonair in an almost-dangerous way, the



salt-and-pepper scruff of his unshaven face emphasizing the sharpness of his cheekbones. The camera pans past him and my breath catches.

It’s Grey. Alive.It’s one thing to be told he survived, yet another to see it

as truth. That same surge of relief washes through me, the sudden realization that I’m not alone. Someone else out there understands.

I devour his appearance. Grey looks much worse than his father. He clutches a thick blanket around his shoulders, his steps slow as he trails after the group. His hair sticks up from his head at odd angles and his eyes look bruised above the shadowy scraps of stubble strewn across his cheeks and chin.

Reporters rush the two en masse, shouting questions and Grey rears back, alarmed by the sudden onslaught. I press my fingers against my lips, feel them trembling. One of the coast guard men tries to push the camera away, but the Senator stops him. “We’ll answer,” he says. Grey winces and his eyes squeeze shut.

“The world deserves to know the truth of what happened to the Persephone,” the Senator explains, pulling Grey toward the reporter’s microphone. “It happened fast,” the Senator begins. I find myself nodding even though at the time it had seemed like hours. Days of gunfire. Years of blood.

“It was late and I was out on deck with my son, help-ing him look for his phone he’d forgotten by the pool that afternoon. There was a terrible storm and we were just about to give up and go inside.” He pauses, shakes his head. “The wave came out of nowhere. I’ve never



seen anything like it. It just . . . took the whole ship out.”Wave? I find that I can’t breathe, his words grinding my

thoughts to a halt. That’s not what happened. There was no wave.

Senator Wells steps aside, leaving his son facing the mi-crophone. Every heartbeat echoes through my water-slogged veins, causing my entire body to throb and rock as I wait to hear what he has to say. Grey blanches, but doesn’t retreat. The familiarity of his gestures is jarring. The way he holds himself with his weight slightly on his right leg, the furrow between his eyebrows as he sorts through his thoughts before speaking.

The way he unconsciously rubs his skull, just behind his ear, whenever he’s about to lie.

It’s amazing the little things you can pick up about someone in such a short amount of time when you’re falling in love. Ev-ery nuance, every sound and movement a code to understand-ing them.

“Like Dad said, it happened fast,” he starts, and then he clears his throat, choked up. In my head I see it all. I hear it all and taste it all. Again.

Grey pulls me against him and threads a strand of hair be-hind my ear. When he brings his mouth closer, I stop caring about the rain. All I care about is devouring this moment as though to imprint it into my memory forever.

Rivulets of water wash down his face, dripping from his chin and coursing along his neck. The way his shirt plasters to his



chest allows me to see the outline of every muscle. I press my fin-gers against them, tracing the edges.

I laugh, a bubble of euphoria too large to keep contained. He kisses me right then, like he could take my laughter into himself and make it a part of him. And still, all around us the rain crashes but we don’t care.

The reporters huddling around Grey barely breathe as they wait for him to continue. “The rain was awful, and as Dad mentioned, we were . . . uh . . . out on deck by the pool.” He glances toward his father before continuing. “It was unlike . . . anything. It came out of nowhere—this massive wave. And it just was there—a wall of water. It rose higher than even the top of the ship—much higher.” He pauses as if reliving the mo-ment, eyes haunted.

I’m trembling now. I don’t understand. Why isn’t he talking about the attack? Why isn’t he mentioning the guns?

Grey inhales slowly, his shirt lifting just enough to lay bare the strip of pale skin along the edge of his shorts. He begins to rub that spot behind his ear again. “And then . . .” His voice breaks.

And then the guns. Men slamming through the corridors, cut-ting off the emergency exits, and locking the ship down. Panicked passengers in robes and nightgowns run, screaming. Making it no more than a few steps before bullets tear them apart.

Water drips down my back, my hair still wet from kissing Grey in the rain. I press myself against the cold metal wall of the



dumbwaiter, watching through the mirrored window as a tall, narrow man makes his way efficiently down the hallway. He kicks a broken body aside. Forces his way into a room. It takes seconds—a loud spattering of gunfire—and then he’s in the hall-way again, moving on to the next.

Moving on to my family’s room directly across from where I’m hiding.

A high-pitched whine climbs its way up the back of my throat, coated in acid. I clamp my hands over my mouth, knowing with-out question that if they hear me, I am dead.

I’m dead either way.

As Grey speaks, the reporters hang on his every nuance and gesture. They’re enraptured by him. I wait for him to mention the armed men. The gunshots. The murder.

But he never does. “It’s like what Dad said. The wave just swallowed her whole. Like a toy in a tub. And then . . . the Persephone was gone.” He shakes his head, as though he him-self couldn’t believe it. “Just gone.”

In the silence that follows, the Senator squeezes his son’s shoulder. One of the reporters shouts, “How were you able to survive?”

Grey’s eyes widen, his expression one of bewilderment. The Senator steps in. “Had to be luck, plain and simple. It was late and because of the rain everyone else was inside, probably asleep in their cabins. I was so angry at Grey for losing his phone, but if he hadn’t . . .” He inhales sharply. Grey stares at his feet. “We wouldn’t have been up on deck and thrown free when the wave hit.”



“No!” I shout, the sound raw in my throat. “That’s not how it happened!”

“Once we got to the surface and saw the wreckage . . .” Here the Senator pauses and takes a water bottle one of the rescuers holds out to him. “We tried to find other survivors, but . . .” He shakes his head and a shudder passes through Grey. “The only choice we had was to try to stay alive. We found a life raft that must have broken free and just prayed that someone would find us.”

I’m gasping for air. “But . . .” I close my eyes remembering. Libby and I dragging our arms through the water, trying to put distance between us and the burning Persephone. Flames choking out her windows, undaunted by the rain. It wasn’t un-til dawn that we saw the extent of it: nothing.

Not a scrap of the ship remained. No hint of other survivors. No other life rafts anywhere in sight. How had Grey and his father survived without either of us seeing them?

On TV the tenor of the reporters changes as the camera pans and zooms in on a middle-aged woman running down the pier, her perfectly coiffed blond hair loosening in the breeze. She’s wearing a skirt that hits just above her knees and she pauses briefly to kick off her heels so that she can run faster. “Alastair! Grey!” she cries, the sound primal.

The cameraman knows how to do his job and he instantly focuses in on Grey’s face, capturing the moment it crumples and he mouths the word, Mom? And then they’re hugging, sobbing, reunited. His father’s arm around them both.

The video pauses on this perfect image. The intimate snap-shot of an all-American family newly reunited, their heavy



grief finally lifted. A miracle. The Senator with his sunburned face and lightly tousled hair. His wife barefoot, tendrils of hair pulled loose around her tear-stained face. And their beloved only son between them.

My chest tightens as though it were collapsing in on itself. Father. Mother. Child. All together. All safe.

It becomes impossible to breathe.I’ll never hug my parents again. My mother will never come

running toward me. My father will never place his hand on my head and tell me he loves me. I’ll never feel safe ever again.

I’ve lost everything. And somehow, Grey hasn’t.The anchorwoman’s voice cuts into my thoughts, and I

listen with a mounting sense of incredulity as she continues. “News of another survivor certainly comes as a surprise. As you may recall, the coast guard called off the search for survi-vors last week after interviewing Senator Wells and his son and concluding that a rogue wave capsized the Persephone, sinking it before those belowdecks could escape.”

The camera switches angles and the anchor swivels, con-tinuing. “Though they’re considered a rare occurrence, this isn’t the first time a rogue wave has been suspected in the dis-appearance of a ship. In fact, it’s widely believed that it was a rogue wave that took the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975, and just as with the Persephone, there was no wreckage found in that case either.”

It takes a moment for this information to take shape in my mind. For the implications of it to settle in. The coast guard called off the search days ago. When Libby and I were still out there. When we both still had a chance to be rescued alive.



All because of Senator Wells and Grey. Because they lied.I don’t even realize that I’m screaming until firm hands pull

me from the TV. My fists flail at it and smears of red mar the screen, blood from where I’d ripped out my IV in my scramble from the bed.

“They’re lying,” I shout, still flailing. “The ship was at-tacked. There was no wave. It was men with guns—they killed everyone!”

A crewman holds me steady as the medic slips a needle into my arm. “Shh,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.”

“No,” I whimper, shaking my head. But everything feels so much heavier now. My protests, fuzzy and indistinct. “You don’t understand.” He carries me to the bed, and when he tries to leave, I fumble for his wrist, holding him. “You have to be-lieve me. They’re lying. Please.” A tear leaks from my eye, the first since I’ve been rescued.

He gently frees himself. “It’s okay,” he says softly, pulling another blanket over me. “You’re safe now.”

But I know that’s not true. May never be true again. “They killed them all and sank the ship,” I whisper, my voice weak-ening. “They killed my parents.” It comes out slurred. “Please believe me.”


Dear Reader,

I grew up in the Mojave Desert, 150 miles north of Los Angeles, at a run-

down 18-room motel purchased by my parents when they came to America. I’m

the youngest of three kids—my two older brothers are, to this day, my best friends.

Like many small towns, my hometown wasn’t always welcoming to outsiders.

As a child of immigrants, I spent much of my youth feeling like an outcast and I

found solace in books, particularly fantasy novels.

After putting myself through college, I got a job on The Washington Post’s

foreign desk. It was there, late one night in the summer of 2007, that the

inspiration for An Ember in the Ashes found me.

I read a story about Kashmiri women whose brothers, husbands, and sons were

being kidnapped by local military forces and never seen again. I found myself

wondering: what would I do if one of my brothers was taken from me? Would I try

to get him back? Could I get him back?

From these questions rose An Ember in the Ashes, a story about Laia, a girl

who fights to save her brother after he’s jailed by a brutal regime, and Elias, a

soldier of that regime who only wishes to be free from tyranny.

Ember is about many things: what we do for people we love; the nature of

courage; the costs of our actions. It was inspired not just by news stories, but by

my own childhood and my struggles with cowardice, bravery, and belonging.

But the heart of my book, the truest inspiration for it, is the idea of hope.

Hope is such a precious and uniquely human trait, one that thrives even in the

most difficult conditions. To me, that is a phenomenon worth exploring and

celebrating—and that’s what I tried to accomplish with Ember.

All my best,

Sabaa Tahir

AnEmberintheAshes_INT_G_3p.indd 1 6/23/14 10:10 AM

For Kashi,

who taught me that my spirit

is stronger than my fear


P a rt I :

t h e r a i d


My big brother reaches home in the dark hours before dawn, when

even ghosts take their rest. He smells of steel and coal and forge. He

smells of the enemy.

He folds his scarecrow body through the window, bare feet silent on the

rushes. A hot desert wind blows in after him, rustling the limp curtains. His

sketchbook falls to the floor, and he nudges it under his bunk with a quick

foot, as if it’s a snake.

Where have you been, Darin? In my head, I have the courage to ask the

question, and Darin trusts me enough to answer. Why do you keep disappear-

ing? Why, when Pop and Nan need you? When I need you?

Every night for almost two years, I’ve wanted to ask. Every night, I’ve

lacked the courage. I have one sibling left. I don’t want him to shut me out

like he has everyone else.

But tonight’s different. I know what’s in his sketchbook. I know what it

means.

“You shouldn’t be awake.” Darin’s whisper jolts me from my thoughts. He

has a cat’s sense for traps—he got it from our mother. I sit up on the bunk as

he lights the lamp. No use pretending to be asleep.

“It’s past curfew, and three patrols have gone by. I was worried.”

“I can avoid the soldiers, Laia. Lots of practice.” He rests his chin on my

bunk and smiles Mother’s sweet, crooked smile. A familiar look—the one he

gives me if I wake from a nightmare or we run out of grain. Everything will

be fine, the look says.

He picks up the book on my bed. “Gather in the Night,” he reads the title.

I: Laia


4 \ Sabaa tahir

“Spooky. What’s it about?”

“I just started it. It’s about a jinn—” I stop. Clever. Very clever. He likes

hearing stories as much as I like telling them. “Forget that. Where were you?

Pop had a dozen patients this morning.”

And I filled in for you because he can’t do so much alone. Which left Nan

to bottle the trader’s jams by herself. Except she didn’t finish. Now the trader

won’t pay us, and we’ll starve this winter, and why in the skies don’t you care?

I say these things in my head. The smile’s already dropped off Darin’s face.

“I’m not cut out for healing,” he says. “Pop knows that.”

I want to back down, but I think of Pop’s slumped shoulders this morning.

I think of the sketchbook.

“Pop and Nan depend on you. At least talk to them. It’s been months.”

I wait for him to tell me that I don’t understand. That I should leave him

be. But he just shakes his head, drops down into his bunk, and closes his eyes

like he can’t be bothered to reply.

“I saw your drawings.” The words tumble out in a rush, and Darin’s up in

an instant, his face stony. “I wasn’t spying,” I say. “One of the pages was loose.

I found it when I changed the rushes this morning.”

“Did you tell Nan and Pop? Did they see?”

“No, but—”

“Laia, listen.” Ten hells, I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear his

excuses. “What you saw is dangerous,” he says. “You can’t tell anyone about

it. Not ever. It’s not just my life at risk. There are others—”

“Are you working for the Empire, Darin? Are you working for the Mar-

tials?”

He is silent. I think I see the answer in his eyes, and I feel ill. My brother

is a traitor to his own people? My brother is siding with the Empire?


an ember in the aSheS \ 5

If he hoarded grain, or sold books, or taught children to read, I’d under-

stand. I’d be proud of him for doing the things I’m not brave enough to do.

The Empire raids, jails, and kills for such “crimes,” but teaching a six-year-

old her letters isn’t evil—not in the minds of my people, the Scholar people.

But what Darin has done is sick. It’s a betrayal.

“The Empire killed our parents.” I whisper. “Our sister.”

I want to shout at him, but I choke on the words. The Martials conquered

Scholar lands five hundred years ago, and since then, they’ve done nothing

but oppress and enslave us. Once, the Scholar Empire was home to the finest

universities and libraries in the world. Now, most of our people can’t tell a

school from an armory.

“How could you side with the Martials? How, Darin?”

“It’s not what you think, Laia. I’ll explain everything, but—”

He pauses suddenly, his hand jerking up to silence me when I ask for the

promised explanation. He cocks his head toward the window.

Through the thin walls, I hear Pop’s snores, Nan shifting in her sleep, a

mourning dove’s croon. Familiar sounds. Home sounds.

Darin hears something else. The blood drains from his face, and dread

flashes in his eyes. “Laia,” he says. “Raid.”

“But if you work for the Empire—” Then why are the soldiers raiding us?

“I’m not working for them.” He sounds calm. Calmer than I feel. “Hide

the sketchbook. That’s what they want. That’s what they’re here for.”

Then he’s out the door, and I’m alone. My bare legs move like cold molas-

ses, my hands like wooden blocks. Hurry, Laia!

Usually, the Empire raids in the heat of the day. The soldiers want Scholar

mothers and children to watch. They want fathers and brothers to see another

man’s family enslaved. As bad as those raids are, the night raids are worse.


6 \ Sabaa tahir

The night raids are for when the Empire doesn’t want witnesses.

I wonder if this is real. If it’s a nightmare. It’s real, Laia. Move.

I drop the sketchbook out the window into a hedge. It’s a poor hiding

place, but I have no time. Nan hobbles into my room. Her hands, so steady

when she stirs vats of jam or braids my hair, flutter like frantic birds, desperate

for me to move faster.

She pulls me into the hallway. Darin stands with Pop at the back door. My

grandfather’s white hair is scattered as a haystack and his clothes are wrinkled,

but there’s no sleep in the deep grooves of his face. He murmurs something to

my brother, then hands him Nan’s largest kitchen knife. I don’t know why he

bothers. Against the Serric steel of a Martial blade, the knife will only shatter.

“You and Darin leave through the backyard,” Nan says, her eyes darting

from window to window. “They haven’t surrounded the house yet.”

No. No. No. “Nan,” I breathe her name, stumbling when she pushes me

toward Pop.

“Hide in the east end of the Quarter—” Her sentence ends in a choke,

her eyes on the front window. Through the ragged curtains, I catch a flash of

a liquid silver face. My stomach clenches.

“A Mask,” Nan says. “They’ve brought a Mask. Go, Laia. Before he gets

inside.”

“What about you? What about Pop?”

“We’ll hold them off.” Pop shoves me gently out the door. “Keep your

secrets close, love. Listen to Darin. He’ll take care of you. Go.”

Darin’s lean shadow falls over me, and he grabs my hand as the door closes

behind us. He slouches to blend into the warm night, moving silently across

the loose sand of the backyard with a confidence I wish I felt. Although I am



seventeen and old enough to control my fear, I grip his hand like it’s the only

solid thing in this world.

I’m not working for them, Darin said. Then whom is he working for?

Somehow, he got close enough to the forges of Serra to draw, in detail, the

creation process of the Empire’s most precious asset: the unbreakable, curved

scims that can cut through three men at once.

A half a millennia ago, the Scholars crumbled beneath the Martial inva-

sion because our blades broke against their superior steel. Since then, we

have learned nothing of steelcraft. The Martials hoard their secrets the way

a miser hoards gold. Anyone caught near our city’s forges without good rea-

son—Scholar or Martial—risks execution.

If Darin isn’t with the Empire, how did he get near Serra’s forges? How

did the Martials find out about his sketchbook?

On the other side of the house, a fist pounds on the front door. Boots

shuffle, steel clinks. I look around wildly, expecting to see the silver armor

and blue capes of Empire legionnaires, but the backyard is still. The fresh

night air does nothing to stop the sweat rolling down my neck. Distantly, I

hear the thud of drums from Blackcliff, the Mask training school. The sound

sharpens my fear into a hard point stabbing at my center. The Empire doesn’t

send those silver-faced monsters on just any raid.

The pounding on the door sounds again.

“In the name of the Empire,” an irritable voice says, “I demand you open

this door.”

As one, Darin and I freeze.

“Doesn’t sound like a Mask,” Darin whispers. Masks speak softly with

words that cut through you like a scim. In the time it would take a legionnaire


8 \ Sabaa tahir

to knock and issue an order, a Mask would already be in the house, weapons

slicing through anyone in his way.

Darin meets my eyes, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing. If

the Mask isn’t with the rest of the soldiers at the front door, then where is he?

“Don’t be afraid, Laia,” Darin says. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I want to believe him, but my fear is a tide tugging at my ankles, pulling

me under. I think of the couple that lived next door: raided, imprisoned, and

sold into slavery three weeks ago. Book smugglers, the Martials said. Five days

after that, one of Pop’s oldest patients, a ninety-three-year-old man who could

barely walk, was executed in his own home, his throat slit from ear to ear.

Resistance collaborator.

What will the soldiers do to Nan and Pop? Jail them? Enslave them?

Kill them?

We reach the back gate. Darin stands on his toes to unhook the latch

when a scrape in the alley beyond stops him short. A breeze sighs past, send-

ing a cloud of dust into the air.

Darin pushes me behind him. His knuckles are white around the knife

handle as the gate swings open with a moan. A finger of terror draws a trail

up my spine. I peer over my brother’s shoulder into the alley.

There is nothing out there but the quiet shifting of sand. Nothing but the

occasional gust of wind and the shuttered windows of our sleeping neighbors.

I sigh in relief and step around Darin.

That’s when the Mask emerges from the darkness and walks through

the gate.


II: Elias

The deserter will be dead before dawn.

His tracks zigzag like a struck deer’s in the dust of Serra’s catacombs.

The tunnels have done him in. The hot air is too heavy down here, the smells

of death and rot too close.

The tracks are more than an hour old by the time I see them. The guards

have his scent now, poor bastard. If he’s lucky, he’ll die in the chase. If not...

Don’t think about it. Hide the backpack. Get out of here.

Skulls crunch as I shove a pack loaded with food and water into a wall

crypt. Helene would give me hell if she could see how I’m treating the dead.

But then, if Helene finds out why I’m down here in the first place, desecra-

tion will be the least of her complaints.

She won’t find out. Not until it’s too late. Guilt pricks at me, but I shove it

away. Helene’s the strongest person I know. She’ll be fine without me.

For what feels like the hundredth time, I look over my shoulder. The tun-

nel is quiet. The deserter led the soldiers in the opposite direction. But safety’s

an illusion I know never to trust. I work quickly, piling bones back in front of

the crypt to cover my trail, my senses primed for anything out of the ordinary.

One more day of this. One more day of paranoia and hiding and lying.

One day until graduation. Then I’ll be free.

As I rearrange the crypt’s skulls, the hot air shifts like a bear waking from

hibernation. The smells of grass and snow cut through the fetid breath of the

tunnel. Two seconds is all I have to step away from the crypt and kneel, ex-

amining the ground as if there might be tracks here. Then she is at my back.

“Elias? What are you doing down here?”


10 \ Sabaa tahir

“Didn’t you hear? There’s a deserter loose.” I keep my attention fixed on

the dusty floor. Beneath the silver mask that covers me from forehead to jaw,

my face should be unreadable. But Helene Aquilla and I have been together

nearly every day of the fourteen years we’ve been training at Blackcliff Mili-

tary Academy; she can probably hear me thinking.

She comes around me silently, and I look up into her eyes, as blue and

pale as the warm waters of the southern islands. My mask sits atop my face,

separate and foreign, hiding my features as well as my emotions. But Hel’s

mask clings to her like a silvery second skin, and I can see the slight furrow

in her brow as she looks down at me. Relax, Elias, I tell myself. You’re just

looking for a deserter.

“He didn’t come this way,” Hel says. She runs a hand over her hair, braid-

ed, as always, into a tight, silver-blonde crown. “Dex took an auxiliary com-

pany off the north watchtower and into the East Branch tunnel. You think

they’ll catch him?”

Aux soldiers, though not as highly trained as legionnaires and nothing

compared to Masks, are still merciless hunters. “Of course they’ll catch him.”

I fail to keep the bitterness out of my voice, and Helene gives me a hard look.

“The cowardly scum,” I add. “Anyway, why are you awake? You weren’t on

watch this morning.” I made sure of it.

“Those bleeding drums.” Helene looks around the tunnel. “Woke every-

one up.”

The drums. Of course. Deserter, they’d thundered in the middle of the

graveyard watch. All active units to the walls. Helene must have decided to

join the hunt. Dex, my lieutenant, would have told her which direction I’d

gone. He’d have thought nothing of it.



“I thought the deserter might have come this way.” I turn from my hidden

pack to look down another tunnel. “Guess I was wrong. I should catch up

to Dex.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, you’re not usually wrong.” Helene cocks her

head and smiles at me. I feel that guilt again, wrenching as a fist to the gut.

She’ll be furious when she learns what I’ve done. She’ll never forgive me.

Doesn’t matter. You’ve decided. Can’t turn back now.

Hel traces the dust on the ground with a fair, practiced hand. “I’ve never

even seen this tunnel before.”

A drop of sweat crawls down my neck. I ignore it.

“It’s hot, and it reeks,” I say. “Like everything else down here.” Come on,

I want to add. But doing so would be like tattooing “I am up to no good” on

my forehead. I keep quiet and lean against the catacomb wall, arms crossed.

The field of battle is my temple. I mentally chant a saying my grandfather

taught me the day he met me, when I was six. He insists it sharpens the mind

the way a whetstone sharpens a blade. The swordpoint is my priest. The dance

of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release.

Helene peers at my blurred tracks, following them, somehow, to the crypt

where I stowed my pack, to the skulls piled there. She’s suspicious, and the

air between us is suddenly tense.

Damn it.

I need to distract her. As she looks between me and the crypt, I run my

gaze lazily down her body. She stands two inches shy of six feet—a half-foot

shorter than me. She’s the only female student at Blackcliff; in the black,

close-fitting fatigues all students wear, her strong, slender form has always

drawn admiring glances. Just not mine. We’ve been friends too long for that.


12 \ Sabaa tahir

Come on, notice. Notice me leering and get mad about it.

When I meet her eyes, brazen as a sailor fresh into port, she opens her

mouth, as if to rip into me. Then she looks back at the crypt.

If she sees the pack and guesses what I’m up to, I’m done for. She might

hate doing it, but Empire law would demand she report me, and Helene’s

never broken a law in her life.

“Elias—”

I prepare my lie. Just wanted to get away for a couple of days, Hel. Needed

some time to think. Didn’t want to worry you.

BOOM-BOOM-boom-BOOM.

The drums.

Without thought, I translate the disparate beats into the message they are

meant to convey. Deserter caught. All students report to central courtyard im-

mediately.

My stomach sinks. Some naïve part of me hoped the deserter would at

least make it out of the city. “That didn’t take long,” I say. “We should go.”

I make for the main tunnel. Helene follows, as I knew she would. Helene

would stab herself in the eye before she disobeyed a direct order. She is a true

Martial, more loyal to the Empire than to her own mother. Like any good

Mask-in-training, she takes Blackcliff’s motto to heart: Duty first, unto death.

I wonder what she would say if she knew what I’d really been doing in the

tunnels.

I wonder how she’d feel about my hatred for the Empire.

I wonder what she would do if she found out her best friend is planning

to desert.


The Mask saunters through the gate, big hands loose at his sides. The

strange metal of his namesake clings to him from forehead to jaw like

silver paint, revealing every feature of his face, from the thin eyebrows to

the hard angles of his cheekbones. His copper-plated armor molds to his

muscles, emphasizing the power in his body.

A passing wind billows his black cape, and he looks around the backyard

like he’s arrived at a garden party. His pale eyes find me, slide up my form,

and settle on my face with a reptile’s flat regard.

“Aren’t you a pretty one,” he says.

I yank at the ragged hem of my shift, wishing desperately for the shapeless,

ankle-length skirt I wear during the day. The Mask doesn’t even twitch. Noth-

ing in his face tells me what he’s thinking. But I can guess.

Darin steps in front of me and glances at the fence, as if gauging the time

it will take to reach it.

“I’m alone, boy.” The Mask addresses Darin with all the emotion of a

corpse. “The rest of the men are in your house. You can run if you like.” He

moves away from the gate. “But I insist you leave the girl.”

Darin raises the knife.

“Chivalrous of you,” the Mask says.

Then he strikes, a flash of copper and silver lightning out of an empty sky.

In the time it takes me to gasp, the Mask has shoved my brother’s face into

the sandy ground and pinned his writhing body with a knee. Nan’s knife falls

to the dirt.

A scream erupts from me, lonely in the still summer night. Seconds later,

III: Laia


14 \ Sabaa tahir

a scimpoint pricks my throat. I didn’t even see the Mask draw the weapon.

“Quiet,” he says. “Arms up. Now get inside.”

The Mask uses one hand to yank Darin up by the neck and the other

to prod me on with his scim. My brother limps, face bloodied, eyes dazed.

When he struggles, a fish on a hook, the Mask tightens his grip.

The back door of the house opens, and a blue-caped legionnaire comes

out.

“The house is secure, Commander.”

The Mask shoves Darin at the soldier. “Bind him up. He’s strong.”

Then he grabs me by the hair, twisting until I cry out. “Mmm.” He bends

his head to my ear, and I cringe, my terror caught in my throat. “I’ve always

loved dark-haired girls.”

I wonder if he has a sister, a wife, a woman. But it wouldn’t matter if he

did. To him, I’m not someone’s family. I’m just a thing to be subdued, used,

and discarded. The Mask drags me down the hallway to the front room as

casually as a hunter drags his kill. Fight, I tell myself. Fight. But as if he senses

my pathetic attempts at bravery, his hand squeezes, and pain lances through

my skull. I sag and let him pull me along.

Legionnaires stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the front room amid upturned

furniture and broken bottles of jam. Trader won’t get anything now. So many

days spent over steaming kettles, my hair and skin smelling of apricot and

cinnamon. So many jars, steamed and dried, filled and sealed. Useless. All

useless.

The lamps are lit, and Nan and Pop kneel in the middle of the floor, their

hands bound behind their backs. The soldier holding Darin shoves him to

the ground beside them.



“Shall I tie up the girl, sir?” Another soldier fingers the rope at his belt, but

the Mask leaves me between two burly legionnaires.

“She’s not going to cause any trouble.” He stabs at me with those eyes.

“Are you?” I shake my head and shrink back, hating myself for being such a

coward. I reach for my mother’s tarnished armlet, wrapped around my bicep,

and touch the familiar pattern for strength. I find none. Mother would have

fought. She’d have died rather than face this humiliation. But I can’t make

myself move. My fear has ensnared me like a dumb animal.

A legionnaire enters the room, his face more than a little nervous. “It’s not

here, Commander.”

The Mask looks down at my brother. “Where’s the sketchbook?”

Darin stares straight ahead, silent. His breath is low and steady, and he

doesn’t seem dazed anymore. In fact, he’s almost composed.

The Mask gestures, a small movement. One of the legionnaires lifts Nan

by her neck and slams her frail body against a wall. Nan bites her lip, her

eyes sparking blue. Darin tries to rise, but another soldier forces him down.

The Mask scoops up a shard of glass from one of the broken jars. His

tongue flickers out like a snake’s as he tastes the jam.

“Shame it’s all gone to waste.” He caresses Nan’s face with the edge of the

shard. “You must have been beautiful once. Such eyes.” He turns to Darin.

“Shall I carve them out of her?”

“It’s outside the small bedroom window. In the hedge.” I can’t manage

more than a whisper, but the soldiers hear. The Mask nods, and one of the

legionnaires disappears into the hallway. Darin doesn’t look at me, but I feel

his dismay. Why did you tell me to hide it, I want to cry out. Why did you bring

the cursed thing home?


16 \ Sabaa tahir

The legionnaire returns with the book. For unending seconds, the only

sound in the room is the rustling of pages as the Mask flips through the

sketches. If the rest of the book is anything like the page I found, I know

what the Mask will see: Martial knives, swords, scabbards, forges, formulas,

instructions—things no Scholar should know of, let alone recreate on paper.

“How did you get into the Weapons Quarter, boy?” The Mask looks up

from the book. “Has the Resistance been bribing some Plebeian drudge to

sneak you in?”

I stifle a sob. Half of me is relieved Darin’s no traitor. The other half wants

to rage at him for being such a fool. Association with the Scholar’s Resistance

carries a death sentence.

“I got myself in,” my brother says. “The Resistance had nothing to do with

it.”

“You were seen entering the catacombs last night after curfew”—the Mask

almost sounds bored—“in the company of known Scholar rebels.”

“Last night, he was home well before curfew,” Pop speaks up, and it is

strange to hear my grandfather lie. But it makes no difference. The Mask’s

eyes are for my brother alone. The man doesn’t blink as he reads Darin’s face

the way I’d read a book.

“Those rebels were taken into custody today,” the Mask says. “One of

them gave up your name before he died. What were you doing with them?”

“They followed me.” Darin sounds so calm. Like he’s done this before.

Like he’s not afraid at all. “I’d never met them before.”

“And yet they knew of your book here. Told me all about it. How did they

learn of it? What did they want from you?”

“I don’t know.”



The Mask presses the shard of glass deep into the soft skin below Nan’s

eye, and her nostrils flare. A trickle of blood traces a wrinkle down her face.

Darin draws a sharp breath, the only sign of strain. “They asked for my

sketchbook,” he says. “I said no. I swear it.”

“And their hideout?”

“I didn’t see. They blindfolded me. We were in the catacombs.”

“Where in the catacombs?”

“I didn’t see. They blindfolded me.”

The Mask eyes my brother for a long moment. I don’t know how Darin

can remain unruffled beneath that gaze.

“You’re prepared for this.” The smallest bit of surprise creeps into the

Mask’s voice. “Straight back. Deep breathing. Same answers to different ques-

tions. Who trained you, boy?”

When Darin doesn’t answer, the Mask shrugs. “A few weeks in prison will

loosen your tongue.” Nan and I exchange a frightened glance. If Darin ends

up in a Martial prison, we’ll never see him again. He’ll spend weeks in inter-

rogation, and after that they’ll either sell him as a slave or kill him.

“He’s just a boy,” Pop speaks slowly, as if to an angry patient. “Please—”

Steel flashes, and Pop drops like a stone. The Mask moves so swiftly that I

don’t understand what he has done. Not until Nan rushes forward. Not until

she lets out a shrill keen, a shaft of pure pain that brings me to my knees.

Pop. Skies, not Pop. A dozen vows sear themselves into my mind. I’ll never

disobey again, I’ll never do anything wrong, I’ll never complain about my work,

if only Pop lives.

But Nan tears her hair and screams, and if Pop was alive, he’d never let

her go on like that. He wouldn’t have been able to bear it. Darin’s calm is


18 \ Sabaa tahir

sheared away as if by a scythe, his face blanched with a horror I feel down to

my bones.

Nan stumbles to her feet and takes one tottering step toward the Mask. He

reaches out to her, as if to put his hand on her shoulder. The last thing I see

in my grandmother’s eyes is terror. Then the Mask’s gauntleted wrist flashes

once, leaving a thin red line across Nan’s throat, a line that grows wider and

redder as she falls.

Her body hits the floor with a thud, her eyes still open and shining with

tears as blood pours from her neck and into the rug we knotted together last

winter.

“Sir,” one of the legionnaires says. “An hour until dawn.”

“Get the boy out of here.” The Mask doesn’t give Nan a second glance.

“And burn this place down.”

He turns to me then, and I wish I could fade like a shadow into the wall

behind me. I wish for it harder than I’ve ever wished for anything, knowing all

the while how foolish it is. The soldiers flanking me grin at each other as the

Mask takes a slow step in my direction. He holds my gaze as if he can smell

my fear, a cobra enthralling its prey.

No, please, no. Disappear, I want to disappear.

The Mask blinks, some foreign emotion flickering across his eyes—sur-

prise or shock, I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter. Because in that moment, Darin

leaps up from the floor. While I cowered, he loosened his bindings. His hands

stretch out like claws as he lunges for the Mask’s throat. His rage lends him

a lion’s strength, and for a second he is every inch our mother, honey hair

glowing, eyes blazing, mouth twisted in a feral snarl.

The Mask backs into the blood pooled near Nan’s head, and Darin is on



him, knocking him to the ground, raining down blows. The legionnaires

stand frozen in disbelief and then come to their senses, surging forward,

shouting and swearing. Darin pulls a dagger free from the Mask’s belt before

the legionnaires tackle him.

“Laia!” my brother shouts. “Run—”

Don’t run, Laia. Help him. Fight.

But I think of the Mask’s cold regard, of the violence in his eyes. I’ve al-

ways loved dark-haired girls. He will rape me. Then he will kill me.

I shudder and back into the hallway. No one stops me. No one notices.

“Laia!” Darin cries out, sounding like I’ve never heard him. Frantic.

Trapped. He told me to run, but if I screamed like that, he would come. He

would never leave me. I stop.

Help him, Laia, a voice orders in my head. Move.

And another voice, more insistent, more powerful.

You can’t save him. Do what he says. Run.

Flame flickers at the edge of my vision, and I smell smoke. One of the

legionnaires has started torching the house. In minutes, fire will consume it.

“Bind him properly this time and get him into an interrogation cell.” The

Mask removes himself from the fray, rubbing his jaw. When he sees me back-

ing down the hallway, he goes strangely still. Reluctantly, I meet his eyes, and

he tilts his head.

“Run, little girl,” he says.

My brother is still fighting, and his screams slice right through me. I know

then that I will hear them over and over again, echoing in every hour of every

day until I am dead or I make it right. I know it.

And still, I run.


20 \ Sabaa tahir

»»»

The cramped streets and dusty markets of the Scholar’s Quarter blur past

me like the landscape of a nightmare. With each step, part of my brain

shouts at me to turn around, to go back, to help Darin. With each step, it

becomes less likely, until it isn’t a possibility at all, until the only word I can

think is run.

The soldiers come after me, but I’ve grown up among the squat, mud-

brick houses of the Quarter, and I lose my pursuers quickly.

Dawn breaks, and my panicked run turns to a stumble as I wander from

alley to alley. Where do I go? What do I do? I need a plan, but I don’t know

where to start. Who can offer me help or comfort? My neighbors will turn

me away, fearing for their own lives. My family is dead or imprisoned. My

best friend, Zara, disappeared in a raid last year, and my other friends have

their own troubles.

I’m alone.

As dawn breaks, I find myself in an empty building deep in the oldest part

of the Quarter. The gutted structure crouches like a wounded animal amid a

labyrinth of crumbling dwellings. The stench of refuse taints the air.

I huddle in the corner of the room. My hair has slipped free of its braid

and lays in hopeless tangles. The red stitches along the hem of my shift are

ripped, the bright yarn limp. Nan sewed those hems for my seventeenth year-

fall, to brighten up my otherwise drab clothing. It was one of the few gifts she

could afford.

Now she’s dead. Like Pop. Like my parents and sister, long ago.

And Darin. Taken. Dragged to an interrogation cell where the Martials

will do who-knows-what to him.



Life is made of a million moments that mean nothing. But the moment

Darin called out—that moment meant everything. It was a test of courage.

And I failed it.

Laia! Run!

Why did I listen to him? I should have stayed. I should have done some-

thing. I moan and grasp my head. I keep hearing him. Where is he now?

Have they begun the interrogation? He’ll wonder what happened to me. He’ll

wonder how his sister could have left him.

A flicker of furtive movement in the shadows catches my attention, and

the hair on my nape rises. A rat? A crow? The shadows shift, and within them,

two malevolent eyes flash. More sets of eyes join the first, baleful and slitted.

Hallucinations, I hear Pop in my head, making a diagnosis. A symptom

of shock.

Hallucinations or not, the shadows look real. Their eyes glow with the fire

of miniature suns, and they circle me like hyenas, growing bolder with each

pass.

“We saw,” they hiss. “We know your weakness. He’ll die because of you.”

“No,” I whisper. But they are right, these shadows. I left Darin. I aban-

doned him. The fact that he told me to go doesn’t matter. How could I have

been so cowardly?

I grasp my mother’s armlet, but touching it makes me feel worse. Mother

would have outfoxed the Mask. Somehow, she’d have saved Darin and Nan

and Pop.

Even Nan was braver than me. Nan, with her frail body and burning eyes.

Her backbone of steel. Mother inherited Nan’s fire, and after her, Darin.

But not me.

Run, little girl.


22 \ Sabaa tahir

The shadows inch closer, and I close my eyes against them, hoping they’ll

disappear. I grasp at the thoughts ricocheting through my mind, trying to

corral them.

Distantly, I hear shouts and the thud of boots. If the soldiers are still look-

ing for me, I’m not safe here.

Maybe I should let them find me and do what they will. I abandoned my

blood. I deserve punishment.

But the same instinct that urged me to escape the Mask in the first place

drives me to my feet. I head into the streets, losing myself in the thickening

morning crowds. A few of my fellow Scholars look twice at me, some with

wariness, others with sympathy. But most don’t look at all. It makes me won-

der how many times I walked right past someone in these streets who was

running, someone who had just had their whole world ripped from them.

I stop to rest in an alley slick with sewage. Thick black smoke curls up

from the other side of the Quarter, paling as it rises into the hot sky. My

home, burning. Nan’s jams, Pop’s medicines, Darin’s drawings, my books,

gone. Everything I am. Gone.

Not everything, Laia. Not Darin.

A grate squats in the center of the alley, just a few feet away from me. Like

all grates in the Quarter, it leads down into the Serra’s catacombs: home to

skeletons, ghosts, rats, thieves...and possibly the Scholar’s Resistance.

Had Darin been spying for them? Had the Resistance gotten him into

the Weapons Quarter? Despite what my brother told the Mask, it’s the only

answer that makes sense. Rumor has it that the Resistance fighters have been

getting bolder, recruiting not just Scholars, but Mariners, from the free coun-

try of Marinn, to the north, and Tribesmen, whose desert territory is an Em-

pire protectorate.



Pop and Nan never spoke of the Resistance in front of me. But late at

night, I would hear them murmur of how the rebels freed Scholar prisoners

while striking out at the Martials. Of how fighters raided the caravans of the

Martial merchant class, the Mercators, and assassinated members of their

upper class, the Illustrians. Only the rebels stand up to the Martials. Elusive

as they are, they are the only weapon the Scholars have. If anyone can get

near the forges, it’s them.

The Resistance, I realize, might help me. My home was raided and

burned to the ground, my family killed because two of the rebels gave Darin’s

name to the Empire. If I can find the Resistance and explain what happened,

maybe they can help me break Darin free from prison—not just because they

owe me, but because they live by Izzat, a code of honor as old as the Scholar

people. The rebel leaders are the best of the Scholars, the bravest. My parents

taught me that before the Empire killed them. If I ask for aid, the Resistance

won’t turn me away.

I step toward the grate.

I’ve never been in Serra’s catacombs. They snake beneath the entire city,

hundreds of miles of tunnels and caverns, some packed with centuries’ worth

of bones. No one uses the crypts for burial anymore and even the Empire

hasn’t mapped out the catacombs entirely. If the Empire, with all its might,

can’t hunt out the rebels, then how will I find them?

You won’t stop until you do. I lift the grate and stare into the black hole

below. I have to go down there. I have to find the Resistance. Because if I

don’t, my brother doesn’t stand a chance. If I don’t find the fighters and get

them to help, I’ll never see Darin again.


1

Lily (2:46 pm): PuppyGirl. What if, instead of going to the first day of school tomorrow, we just hid out under the pier forever and made a living selling friendship bracelets and sea-shells? That is totally doable, right? Please say it’s doable.

Harper (2:47 pm): Hang on, Gawkward Fairy! Do you really want to spend the last night before freshman year freaking out? Let’s soak it in! Beverly Hills High won’t know what they’re missing when you go to Pathways!

Lily (2:47 pm): Stop. You’re going to make me do one of those cry-face emojis.

Harper (2:49 pm): Why are there so many face emojis? like do humans even have the capacity to make these faces?

Harper (2:48 pm): or like

Harper (2:48 pm): Like this one

9781595148056_ATaleofTwoBesties_INT_1P_Correx.indd 1 12/22/14 8:18 AM

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Lily (2:51 pm): I <3 her.

Lily (2:51 pm): Seriously: NOPE.

Harper (2:50 pm): Oh my god, right? “HOW DO I GET THE RINGTONE TO PLAY DRAKE but not the singing part only the part where he ‘raps’?” Ughhh, okay mom.

Harper (2:51 pm): Not the way you <3 Tim Slater. Want me to say hi from the “Fairy” tomorrow when I see him in class? “WINKY-FACE emoji.”

Lily (2:50 pm): “I STILL CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE MY PHONE DO THAT!”—Your mom.

Harper (2:49 pm): I bet it’s the last one that is basically a picture of your face right now and also the rest of the time.

Harper (2:49 pm):

Lily (2:53 pm): Man you seriously date some-one for 2 months and they crush your heart by not being that into you and you never live it down?? I don’t like him anymore, I just like those comics he draws for us!

Harper (2:52 pm): Playing hard to get, are we? Or have you accepted what a serial weirdo our male buddy is?


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Lily (2:55 pm): Nice try, but the Gawkward Fairy has up her ultra gawkward shield. NOW I AM immune to all forms of kindess!! Let’s face it: the saddest day of my life starts tomorrow and will last FOREVER.

Harper (2:54 pm): They are good comics, Gawkward Fairy. And that’s not just me as my superhero PUPPYGIRL with my SUPER EMPATHY talking.

Lily (2:56 pm): Now I’m actually crying face.

Lily (2:56 pm): Only if you bring a sacrificial goat and/or Pinkberry.

Harper (2:56 pm): FOREVER? So dramatic. No wonder they are sending you to the Pathways School of Creative Angst.

Harper (2:56 pm): Okay, that’s it. Emergency BFF meeting. Same secret time, same secret place?

Harper (2:57 pm): duh.


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1

I, Lily Annelisa Farson, thirteen years of age and of sound mind and body, do hereby declare that the following is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Zeus.

Here is a list of things I love:

1. Really loud thunderstorms (but in a safe “I’m indoors!” kind of way)

2. Music mixes for and from friends and col-lages of friends and for me

3. My red chucks and sometimes my blue ones when my mom washes my red ones without asking

4. Crazy animals that shouldn’t exist but do. (See: NARWHALS!)

5. Comic books (and not just the ones people think girls will like. ALL OF THEM. Even D.C.)

6. Anything found in the basement, in the front in the back. BASICALLY anything in a thrift store.

7. Sneezing. (It makes me feel powerful.)

8/9. (Tied) Horses/Vanilla ChapStick

10. My best friend Harper!



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And here is a list of things I really, really don’t like:

1. Peppers (sometimes I pretend I’m allergic for dramatic purposes only, promise)

2. Aggro-angry music, where someone just yells into a microphone like “RAAAGHHH!” Aggressive sounds are so aggressive.

3. Volleyball

4. My hair (too wavy)

5. The smell of airplane bathrooms. I’ve only been on one plane but it SURE WAS MEMORABLE

6. The Mansons—the cult and Marilyn

7. The lady at the mall who works at Day of Knights. It used to be my favorite shop until I accidentally broke a ceramic dragon figurine when I was 11 and she told my dad when he came to pick me up, even though I offered to pay for it. I was plan-ning on being a loyal customer. So really HER LOSS.

8. PATHWAYS!!!

9. Hashtags (Remember when it was just the “number” symbol and nobody used it, ever, because it was super ugly?)

10. Traumas

I scrawled my signature at the bottom of my note. Mom and I were keeping a scrapbook of my lists and journals, and she told me that she was even thinking of doing some capital-A Art based on them. There wasn’t a lot of room left on the fridge, but I made an executive decision and replaced a postcard Dad had sent from his


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last trip to Brazil with my note, using our “Got Milk?” magnet to keep it in place right where Mom would defi-nitely notice it.

“Are you ready, Lily-Jolie?” My mom has a way of sing-talking my name like she was an old black-and-white movie starlet. It immediately evokes nostalgia for a time and place that doesn’t even belong to me. She was standing shadowed in the doorframe with the light behind her, looking like a classic beauty in her wide sun-brim hat and paint-splattered denim dress. On anyone else it would have looked frumpy, but on her it looked like couture. “We’re going to be late meeting Harper at the Pier.”

I stepped back to view the note within the larger context of the fridge. Did it draw the audience’s eye? Yes, it did. But would the audience (my mom) understand that the last item—the dreaded Pathways Academy—was the most important? I hoped so. It was only eighteen hours, thirty minutes, and nineteen seconds until I descended into the darkness otherwise known as freshman year at a totally new school where I would know exactly zero people.

“Okay, coming!” I turned and grabbed my shim-mery blue fairy wings off the back of one of our red, mismatched kitchen chairs and stuffed them in my backpack. Within minutes, Mom and I were in the car zooming toward the ocean, on our way to the Santa Monica Pier to say goodbye to summer. I closed my eyes and tried to smell the salt in the air.

Besides Harper, my mom is my best friend. She’s always understood me, and even when she hasn’t agreed with my decisions, she’s supported me. Just one example: In third grade, when we were living back in



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Maryland, I had the brilliant idea of cutting off all my hair—really short, like Felicity in Felicity, which is this old show I found on Netflix and watched because they said it was made by the same guy who did Lost, which I was psyched about until I realized it didn’t feature any smoke monsters. Anyway, I needed short hair to pull off a rattail, which I desperately wanted. Most kids’ par-ents would have laughed in their faces and told them to get real, but my mom took me to her friend’s salon in Baltimore the next day. She said my new look was au courant.

Now, speeding down the highway, I wiggled my toes and told Mom that I had heard something interesting the other day.

“What was it Lily-Jolie?” My mom’s family is from France, where “jolie” means “pretty.” It’s not even my middle name, which is Annalisa, but it might as well be.

“It’s just about how students who go to public high schools usually have an easier time of it, you know, ac-ademically, than kids who transfer to private schools. Same with getting into college. Because they have bet-ter extracurriculars, you know, with public funding? And I also read an article about how private school stu-dents are more likely to join a gang or do drugs than regular kids, because they are more susceptible to peer pressure. Like in Lord of the Flies, but with heroin.”

My mom sighed. “Lily, we’ve been over this. You are going to Pathways.”

“I know.” My feet were fidgeting so much that the sole of my sandal was almost entirely detached from the actual shoe at this point. “But maybe if I transferred af-ter first semester? If I really, really hated it, maybe . . .”

We pulled into the parking lot for the Pier, the


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Santa Monica amusement park only a quick trip down the boardwalk, which was made even faster when I wore my chunky purple rollerblades with the vintage stripes. The Pier is where Harper and I had our secret spot.

Mom turned off the car and took my head in her hands, wiping away my tears. I didn’t even know I had been crying.

“Oh Jolie,” she murmured. “I know you think you won’t be able to make friends, but you’ll see . . . every-one will love you!”

Easy for you to say, is what I wanted to tell her, but didn’t.

I’d told my parents from the beginning that I didn’t want to go to a private high school. “But Pathways will help nurture your individuality!” Mom would keep tell-ing me, as if individuality is something I have a problem with. If anything, I’m too much of an individual.

“You’ll find your passion there,” my dad would insist. “You’re so creative; you just need a nurturing environment.”

My parents think Pathways is better than Pali-sades or Beverly High, because it’s exclusive and a lot of “artists” have come out of there. “Plus,” they kept saying, “you get to call your teachers by their first names!” I told them that I’d much rather hang out with Harper than call my teacher “James” instead of “Mr. Franco.” (Yes, that James Franco. But he was only a visiting teacher so it doesn’t really count.)

While I was still sniffling in the parking lot, Mom reached over the seat and handed me my roller-blades. “Mrs. Carina or Rachel will pick you up at four and drive you guys back. You’ll have dinner over at Harper’s, and I’ll pick you up at eight.” She kissed me on top of my head and gave me my knapsack. “Now, you



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go have fun, jeune fille!”I breezed down the boardwalk in my scuffed-

up rollerblades, which were covered in sparkly stick-ers and flaky scribbles from an old Puffy Pen. I took in the life around me: peddlers of all kinds of wares, artisans of chintz and bongs and bongos. Harper and I have our special place outside Pacific Park, not quite underneath the boardwalk, but almost. We found it two summers ago, an empty stretch of beach where you can look to your left and see the Ferris wheel; look to your right and see the ocean. It’s where we listened to Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games” for the first time, shar-ing an iPod, dancing around like witches attached at the ears. It’s the place where, last summer, those two skateboarding boys followed us, trailing drips of the ice cream they’d bought for us, the sugar sizzling on the boardwalk. Our stomachs stretched tight as drums, we lovingly set down the oversized teddy bears, use-less things that Josh and Ben had won for us at the Playland Arcade, and all four of us had run into the water with our clothes on, shrieking. Harper Snapchat-ted them a picture of us making goofy faces that Au-gust, but they never messaged her back. Harper said that was really rude, because you shouldn’t buy two pretty girls ice cream and then never reach out again, especially if those two pretty girls didn’t even ask for extra toppings and were very chill. I don’t know much about this but I believe her. We would have burned the bears in effigy in her yard to cleanse ourselves of their memory, had we not been worried about toxins.

I came to a quick stop at our spot, where I found Harper already waiting for me. She was wearing her go-to beach gear: a blue and white striped Topshop bath-


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ing suit underneath a sheer, oversized white cotton shirt that came down to her knees. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, highlighting her big brown eyes and the freckles dotting her high cheekbones. Harper’s only accessories were her friendship bracelets that both of us wore all the time—we didn’t even need to remind each other to put them on, though they sometimes fell off my bony wrists (the only parts of me that are still bony).

Harper is my muse: One time I had her dress up in a big, white gown and this pink wig I found at a thrift store on Melrose, and we shot an entire movie on my cell phone. I wrote and directed and provided the soundtrack, and she was the star. It was about a ghost who doesn’t know she’s dead, waiting at the shore for her lover to arrive. It had a lot of shots of Harper looking intensely at the sea, and doing romantic stuff like run-ning down the steps of the boardwalk crying “Where are you, Walter? My darling!”

I would say my inspiration for that film was sixty percent Godard and forty percent these cool Vines I saw where everyone looked like they were in Girls. Harper posted it online and we got a bunch of com-ments, including one from one of our favorite TV actors, from that show about the moody cop who always solves impossible crimes. He wrote, “Will be looking for you two next pilot season!” We almost died.

“What took you so long?” asked Harper when I fi-nally took off my skates and skittered onto the sand. She was standing up on her blanket, a vintage copy of Lemony Snicket with a cracked spine lying face down next to her coconut water and bag of carrot sticks. “I’ve been waiting forever!”

“I couldn’t leave Mom without one last plea for mercy,”



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I said, slinging my backpack off my arms and unzipping it. “And I had to bring this, too, of course.” I smiled. Harper looked inside the bag and pulled out a mangled corpse of wire and fabric.

“Oh no, Lily! I think you bent your wings!”They were definitely crumpled. The frame had bent

completely, and in some parts the wires were sticking out of the purple and blue mesh. It made me sad; they were the last gift my grandmother ever gave me before we left Maryland, and even though I was too old to be wearing a costume, I put them on that very day and promised I wouldn’t take it off until the next time I saw her. I’m sure she didn’t expect me to keep that promise, but, to be fair, I didn’t expect her to pass away before my tenth birthday.

“They look like a mangled Muppet!” I said. Maybe it was the memory of my grandmother, but now I felt completely desolate. Meanwhile, Harper, being Harper, pragmatically got to work trying to smoosh them back into shape. “You know, you know, this is a bad omen! Something is trying to tell us that going to different high schools is a bad idea.” I shivered.

“Don’t be silly,” said Harper. “It’s not a bad omen, it’s physics. That’s what happens when you crush something into your bag. Plus, they’re old, anyway.” I must have had a horrified look on my face, because she smiled and gave me a big hug. “Look, I think I can save them. We’ll have our superpowers back up and running in no time!”

Harper always knew what to say to distract me from my looping thoughts—including saying nothing at all. “Didn’t you bring your towel, Lily? Here, you can share mine.” Harper scooted over. “Help me Instagram


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some final summer memories of the Ferris wheel.” She pulled out her phone—which had on a pink rubber case with big bunny ears—and we made funny faces with the park behind us, pretending to be happier than we were. The shrieks of delight from the roller coaster al-most overpowered my thoughts, and the heat from the California sun tried to soothe me into drowsiness. My mind was suddenly flooded with the realization that, from now on, Harper and I would be taking selfies in different places, with different people. Before we knew it we were going to become “Like” friends—those kids you see who heart every photo but never even hang out.

After a couple of pics where I must have looked a little too lost in reverie, Harper turned on her side to face me.

“Thinking about Pathways?” she asked.“Are you a mind reader?”“Yes. Maybe I should make my own Tarot app,”

Harper giggled. She stopped when she saw my face.“Come on, it won’t be so bad. I bet you get to take

all the macramé and collage classes you want! And you probably won’t have to dissect frogs, or do math.” Harper’s biggest fear in life was cutting into an animal, which was thanks to her older sister Rachel, who al-most got expelled her freshman year after bringing in fifty live toads to biology as part of a protest. The funny thing is, Rachel isn’t even the big animal lover in the family. It’s Harper who spends all her time taking care of sick dogs at the rescue center.

“I don’t care about any of that,” I said, picking up a carrot stick and nibbling on it, hoping it would calm my knotted stomach. “I’m not going to have any friends there. Everyone is going to think I’m a weirdo.”



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“Starting high school is scary for everyone.” Harper made a face. “Look, who will I know besides Rachel and her friends and Tim?”

“At least you’ll have Tim,” I said, morosely thinking of my cute ex-boyfriend with his slouchy posture and perfectly hidden tickle spots.

Harper rolled her eyes. “Ugh, Tim.” She had never understood my infatuation with her oldest friend. “You’re going to find yourself a bohemian boyfriend in ten minutes at school and forget all about him.” This was Harper’s biggest blind spot. She didn’t have any sense for romance. She traded out her guy crushes daily, ob-sessively checking their stats and info online like she was creating a personal fantasy draft of cute boys. She felt the need to virtually stalk every boy we’d ever meet for weeks, obsessing over his social media history—who he tagged, who he’s faved, who he retweeted and whose stuff he “liked”—and determining his crushability en-tirely on the results of her Internet detective-ing.

I’ve only liked one boy ever: Tim Slater, who was actually more like our third sidekick and has known Harper since they were both in diapers.

Tim is the perfect kind of guy: sort of geeky in a Wes Anderson-y kind of way, knows the origin story of every super villain from Marvel, and can make any type of nautical knot in under sixty seconds. He’s really funny but totally hates the idea of improv groups, can whistle the theme song from every TV show ever made, and—most importantly—has no idea of how attractive he is. He’s like a girl in one of those high school movies where you take off her glasses and oversized “Save the Direwolves” T-shirt and brush the hair out of her eyes and voila! He’s like Clark Kent—dweeby and doesn’t look


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like much,—that is, until he turns into Superman. He’s even got a really square chin, like a superhero, and very straight, white teeth which, combined with his crooked smile, are totally devastating. His fingernails are never, ever dirty and he has very soft hands, which he used to gently break my heart into a million pieces. Ugh.

I shook my head to clear away the spider webs. I had liked Tim and we dated and it didn’t work out for a number of reasons, and it was time to stop thinking about him.

“I don’t want a boyfriend,” I explained for the bil-lionth time. “No boyfriend is going to know that ‘Cups’ song is from summer camp and not an oversampled Anna Kendrick single. No boyfriend will help me on an intelligence mission to the teachers’ lounge to find out if Ms. Bulgari is actually a witch. No boyfriend,” I added slyly, “is going to spend a day walking around with me with Skittles in our bras to see if Tim Slater notices that we’re candy-padding.”

Harper broke out into a big grin. “You don’t know that. Pathways is supposed to be full of guys in candy push-up bras who love anything campy.” We both erupted into giggles that felt relief personified. Laugh-ing with Harper feels like catching my breath after I didn’t even know I was holding it in.

Harper scooched over and gave me a big hug. “Lily, you are going to make TONS of friends!” she whispered, stroking my hair as I began to morph into a cry-baby yet again. “You are the most magical person I know!”

That was such a Harper thing to say. She’d always been super popular. People just wanted her in their cir-cle, and not just because she looks the part of a Califor-nian Dream Girl. Harper’s style is pretty understated—



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her signature look is something like a dove gray tank top paired with jeans and her beach-ready mermaid hair, which sounds super minimalist but she pulls it off, especially thanks to her beautiful dark eyes and her yoga-perfected posture. She’s like a Disney Princess in Rag & Bone. She never tried to “express herself” with fashion, always letting herself bring personality to her clothes rather than the other way around, which was such a rarity in LA. People were always stopping her on Melrose, assuming she was an actress. Not in a “Oh, weren’t you on that ABC Family tween comedy?” way, either. It was more that you got a sense you got from Harper, could feel something that radiated off of her telling you that she was someone Special. You could tell just by the way she looked at you, no matter what she was doing, that she was having the best time and wanted to make sure you were, too.

But even if Harper wore a bag over her head, she’d still be picked for captain of the step team and proba-bly class president. The thing is, Harper is classy. She actually listens when people talk, and you can tell she isn’t just trying to think of what to say next, or worry-ing if there is spinach in her teeth. She’s very “present,” which is a term my mom uses a lot to describe people who aren’t wracked by social anxiety and neuroses.

“I’m not like you, Harper,” I said. “I get nervous around new people.”

“So we’ll text each other during every class!” Harper pulled out her cell phone and waved it in front of my face. She was a stealth ninja at not getting caught by teachers with her phone out. “If something’s wrong, you text ‘GAWKWARD SOS’ and I’ll tell you what to do! And then at the end of the day, Rachel and I will pick you


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up. If anyone is giving you trouble . . .” Harper mimed a punch. “KABLAMO!” She picked up my broken wings and studied them. “These actually might be fixable.” She began to dig in with her fingers, refashioning the wires and massaging the cloth back over the broken parts. You had to love a friend willing to chip her nails on your wings the day before her freshman year in high school.

I’ve been gawkward—which is a portmanteau of gawky and awkward—for as l long as I can remember. But it was only after meeting Harper that I discovered that being different could be a power instead of a curse.

On my first day of school in California all the way back in fourth grade, I discovered my two good luck charms. The first was Harper herself. She was like a human amulet which warded off bad vibes and made me even somewhat accepted . . . or at least, not a to-tally shunned outcast. The second charm was my ir-idescent fairy wings, which transformed me from the creepy, weird new girl named Lily into my true persona: the Gawkward Fairy, who could save the world with her social anxiety, making the bad guys so uncomfortable that they would forget about fighting or blowing up the world and just call it a day and go home early for some TV and snacks.

“Hold on one second, I need to get something,” Harper said. “You stay right here.” She carried my wings with her, but left me on the towel with the rest of her stuff. After a couple of minutes, her phone made a chirping noise, and I picked it up.

It was a text. From Tim. His name on her screen still had the power to make my heart race, which I hated, but the breakup had been mutual, and I knew we were better



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friends than boyfriend/girlfriend anyway.Still, I won’t pretend it didn’t still get under my skin

that Harper was the one Tim always ran to first with big news. I guess maybe it made sense though—I wasn’t big into my cell phone the way Harper was—for me it was just a tool for texting, not Internet stalking. And even just cellular communications can sometimes get out of control. I found most people’s emails and texts to feel very emotionally violating. Like, people send the most intense texts while you are just walking around the world. You could be in a mall casually browsing for crop tops (ew, but never crop tops) and someone you’re not even that great friends with will just send you the most insane text, like, “MY PARENTS ARE DIVORCING!??!” And what do you do respond? “BRB”? Ugh. Every time you send a text instead of reaching out for real, a little bit of your soul dies. I’m one hundred percent sure that is true.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why Tim hadn’t texted me, too, as I clicked his message on Harper’s phone.

“Watch this!” it said, with a link to a video. By the time Harper came back, I wasn’t warm anymore. I was cold, cold, cold.

“Ta-da!” She said, holding up my wings. She had gone to buy some scarves on the Pier and was waving them in front of my face. I tried to ask her what they were for, but it was like my throat had swollen shut. “What is it? What are you watching?” she asked. “Is it another ah-mazing cat video?”

Harper delicately pried the phone out of my trembling hands.

“Why are you looking at SchoolGrams?” School-Grams is an app that allows anyone with a student ID


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number and PIN to upload and access movies and pic-tures tagged with a school’s name. You’re only supposed to be able to look at things from your own school, but people share their passwords all the time, and things go viral pretty quickly. The video was tagged #Hollywood-Middle. My stomach sank as I pressed Play. There were very few positive or uplifting videos that got uploaded to SchoolGrams—most of the time they were taken without people’s permission and used for humiliation purposes. The school system had tried several times to ban the app after kids complained of bullying, but the developers always made the defense that SchoolGrams was just a platform and it was up to us to determine the kind of content we put on there.

The video was shaky and there was a lot of au-dio distortion—very amateur. All I could make out were two girls on the park bench having drama. One of them was crying and the other was patting her shoulder and talking very fast and in this really, really high-pitched voice, like she was half-trying to sound reasonable and half-screaming.

“Is that Jessica Samuels and Stephanie Adler?” Harper brought the screen closer to her face and frowned. “No way.”

Stephanie and Jessica were girls in our class who were kind of nice, but also kind of NOT nice. We ate lunch with them, but they were mostly Harper’s friends from growing up. Until last year, they dressed the same, did their hair the same, they even laughed the same flittering snicker-giggle. Last fall, though, Stephanie’s style all of a sudden got all Coachella-street-blogger, while Jessica was still wearing Lacoste Polo shirts and Uggs and doing her hair in tight, Ariana Grande–style



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ponytails. Then one day, Jessica wasn’t even sitting with us at lunch. You could see her blond tresses, fi-nally relaxed from their tight bun, draped over Matt Musher’s shoulders as she lovingly fed him French fries dipped in ranch sauce.

“You stole my boyfriend, you slut!” One of the girls—it was hard to tell with all the Shaky-Cam—screamed at the other. “I can’t believe you kissed . . . *garbled*. You were my best friend!” Here, the angrier of the girls had wrestled her way on top and bent her former bestie’s arm back, punctuating her words with a quick, upward yank.

The other girl howled, and the video cut off after some fumbling by the intrepid cameraman.

“Wow, did Steph . . . hook up with Matt?” Harper asked, sounding confused on multiple levels. Matt Musher was a boy in our class who was okay-cute, but kind of a jock.

This was exactly why I hated the Internet: Clicking a link allowed you to peer into someone’s personal hu-miliation file, making you feel dirtier than if you were the one who made out with your best friend’s boyfriend. We couldn’t think of much to say after that, so I put my head down and closed my eyes, pretending to take a nap. Harper picked up her book and turned over to tan her back.

That afternoon, the minutes flew by between us. I was unable to keep them there, though I wished they’d come back. I wish I could have gathered up those min-utes like flowers to hang upside down in my room, until they were dried out: less fresh, but more permanent. So they’d stay with me forever and never die and never hurt.

But instead I could practically hear the countdown


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clock ticking: eighteen hours, forty-five minutes and thirty seconds till Pathways. Make that twenty-nine seconds. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven. Twenty-six.

It must have been a little bit later—but not too late, because the sun was still out—that I heard a strange, sad call coming from underneath the boardwalk. A chill coursed through me.

“Whoa,” said Harper. “Is that an owl?”“Yeah, we used to have a lot of them in Maryland.”“What is it doing up so early?”I sat up, remembering something. Something

foreboding. “Harper, have you ever heard of the owl of Minerva?”

Harper sighed and lay down next to me on the blanket, folding her arms above her head and closing her eyes. “I love story time.”

I continued.“Okay, so this owl flew around, crying out warn-

ings for travelers who’d stayed out in the forest past dark, and so were in great danger of getting lost there forever. But the thing is, the owl always flew super close to nighttime, so by the time you saw it, it meant you were already doomed. Harper, what if that’s our owl of Minerva? What if we’re already doomed?”

I knew how intense I sounded, but sometimes in-tensity is the way to the truth. Or maybe I was just FREAKING OUT.

Sixteen hours, ten minutes, and eleven seconds. Ten seconds. Nine seconds.

“Lily, you’ve got to snap out of it!” Harper was us-ing her annoyed voice. “We are not doomed. We’re just freshmen! But it is getting late, and we still have two items on the agenda.”



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“You’d be a great events planner,” I said, only half-sarcastically, because Harper is actually fantastic at remembering all the details that I’d never remember. Like: Turn off the lights when you leave the house. Don’t put on lotion right before you put on jeans and don’t fall asleep with your hairband on if you don’t want to lose circulation for like ever. Don’t leave KIND bars in your backpack for too long or they’ll turn into a sticky, backpack-ruining mess.

Like: Oh man, Harper’s birthday was coming up. And I knew she was about to ask me about PuppyBash. Every year, on the night before her birthday, Harper arranges for one of the volunteers from PuppyTales, a rescue organization for strays, to drive up to a park or some other public location with about fifteen dogs in mobile cages. We take turns playing with them and giving them exercise, and instead of presents, Harper always asks for donations to PuppyTales. Last year our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Beatty, even took home a puppy to adopt: a tiny little Shih Tzu named Maxine. It was brilliant. I guess you could call us activists, kind of.

Actually, please call us activists, it feels very grownup.

“At least you have PuppyBash to look forward to! And whatever else we do . . .” Harper said.

She was always so obstinately vague about her birthdays. She always goes all-out planning Puppy-Bash, but when it comes to her real birthday celebra-tion, it’s always up to me.

“Yeah, there’s always that,” I said, trying to cheer myself up, at least for Harper’s sake. “That will be fun!”

When I didn’t say anything else, Harper dropped the subject, turning her back to me and rustling my


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wings. “Ta-da! Here! All better!” She had bandaged up the broken parts with the gauzy fabric of the scarves, turning them into something a winged Katniss might wear.

“Oh my god, they’re perfect! You made them per-fect again!” I tried to hug her but of course I almost smooshed them all over again, so I had to just be okay with spiraling into a sea of thank yous, over and over.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Harper asked softly. I tried not to concentrate on anything else but the sound of my best friend’s voice. This seemed im-portant in an all-new way, and for a moment the sound of my mental clock ticking its countdown faded into the gentle roar of the ocean’s surf. I buried my feet in the cooling sand, wishing I could grow roots. “How it was true bestie love at first sight?”

“Of course,” I said. My skin was pricked with goose bumps. “Everyone remembers the day the weirdo girl in a fairy costume showed up to be eaten alive by the sharks of Beverly Hills.”

Harper grinned, digging her feet into the sand next to mine. “I remember it as the last day before I realized life could actually be magical.”

“Um, I have told you I don’t actually grant wishes, right?” I teased.

“Dummy.” Harper gave me a light punch. “The magical part was that I met my best friend that day.”

“Come on, the magical part was where the coolest girl in the Hills decided to talk to me.” I tried to say it lightly, like it was a joke, but it was how I really felt.

Harper pulled her feet out of the sand, showering us both in grainy clumps. She turned towards me and pulled her legs up to her chin. “For the billionth time,



23

being cool has nothing to do with how many people say hi to you in the hall. Being cool means saying hi to peo-ple and not caring if they say it back.”

“I care!” I protested, feeling the well-worn tread of this debate we had at least once a month. “It’s not like I try to stick out. I just do. I can’t help it.”

“Um, exactly.” Harper shook her head, exasperated that I wasn’t understanding her. When it came to most things, we were on the same page. But this was one topic we could never see eye-to-eye on. Secretly, I knew Harper was giving me too much credit for being “unique” when really I wasn’t trying to make a state-ment or anything. I just liked the way the wings looked. It reminded me of Gram, who had been a dancer in a traveling vaudeville group when she was younger and was the most glamorous person I’d ever seen.

Harper tilted her head, regarding me with a crin-kled eye. “Okay,” she said, fake-breezily. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s make a pact.”

“A pact? You want me to join your cult or some-thing?”

“No! A non-creepy pact.”“Oh, well if it’s a non-creepy pact, then sure. But

please tell me it involves ritual animal sacrifice.”I tried to laugh it off as a joke, but Harper grabbed

my hands and looked at me straight in the eyes. “I know you’re nervous about Pathways, but you know that a school can’t change you from being yourself, right? Promise me we’re not going to fall into this Pretty Little Liars-y trap where one moment everyone’s best friends and the next everyone changes. We’re not going to give in to that basic stereotype, right?”

I shrugged. I didn’t have as much faith in me as


SOPHIA ROSSI

24

Harper did, but I guess that’s what best friends were for: to believe in you when you didn’t even believe in yourself.

“Since we’re not going to be around to help one an-other every second of every day anymore,” she contin-ued, “we need to solemnly swear that we’re not going to be one of those kids who do this dramatic makeover or have a personality transplant the moment they get to high school. That stuff only works in the movies, any-way. You’re the Gawkward Fairy. Don’t let anyone con-vince you otherwise.”

I looked off to the water and thought about Harp-er’s words and what they really meant. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Then you’ve got to swear something to me. That you’re not going to go to Beverly High and forget all about me. That while I’m ‘being me’ you’re not going to go off to bonfires on the beach and not invite me to come along to document everything. That you won’t ever start doing duck-face selfies with girls who all have the same messy-perfect hair as you and you won’t start dating some guy named Thad or Chaz or whatever and totally stop texting.”

Harper’s smile broke open wide, and my heart along with it. “Only if you promise not to read from the Pitchfork comment board in a silly accent without me.”

“Promise. Pact made,” I said, offering my hand for a business-deal shake. “But only if you know that you’re getting, like, the raw end of the deal. You’ll be stuck with me by your side forever!”

“Okay. Promise,” said Harper, shaking my hand and immediately enveloping me into a big hug.

We sat like that, eyes half-closed, listening to the waves crashing louder and louder as the light grew dimmer.



25

“Hey,” Harper said gravely, the first to pull back. “I didn’t mean to sound like you had to walk around high school in your wings all the time, if you don’t want to.” Why did she have to say that? Did she know something I didn’t? Was Pathways really anti–fairy wings or some-thing? Was there some rule in the dress code I didn’t know about?

She must have seen the worried look on my face.“Stop spiraling!” She admonished. “I can always

tell when you are overthinking things! I just mean, wear what makes you feel comfortable, not what makes you look like everyone else. Listen, as long as we are our dope selves we are ALL GOOD. And I’m sure you will find some magical creatures there and I’ll have to get my own wings just to fit in with you guys. And maybe our mission in high school is to help people break free of the stereotype that all high schools are just made up of mean girls, jocks, and nerds. Between PuppyGirl’s Em-pathy powers and the Gawkward Fairy, we help those in social distress. We use our powers for good, not evil.”

“Oh, darn, and here I was, planning to become a super villain the moment your back was turned.” My voice was sarcastic, but I was still spiraling: Why would Harper even say that thing about bullying? Did she think I was a monster? I had never made fun of any-one, ever, but now that she’d mentioned it, I wondered if Harper was secretly scared that without me, she’d become one of the mean girls.

We sat a little longer, but the magical moment had passed. It was getting dark and cold. I could almost hear my own personal Minerva hooting in my ear, and there was nothing more I wanted in that moment than to run off toward the amusement park, away from the


SOPHIA ROSSI

26

Pier, out of California forever, only looking back to cry over my shoulder, “Too late! Too late! Too late!”


5

÷÷÷÷

Of course I didn’t like Digby when I first met him. No one

does. He’s rude, he doesn’t ever take no for an answer, and he

treats you like a book he’s already read and knows the ending

to even if you yourself didn’t yet. Now, if you’re a normal

sixteen-year-old like I am, and you spend half your time ob-

sessing about the future and what you’re supposed to be and

spend the other half reading about makeup, diets, and all the

ways to change who you already are, then the stuff he hits

you with is hard to take. Like Digby himself said: The truth

is almost always disappointing.

Not that I need him to tell me about the truth. Or disap-

pointment. In the last six months, I went from living in an

almost-good part of Brooklyn to my parents divorcing and

Mom and me moving to River Heights, a small city in the arm-

pit of upstate New York. Trust me, it’s an even bigger lifestyle

demotion than it sounds like.

Here’s my first confession. I hung out with cool people, sure,

but looking back, I think maybe we were friends only because we

were in the same classes and our parents all got divorced around

the same time. Digby calls them circumstantial friends. Right

place, right time—it was easy to be friends, and so we were.

3Pa_TroubleisaFriendofMine_Tx.indd 5 11/20/14 2:45 PM

6

My friendship with Digby, on the other hand, while circum-

stantially convenient—he just shows up, after all—is not easy.

Nothing with that guy ever is. At first, I thought I hung out

with him because I was bored and wanted to get back at Mom

for moving me here. Then I thought it was because he seemed

so lost and alone all the time.

But now I’m standing outside a house wired with enough

explosives to blow up our entire block into a pile of match-

sticks, trying to figure out the best way to get back in, and I

realize that really, I’m the one who’s been lost.

But I’m jumping too far ahead. All this began on the first day

of school and we need to go back there for you to understand.


7

ONE

I’d been telling Mom to change the drained batteries in the

doorbell since we moved in. The chimes were out of tune and

dinging at half their normal speed. They sounded like a robot

dying in slow agony. And now some jackass was ringing it over

and over. After five minutes of pretending nobody was home, I

thought I was going to snap, so I answered the door.

“Nice bell,” he said.

He was my age, wearing a black suit that made him look

even taller and skinnier than he already was. It was a hot

morning and he was sweating into the collar of his white

button-down. He held a black book and I would’ve thought

he was a Jehovah’s Witness with a Bible, but I doubted they

wore sneakers when they came calling. His messy brown hair

had probably once been pop-star shaggy, but now it needed

cutting. His sad brown eyes turned down at the corners and he

had a bored facial expression that I later realized was one of

his main weapons in life.


8

“Sorry, not interested.” Just to be safe, I yelled, “It’s no one,

Mom, just some guy selling something.”

“Why are you pretending your mom’s home? You’re here

alone. You guys drove off together, but you’re back and her car

isn’t. I’m guessing she dropped you at school and you walked

home,” he said. “Next time, fake sick and save her the gas.”

I tried another one. “Dad!”

“You only had the one car in the garage—the tires are

squishy, by the way—the grass on your lawn that isn’t brown

is a foot tall, recycling isn’t sorted, and you know . . . the door-

bell,” he said. “There’s no dad in the picture.”

I was too shocked to deny it.

“What, were you casing the place? Because I gotta tell

you, we don’t have anything nice.” The following catalog ran

through my head: letter opener in the hall drawer, knives on the

kitchen counter, poker by the busted fireplace in the den, and a

collection of advice from Sexual Assault Prevention Day, like:

“Never let them take you to a second location.”

“Casing the place? No. Well . . . technically, I guess I was

casing around your house, but not your actual house,” he said.

“Anyway, I’ve watched you photograph yourself every

morning—”

“What?! You’re looking in my window—”

“I need to see the photos,” he said. “Although, if you only

take them at the same time every day, they probably won’t tell

me much because they never do anything interesting in the

mornings. Then again, you never know . . .”

“I’m calling the police.”


9

I slammed the door so hard, the doorbell started ringing on

its own.

“Listen, my name’s Digby. Here’s my e-mail address.” He

slid a small piece of paper under the door that said: Digby@

TheRealDigby.com. “E-mail the photos if that’s less freaky for

you.”

Through the glass panel in the door, I saw him start to

knock, so I grabbed the letter opener and flashed it in an I’m-

gonna-stab-you way. I guess I was convincing, because he said

“Whoa” and backed away. When he got to the sidewalk, he

looked up to my bedroom window, then stared at the mansion

across the street for a long time.

And that wasn’t even the weirdest thing that happened that

day. I’d just started as a junior at River Heights High and

didn’t know they phoned parents of absent students after first

period bell. They called it the Ferris Bueller Rule. Apparently

the school board made the new rule after a girl disappeared

during summer vacation. Marina Jane Miller (TV news always

used all three of her names) had been kidnapped while friends

were sleeping over in her room. They hadn’t heard a thing.

The whole of River Heights was freaked, especially the rich

people, because Marina Miller was rich.

The school called Mom at work and she called me, but when

I didn’t pick up, she rushed home only to find me napping. Nat-

urally, she had a mini conniption fit but much worse than that

was the fact that cutting school landed me in an early interven-

tion meeting with thirteen other kids who got busted that day.

Which is where I saw Digby again.


10

TWO

The truancy officer was a hard-ass named Musgrave. He was

the kind of man about whom Mom would say, “Poor thing

wasn’t held enough as a baby.” He sat us in a circle and slowly

walked around outside it. When I was first summoned to the

meeting, I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, but Mus-

grave’s black uniform and shiny badge were intimidating.

Meanwhile, our guidance counselor, who introduced himself

as “please-call-me-Steve,” stood in the middle of the circle hand-

ing out chocolate chip cookies he’d baked for us. He’d also made

hello, my name is stickers. Mine had zoe webster in swirly red

ink like all the girls’. The boys’ were done in blue.

Musgrave scowled when Please-Call-Me-Steve offered him

a cookie. Funnily, the two of them looked evil-twin/good-twin

alike. Both were short, dumpy men with bad haircuts and red

splotchy faces, but where Steve’s was red with sunburn from

riding his bike to work, Musgrave’s was red from, I’d guess,

drinking and rage.


11

Musgrave was halfway through his threats about unex-

cused absences and summer school when Digby arrived. It

had taken Musgrave twenty minutes to wind up to this climax,

so he was totally derailed when Digby sauntered in.

“You must think you’re a funny guy, almost missing a disci-

plinary meeting on truancy,” Musgrave said. “Grab your name

tag and get your butt over here.”

Digby had to write his own tag, which he did in swirly red

letters. Then he sighed and dragged a chair to the circle. The

metal legs screamed the entire way. The other truants clapped

and laughed. To my horror, Digby parked himself next to me

and greeted me like we’d planned to sit together.

I tried to look saintly and refused to acknowledge Digby’s

muttered asides. He stage-whispered things like, “It’s nine

a.m.—he smells like jerky. Discuss,” and, “Do you think it’s

fun to stay at the YMCA in that outfit?”

I sat, frozen, but Musgrave threw me the same evil stare

he pointed at Digby. As far as he was concerned, we were in

it together. Finally, after repeating the policy on truancy and

summer school twice more, Musgrave ended the meeting.

“Okay, everybody,” Please-call-me-Steve said. “Please

come and leave your information on the sign-up sheet here.

Make sure you take a look . . . and help yourself to some

snacks. Give pepitas a chance!”

Meanwhile, Musgrave cornered Digby and me.

“How’s it going, Harlan?” Digby said to him.

“Welcome back to River Heights, Mr. Digby,” Musgrave

said. “I haven’t gotten your file from your school in Texas.


12

Did they teach you manners there or are you and I gonna have

problems?”

“Harlan and I go way back . . . before his demotion, when

he was an actual police officer,” Digby said.

“Guess that answers my question about manners,” Mus-

grave said.

“Don’t be sad, Harlan. You should learn to see the positive

in this new job . . . after all, I believe children are our future,”

Digby said.

“You will call me Mr. Musgrave,” he said. “And you, Zoe

Webster, your fancy Manhattan psychiatrist called.” Everyone

in the room was listening. Musgrave checked his clipboard.

“Didaskaleinophobia? That’s a mouthful. Fancy way of saying

you don’t like school. That’s a thing now? When did that be-

come a valid excuse?”

“That’s confidential student information,” Digby said.

“Excuse me?” Musgrave said.

“I’m pretty sure if she told her parents you read all that

to her classmates, they’d call their ‘fancy Manhattan’ lawyer

and sue you and the school board for violating her privacy,”

Digby said.

“Still a troublemaker,” Musgrave said. “I remember you

were fractious and disruptive to our investigation. Nothing’s

changed, I see.”

“And might that be more confidential student information

you’re revealing?” Digby said.

Musgrave’s left eye twitched but, thank God, Please-Call-

Me-Steve called him to the other end of the room.


13

“What are you doing?” I smacked Digby’s arm.

“You wanted him to announce your private business to the

whole room?” Digby said.

“Stop helping and get away from me, please—I don’t want

him to think we’re friends.”

“Don’t knock it. Spend some time in River Heights and

you’ll know it ain’t easy making friends around here.”

“I’m serious. I can’t get in trouble. I need a clean transcript

or I’ll never get out of here.”

“Which makes your decision to skip school super-interesting,”

Digby said. “Are you transferring out of this fine establish-

ment?”

“Hope to.”

“To where?”

“A school in New York. The Prentiss Academy.”

“Sounds uptight.”

“It’s a feeder school for Princeton.”

“Princeton? You wanna go there?” He was laughing at me.

“Not that I have to explain myself to you, but I have the grades.”

“Your answer to having school phobia is applying to a

really hard school so you can get into a really, really hard

college?”

“I’m not phobic anymore.”

“Were you ever really?” Digby took a bite of cookie. “Hey,

these cookies are good.”

“Yeah, the guidance counselor made them.”

“Wait. He said he physically made them?”

“Yeah . . .”


14

Digby rifled through the tray of cookies. A few of the kids

standing near us groaned in disgust.

“You’re touching all the cookies. That’s gross,” I said.

Across the room, Steve and Musgrave argued loudly.

“Wanna get out of morning classes this semester?” Digby said.

“How?”

“Think fast—Steve’s losing against Musgrave—are you in?

Now or never, Princeton.”

I meant to say no, but as I later found out, something about

Digby makes me do the exact opposite of what I know is the

right thing. Over and over again.

“I guess . . . I’m in?”

Digby ran over and inserted himself into their argument.

“Steve, I gotta talk to you about our independent project,”

Digby said.

Steve looked blank but played along. “Oh?”

“What independent project?” Musgrave said.

“Our approval form’s right here,” Digby said.

“It’s new,” Steve said. “Students work on projects off cam-

pus to pursue interests the curriculum doesn’t address.”

“They don’t come to school?” Musgrave said.

“They meet with a faculty advisor, but they work on it out-

side the classroom. They come to school for the rest of their

credits,” Steve said.

“That’s ridiculous! That’s kids schooling themselves. Blue

state liberal garbage . . . what’s this project anyway?”

Digby used his extra-bored expression. “We’re calling it

‘Convicted in Absence.’ We’re looking at whether skipping


15

class leads to criminal behavior, or whether being punished

like a criminal for skipping class actually causes the criminal

behavior. Bet it’s the second one.” It came out fast and shiny,

like he’d spent time polishing up his spiel. “We’re talking

about securitization . . . schools as an extension of the police

state. ‘Convicted in Absence.’ Good title, right?”

“This crap is destroying this country,” Musgrave said.

That sealed it. Anything to annoy Musgrave. Steve signed

the form. ÷÷÷÷

I caught up with Digby in the hall. “What just happened?

How’d you do that?” I said.

“Manhattan psychiatrist, but downgraded to a falling-down

house in a B-grade suburb? Your parents are divorced. C’mon,

you never use divide and conquer? It’s a divorce-kid classic.”

Digby looked at me hard. “Although . . . no makeup, no pierc-

ings, loose jeans.” He looked at my butt a little too hard for my

taste. “I don’t see a whale tail . . . good girl who doesn’t play that

game? Yeah . . . that’s you. The girl in the music video before the

makeover.”

“Half the school’s got divorced parents. You had a fifty-fifty

chance,” I said. “What was with the cookies?”

“When Mommy, or Steve in this case, lies about store-

bought cookies being homemade, it means the battle for the

kids’ affection is not going well for her. I gave Steve a way to

win the battle,” he said.

“How’d you know these weren’t homemade?”

“Unless they’re OCD, people don’t use cookie cutters on


16

chocolate chip cookies. Perfect circles.” He held up cookies he’d

swiped. All unnaturally round. “Plus, they’re warm, so the guy

microwaved them, meaning he really cares.”

“Great, Professor Pillsbury. But now we have to actually

write this.”

“Read the room. Steve will give us a good grade no matter

what we turn in just to freak out Musgrave,” he said. “What’s

with you, anyway?”

“What’s with me?”

“The psychiatrist. Bipolar? Plain vanilla depression? Rain-

bow sprinkles of phobias and anxieties? What’s your deal?”

“That’s personal.”

“Is it like you can’t get out of bed because you feel like some-

one’s sitting on your chest, but who cares anyway because

what’s the point?” he said. “Or like you can’t be around people

because you feel like everyone knows?”

“Fine. I skipped class a bunch when my parents were divorc-

ing, but Dad said it’d look bad on my transcript, so he called

his psychiatrist friend and . . . I’m a fake, okay?”

“Just because your psychiatrist’s note’s fake, it doesn’t mean

you’re not really depressed.”

I hadn’t considered that.

“But hey,” Digby continued, “your dad’s got a medical

professional who’s willing to falsify medical records for you,

huh? That’s pretty handy.” He pointed at my earrings, a pair

of big diamond studs. I’d wondered if I shouldn’t wear them

to school, but when he gave them to me, Dad had insisted that

I never take them off. “Is that part of the official uniform of


17

Team Dad?” When I winced, he said, “Just kidding. They’re

beautiful, Princeton.” Digby turned and walked away.

“Hey, wait! Now what?” I said.

“I’m gonna check out the cafeteria,” he said. “Zoe Webster,

right? You have a school e-mail? I’ll e-mail you.”

Then I didn’t see or hear from him for weeks.


18

THREE

When we first moved to River Heights, everyone was visibly

freaked about Marina Jane Miller’s abduction. People didn’t

go out after dark. They walked dogs in groups. By mid-

September, though, the local news stopped talking about her,

and the “Where’s Marina?” posters curled up and fell off the

trees after it rained. Soon it sounded more like an urban legend

and less like something that could happen to me. Before long,

River Heights went back to normal—with normal meaning

boring and lonely.

After starting some awkward conversations that went

nowhere, I realized Digby was right about it being hard to

make friends here. Most people gave me attitude because

they expected me to have an attitude about moving to River

Heights . . . which I sort of did, but it had nothing to do with

them.

When I asked my lab partner how to turn on the Bunsen

burners, she said, “Bet your old school had automatic ones,


19

huh?” I said yes and tried to say something quippy about

almost burning off my eyebrows once, but it came off as a

lame humble-brag. Even I heard it. We spent the rest of the

experiment in painful silence.

I told myself that since I was transferring, I didn’t have to

sweat the no-friends situation. Prentiss would be my salvation.

Of course Mom wasn’t happy about Prentiss. How could she

be? She’d fought hard for my custody, and transferring to Pren-

tiss meant I’d move right back to the city and live with Dad

and his new wife. Mom accused my dad of doing an end run

around the custody judge, but almost as soon as she’d said it,

her therapy kicked in. She’d shut herself down, saying over and

over, “It’s not about me.” Later, while looking for Band-Aids,

I’d found a pile of Post-its in her drawer with mantras like “It’s

not about you” and “Transcend to transform.”

I had to admit, my class schedule was sweet. Digby and I

were supposedly working on our project for the first two

periods, so I slept in every day. Sure, I worried about actually

doing the assignment, but from September, December looked

far away.

I never saw Digby at school, but with the stress of figuring

out where my classes were and how to make friends, I wasn’t

looking for him that hard.

÷÷÷÷

One day, I got home to find that Dad had forwarded the

application package from Prentiss. Mom hovered by the sink,

looking extremely casual while she made dinner. “Baked spa-

ghetti, okay?” She used her best transcending-to-transform


20

voice, as if she hadn’t even noticed the Prentiss envelope sitting

on the kitchen table.

Okay. So it was going to be a game of chicken. I slid the

Prentiss application to one side and unzipped my backpack.

“Ever feel like we should eat more vegetables?”

“I could sprinkle parsley on it . . .” Her eyes were now locked

on the thick envelope. “So.”

“So?” I was winning. But I got cocky. I started highlighting

the novel I had to read for homework. Big mistake. Never wave

a lowbrow book in front of an English professor. It will enrage

them, distracting them from everything else.

“O. Henry? That’s not what you’re reading in school, is it?”

She grabbed my book and flicked through it. “This is a night-

mare. Why don’t they just assign you Reader’s Digest?” When

she realized I didn’t know what she was talking about, she said,

“You don’t know what Reader’s Digest is? The nightmare deep-

ens.” The game of chicken was ruined. “For decades, it was the

only contact some people had with any kind of literature—”

I ripped into the envelope my father sent me. Mom stopped

talking and dumped the pasta in an oven dish, pretending to

suddenly be totally into her cooking.

Looking through the forms, I realized that he’d already filled

out most of them for me, even the parts about my favorite sub-

jects and potential college majors. Economics or pre-law, he’d

said.

In a separate pink pamphlet was the essay question: “Virginia

Woolf said, ‘Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can

give us much more than another fact to add to our collection.


21

He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that

suggests and engenders.’ Be your own biographer, go beyond

fact, and tell us about yourself.”

He’d answered it. In fact, he’d answered it well. I even kind

of recognized myself in his answers. But reading about this

go-getter fantasy daughter who volunteered and read The

Economist was . . . confusing. Even I liked that Zoe better

than me.

Maybe he’d anticipated the queasy feeling I’d get when I

saw that he’d written it for me, because Dad had included a

note on a Post-it. “Time to leave the sheeple behind, Zoe. Get

ready to run with the wolves,” it said. In the world according

to my father, there were only two kinds of people: wolves and

the sheeple (people so meek, they were practically sheep) who

deserved every bad thing the wolves did to them.

“Are those samples of someone else’s application?” I hadn’t

noticed Mom sidle up behind me. I ripped off the note and

crumpled it up before she could see it. Mom read aloud from

the essay section. “ ‘I take my citizenship in the classroom

seriously’? I smell your father’s aggressive Wall Street bull crap.

Are you kidding, Zoe? It’s come to this?”

“He just rewrote a few things, Mom. It’s not a big deal.”

“You want to go to that school so badly, you’d cheat to get

in?” Mom said.

“Oh, and you don’t think the other kids get help? Tutors?

Interview prep? I’m applying out of public school!” What I

didn’t say but she probably heard anyway was the reminder

that she was the reason I was in public school in the first


22

place. We were in Nowhere, New York, chasing her dream

of being an English professor. “Getting help from a supportive

parent is probably just the minimum they expect!”

I shouted the words supportive parent and took advantage of

the emotional chaos they created to make my exit.

“Where are you going?” Mom said.

“Walk.”

“When will you be back?”

“Why? Are you worried? Safe town, right? It’s what you told

the judge.”

And with that, I left.

÷÷÷÷

Olympio’s was a vinyl booth diner with a long counter and

a weirdly huge assortment of pies arranged in an old-timey pie

display. I heard a tap-tap-tap as I walked past. Digby was in a

booth, knocking on the glass and waving. I went inside.

“Hey, Princeton, I was just gonna text you,” he said. “We

need to talk.”

“Yeah, we should start our project,” I said.

“Project?” he said.

“ ‘Convicted in Absence,’ you called it. Remember?”

“Oh, that. Later. There’s something else I wanna talk to you

about.”

His took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. A stack of

files lay in front of him.

“Those look like police reports,” I said.

“They are police reports,” he said.

“Why do you have police reports?”


23

“Four weeks ago, Marina Miller disappeared from a slum-

ber party at her house.”

“These files are from the Marina Miller case?”

“No, these are from when another girl disappeared from

River Heights eight years ago.”

“They’re related?”

“Yup. Maybe. Definitely maybe,” Digby said. “Hey, are you

hungry? I gotta eat.”

“Not really.” I looked at a menu. “Maybe something small.”

Digby held up two fingers at the waitress, who walked into

the kitchen, writing on her pad.

“Uh . . . did you just order for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Rude much? How do you know what I want?”

“I’ve had everything here. Trust me, you want the cheese-

burger.”

“How d’you know I’m not vegetarian?”

“Leather boots, leather bag, leather belt—if you’re a veg-

etarian, you’re the kind who doesn’t mind being a hypocrite

sometimes, in which case, trust me, their cheeseburger’s worth

being a hypocrite for,” Digby said.

I looked at the table next to us. The guy’s cheeseburger did

look juicy.

“Anyway, the cops arrested a suspect, but they couldn’t

make it stick.”

“Wait, the girl who disappeared eight years ago, or Marina

Jane Miller?”

“Marina. It doesn’t matter, though, because he’s a dud—


24

no way he did it,” he said. “David Siddle.”

“Oh, you think he’s a dud? Are the police aware of your

conclusions?”

“Not yet. I’ll call them when I know a little more.”

“I thought it’d be clear I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh, no, I got that.”

“I seriously doubt they care what you think.”

“We’ll worry about that later.”

“ ‘We’? I don’t know about ‘we.’ ”

Digby passed me two photos of middle-aged men. They

were probably just normal guys, but who doesn’t look like a

murderer when they’re secretly photographed through a tele-

photo lens?

“I don’t know who these guys are. Is that all you wanted to

ask me?”

“I know who they are. This one’s Dr. Leo Schell. He’s a

gynecologist,” Digby said. “Specifically, your mother’s gyne-

cologist.”

“How do you know that?”

“I watched her go in his office.”

“You’re kind of a shady guy, you know that?”

“Schell is one of my two favorites for who took Marina.”

The cheeseburgers came and Digby poured ketchup all over

the bun, the fries, the coleslaw. All over.

“Can you even taste the cheeseburger under all that?”

“I can’t taste. Not much, anyway.”

“You can’t taste? Is that, like, a genetic thing?”

“Doctors say it’s the Celexa, but I think it’s the Paxil. It started


25

with the Prozac I used to be on,” he said. “I usually take Ad-

derall to get decent, but I don’t use it too much because it’s, you

know . . .”

“Addictive?”

“Expensive,” he said. “I need my stash to last.”

“Ah.” It’s not like the kids back home didn’t take meds, but

Digby seemed to be on all the meds I’d ever heard of.

He bit into his burger. “My other favorite suspect is a retired

principal named Kenneth Dale. But this guy, Dr. Schell, he’s a

better bet.”

Digby pulled out a marked-up map of River Heights. “This

red cross is Marina’s house, the green ones are Schell’s and

Dale’s houses, and the red lines are possible ways they might’ve

driven away. Now, we could ask people who live in the area if

they saw anything that night . . .”

“Please stop saying ‘we.’ I’m not knocking on random peo-

ple’s doors. I’m already tired just thinking about it,” I said.

“Besides, haven’t the police already checked?”

“Yup. The police canvassed the neighborhood. Plus Marina’s

street is crescent-shaped, with a bank, convenience store, gas

station, and library at the top of the crescent. They all have

cameras. But since no photos or sketches were released, we

can assume the cameras and the people didn’t see anything . . .

which works in our favor.”

“How d’you figure?”

“Because now the cops need to get creative. And most

cops are miserable paperwork drones who suck at being cre-

ative,” Digby said. “They’re probably just treading water,


26

hoping Marina’s parents’ investigators find something.”

“Let me guess—you think you’re gonna swoop in and solve

the case for them,” I said. “Superman complex?”

“Wouldn’t this be a more interesting topic for our proj-

ect?”

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna give us any grade for a detailed

record of how we stalked and harassed random people . . . much

less a good one.”

“It doesn’t have to be about the abduction itself. It could be

a report on police procedure, say.”

“That sounds even harder than the other fake project you

made up.”

“I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to be as good as you’re

imagining. Steve will barely read it. Seriously.”

I wiped off the ketchup blobs and looked at the map.

“What makes you think one of these guys kidnapped

Marina?” I said.

“Kenneth Dale’s a possibility because his house backs onto

Marina Miller’s. He’d fought with her dad about cutting down

some trees and didn’t have a confirmable alibi for that night,”

Digby said. “He was also forced into early retirement for sexu-

ally harassing a student.”

“And Schell’s a better bet than that? This Dale guy sounds

like a total creep.”

“Schell lives three blocks away, but neighbors said his car

was parked outside the Millers’ that night and was gone by

morning. He claimed his car was leaking oil, he didn’t want

it staining his driveway, and that the space in front of the


27

Miller house was the only one for blocks,” Digby said. “He

also doesn’t have a confirmable alibi for that night.”

“Sounds like a coincidence . . .”

“Another coincidence is that Marina’s parents didn’t know

she was Schell’s patient.”

“How do you know?”

“Let’s just say that the way I found out was less wrong than

his not telling the police she was his patient,” he said. “But

what interests me is that no alien fingerprints were found in the

bedroom except for a whole lot of blurred ones.”

“How’s that a clue?”

“Eight years ago, just like Marina, a little girl was taken from

her bedroom in the middle of the night while the rest of the

house slept. No one heard or saw anything. No one knew she

was gone until morning.” He passed me a fingerprint analysis re-

port and pointed at the notes. “All they found were the family’s

prints and the blurred prints on the windowsill.”

“Blurred prints aren’t clues . . . they’re the absence of clues.”

“But these aren’t prints that got smudged. Look, they’re

perfectly finger-shaped. The prints are blurred on the fingers

themselves.”

“Like that one serial killer who burned off his fingerprints

with acid.” He had me going now—I couldn’t believe I was

getting sucked in. “Okay . . . so this is all interesting and Nancy

Drew–ish, but I still don’t see—”

“Some medical conditions cause blurry fingerprints, but

those conditions rarely affect all the fingers,” he said. “Some

people get it from their jobs. Guitarists who don’t use picks,


28

people working in laundries that use phosphates, housepainters

who don’t wear gloves, or . . . medical professionals who

wash their hands so much, they smooth out the ridges of their

fingerprints.”

“Schell . . .” I said. “Mom’s gynecologist might be a mur-

derer?”

“Well, technically, we don’t know for sure that Marina’s

dead. Not yet, anyway.”

It sounded big-league. “I don’t think we should . . .”

But Digby wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. He was

looking at a table of five boys. They were a weird-looking

bunch. The youngest kid’s feet didn’t touch the floor, and the

eldest had stubble. None of them looked alike enough to be

related. It didn’t make sense that they were together. In their

prairie folk plaid shirts and high-waisted flannel pants, they

looked like an agricultural glee club.

Digby cocked his chin at them. “They live in the mansion

across from you.”

“They do?”

The eldest wore red plaid and the others were in blue plaid.

Red Plaid looked about twenty years old and was actually

kind of a tall, dark, and handsome dude if you overlooked

the creepy high and tight haircut he and the other kids all

had. His shirt was a size too small and his sleeves looked like

a bubbling bratwurst on the grill.

At that moment, the older boys were bullying the youngest

to eat his pancakes faster. The little guy’s face was covered in

syrup.


29

“You’re telling me you’ve never noticed them walking

around in their little outfits?” he said. “Supposedly, they’re a

rapture cult, but they don’t recruit in town or even online . . .

which is weird. You really never noticed them before?”

“We just moved here.”

“When there’s an end-of-the-world cult living next door to

you, make it your business to find out what they’re up to,” he

said. “That’s, like, a basic life rule.”

“Well, I do see girls in prairie dresses constantly cleaning

and scrubbing. And the place reeks of chemicals.”

“Okay, so you did notice. Ever notice that the girls cleaning

aren’t always the same ones? They go, they come back . . . the

boys do too. The kids are cycling through that house.”

“Are they prisoners or something?”

“Who don’t run away when they’re unsupervised? Nah, it’s

something else.”

The older boys ate the little guy’s pancakes to clear his plate

faster, but all that did was make him cry. The eldest in red

plaid, clearly their leader, slid out of the booth and dragged the

little guy out behind him.

“Oh . . . I get it,” Digby said.

Digby took my soda and grabbed a mop from a bucket by a

wait station, leaving a sudsy streak behind him as he dragged

it outside the diner.

On the other side of the door, Digby slid the mop across

the handles so when the boys in plaid tried to leave, the door

wouldn’t open. They piled up against the glass and pushed

and pulled to rock the mop loose. No joy. It was stuck and


30

so were they. Digby sipped my soda and watched the trapped

boys get more and more frustrated. He had that bored expres-

sion again and it drove those boys crazy.

The diner’s manager came out to see what the racket was

all about. He grabbed two boys by the collar and steered them

back to their table. Red Plaid pointed at Digby, mouthed

the word you, and punched the glass door before following the

manager.

Digby slid out the mop and walked back in behind them.

“That was nice,” I said. “That poor waitress would’ve had to

pay if they’d skipped out on their bill.”

But Digby wasn’t even looking at the angry waitress

hawk-eyeing the boys.

“But I get the feeling you don’t really care about her,” I said.

“So why did you do that?”

“Who knows? Fun?” Digby saluted Red Plaid.

The manager said something about calling the police and

went into the back.

Red Plaid walked to our table. I slipped my butter knife onto

my lap.

“Think you’re smart, huh?” Red Plaid said.

“Smarter than you, at least,” Digby said.

Red Plaid kicked over a chair behind him. “Someone oughta

teach you to mind your own business.”

He lifted Digby by the shirtfront and would’ve smashed

Digby in the mouth, but another, even bigger hand clapped

itself around Red Plaid’s fist.

Digby’s savior was a tall, muscle-bound, Disney Prince Eric


31

type I’d usually consider lame, but this guy had it working. He

was hero handsome.

“Hey, Henry. Great timing as usual,” Digby said.

“Digby. I heard you were back from Texas.” Henry pushed

Red Plaid away. “Pay your bill, never come back. Got me, dude?”

“Next time . . . it’ll just be you and me,” Red Plaid said to

Digby. As he left, he slapped a glass of water off our table. It

smashed into smithereens.

“He has a point. Aren’t you worried he’ll jump you on your

way home?” I said.

“Not today—I’ll wait until the cops come before I take off,”

Digby said.

“And after today?” Henry said.

“I’ll worry about it after today,” Digby said.

Clearly, Digby wasn’t going to introduce us.

“I’m Henry Petropoulos.” Petropoulos. Like an actual

Greek god. “My parents own this diner.” This explained his

apron and soapy elbows.

“I’m Zoe Webster. Digby and I are partners on a school

project.”

“She wouldn’t want you to think we were on a date or any-

thing,” Digby said.

“I wouldn’t want anybody to think we were on a date.” I was

surprised I had that answer lined up. Bonus: Henry laughed.

Henry saw the file folders on the table. “Damn. You’re do-

ing this again, Digby?”

“It’s not ‘again’ if I never stopped,” Digby said.

“And now you’re dragging her into it?” Henry said.


32

“No one’s dragging me into anything—”But I might as

well have been a piece of furniture.

“I never dragged you into anything, Henry,” Digby said.

“No, you just made it impossible to be around you if I didn’t

do what you wanted me to,” Henry said.

“Tell your mom the cheeseburgers are even better than be-

fore. I don’t know about shoestring fries, though, I liked the

crinkle cuts,” Digby said. “But then, I’m a classic kind of guy.”

Henry knew he was being dismissed. “Whatever, dude.” To

me, he said, “Digby’s a good guy and he doesn’t mean to do it.

He never means to do it. But if you’re gonna hang with him,

look out for yourself, because he won’t remember to look out

for you. Nice meeting you, Zoe.”

Digby didn’t look up at Henry waving and walking away.

“So—medical professional, parked outside her house on the

night she disappeared . . . my money’s on Schell,” Digby said.

“Speaking of money . . . you got any?”

“Not enough to cover both of us.”

“Know what? That’s okay—in fact, keep it. Catching a dine-

and-ditch has gotta be good for a free meal.”

“Wait. You sat down to eat knowing you couldn’t pay?

That’s crazy.”

“I knew something would turn up. Lookit, you came along.”

“But I can’t pay for both of us.”

“And you don’t have to because this came along.”

Later, when I knew him better, I realized there was no point

having this kind of conversation with Digby. We lived in differ-

ent universes. What-if scenarios that bothered normal people


33

never rattled him because for Digby, there were too many close

calls to worry about.

“What’s the deal with Henry?” I said.

“You’re not his type. He’s a typical varsity QB . . . he likes

them blond and top-shelf generic,” Digby said. “And he prob-

ably has a girlfriend—he always does. Even in kindergarten

he had one. Henry brings the girls to the yard. Know what I

mean?”

“What? I didn’t mean that. I meant, what’s the deal with you

and Henry.”

“Oh, that.” Digby looked sad. “We used to be friends. A

long time ago.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t bother with friends. Better to travel light.”

I wasn’t sure if I minded that he didn’t think I was friend

enough to be considered baggage.


GHFor all the invisible girls

and for my readers, for seeing me

GHGH

9780451474704_St.Anything_INT_REV.indd 5 2/12/15 3:08 PM

CHAPTER

1“WOULD THE defendant please rise.”

This wasn’t an actual question, even though it sounded

like one. I’d noticed that the first time we’d all been as-

sembled here, in this way. Instead, it was a command, an

order. The “please” was just for show.

My brother stood up. Beside me, my mom tensed, suck-

ing in a breath. Like the way they tell you to inhale before

an X-ray so they can see more, get it all. My father stared

straight forward, as always, his face impossible to read.

The judge was talking again, but I couldn’t seem to listen.

Instead, I looked over to the tall windows, the trees blowing

back and forth outside. It was early August; school started

in three weeks. It felt like I had spent the entire summer

in this very room, maybe in this same seat, but I knew that

wasn’t the case. Time just seemed to stop here. But maybe,

for people like Peyton, that was exactly the point.

It was only when my mother gasped, bending forward

to grab the bench in front of us, that I realized the sentence

had been announced. I looked up at my brother. He’d been


2 H SARAH DESSEN Gknown for his fearlessness all the way back to when we were

kids playing in the woods behind our house. But the day

those older boys had challenged him to walk across that

wide, gaping sinkhole on a skinny branch and he did it, his

ears had been bright red. He was scared. Then and now.

There was a bang of the gavel, and we were dismissed.

The attorneys turned to my brother, one leaning in close to

speak while the other put a hand on his back. People were

getting up, filing out, and I could feel their eyes on us as I

swallowed hard and focused on my hands in my lap. Beside

me, my mother was sobbing.

“Sydney?” Ames said. “You okay?”

I couldn’t answer, so I just nodded.

“Let’s go,” my father said, getting to his feet. He took my

mom’s arm, then gestured for me to walk ahead of them, up

to where the lawyers and Peyton were.

“I have to go to the ladies’ room,” I said.

My mom, her eyes red, just looked at me. As if this, after

all that had happened, was the thing that she simply could

not bear.

“It’s okay,” Ames said. “I’ll take her.”

My father nodded, clapping him on the shoulder as we

passed. Out in the courthouse lobby, I could see people push-

ing the doors open, out into the light outside, and I wished

more than anything that I was among them.

Ames put his arm around me as we walked. “I’ll wait

for you here,” he said when we reached the ladies’ room.

“Okay?”


H Saint Anything G 3

Inside, the light was bright, unforgiving, as I walked to

the sinks and looked at myself in the mirror there. My face

was pale, my eyes dark, flat, and empty.

A stall door behind me opened and a girl came out. She

was about my height, but smaller, slighter. As she stepped up

beside me, I saw she had blonde hair, plaited in a messy braid

that hung over one shoulder, a few wisps framing her face,

and she wore a summer dress, cowboy boots, and a denim

jacket. I felt her look at me as I washed my hands once, then

twice, before grabbing a towel and turning to the door.

I pushed it open, and there was Ames, directly across

the hallway, leaning against the wall with his arms folded

over his chest. When he saw me, he stood up taller, taking a

step forward. I hesitated, stopping, and the girl, also leaving,

bumped into my back.

“Oh! Sorry!” she said.

“No,” I told her, turning around. “It was . . . my fault.”

She looked at me for a second, then past my shoulder, at

Ames. I watched her green eyes take him in, this stranger,

for a long moment before turning her attention back to me. I

had never seen her before. But with a single look at her face,

I knew exactly what she was thinking.

You okay?

I was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if

they did, they never looked close. I wasn’t shiny and charm-

ing like my brother, stunning and graceful like my mother, or

smart and dynamic like my friends. That’s the thing, though.

You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.


4 H SARAH DESSEN GThe girl was still watching me, waiting for an answer to

the question she hadn’t even said aloud. And maybe I would

have answered it. But then I felt a hand on my elbow. Ames.

“Sydney? You ready?”

I didn’t reply to this, either. Somehow we were heading

toward the lobby, where my parents were now standing with

the lawyers. As we walked, I kept glancing behind me, trying

to see that girl, but could not in the shifting crowd of people

pressing into the courtroom. Once we were clear of them,

though, I looked back one last time and was surprised to find

her right where I’d left her. Her eyes were still on me, like

she’d never lost sight of me at all.


CHAPTER

2THE FIRST thing you saw when you walked into our house

was a portrait of my brother. It hung directly across from

the huge glass door, right above a wood credenza and the

Chinese vase where my father stored his umbrellas. You’d be

forgiven if you never noticed either of these things, though.

Once you saw Peyton, you couldn’t take your eyes off him.

Though we shared the same looks (dark hair, olive skin,

brown, almost black, eyes) he somehow carried them totally

differently. I was average, kind of cute. But Peyton—the sec-

ond in our house, with my father Peyton the first—was gor-

geous. I’d heard him compared to everything from movie

idols of long before my time to fictional characters tromping

across Scottish moors. I was pretty sure my brother was un-

aware as a child of the attention he received in supermarkets

or post office lines. I wondered how it had felt when he’d sud-

denly understood the effect his looks had on people, women

especially. Like discovering a superpower, both thrilling and

daunting, all at once.

Before all that, though, he was just my brother. Three

years older, blue King Combat sheets on his bed in contrast


6 H SARAH DESSEN Gto my pink Fairy Foo ones. I basically worshipped him. How

could I not? He was the king of Truth or Dare (he always

went with the latter, naturally), the fastest runner in the

neighborhood, and the only person I’d ever seen who could

stand, balanced, on the handlebars of a rolling bicycle.

But his greatest talent, to me, was disappearing.

We played a lot of hide-and-seek as kids, and Peyton

took it seriously. Ducking behind the first chair spotted in

a room, or choosing the obvious broom closet? Those were

for amateurs. My brother would fold himself beneath the

cabinet under the bathroom sink, flatten completely under

a bedspread, climb up the shower stall to spread across the

ceiling, somehow holding himself there. Whenever I asked

him for his secrets, he’d just smile. “You just have to find

the invisible place,” he told me. Only he could see it, though.

We practiced wrestling moves in front of cartoons on

weekend mornings, fought over whom the dog loved more

(just guess), and spent the hours after school we weren’t in

activities (soccer for him, gymnastics for me) exploring the

undeveloped green space behind our neighborhood. This

is how my brother still appears to me whenever I think of

him: walking ahead of me on a crisp day, a stick in his hand,

through the dappled fall colors of the woods. Even when I

was nervous we’d get lost, Peyton never was. That fearless-

ness again. A flat landscape never appealed to him. He al-

ways needed something to push up against. When things got

bad with Peyton, I always wished we were back there, still

walking. Like we hadn’t reached where we were going yet,



and there was still a chance it might be somewhere else.

I was in sixth grade when things began to change. Until

then, we had both been on the lower campus of Perkins Day,

the private school we’d attended since kindergarten. That

year, though, he moved to Upper School. Within a couple

of weeks, he’d started hanging out with a bunch of juniors

and seniors. They treated him like a mascot, daring him to

do stupid stuff like lifting Popsicles from the cafeteria line or

climbing into a car trunk to sneak off campus for lunch. This

was when Peyton’s legend began in earnest. He was bigger

than life, bigger than our lives.

Meanwhile, when I didn’t have gymnastics, I was now

riding the bus home solo, then eating my snack alone at

the kitchen island. I had my own friends, of course, but

most of them were highly scheduled, never around on

weekday afternoons due to various activities. This was typical

of our neighborhood, the Arbors, where the average house-

hold could support any extracurricular activity from Man-

darin lessons to Irish dancing and everything in between.

Financially, my family was about average for the area. My

father, who started his career in the military before going

to law school, had made his money in corporate conflict

resolution. He was the guy called when a company had a

problem—threat of a lawsuit, serious issues between em-

ployees, questionable practices about to be brought to

light—and needed it worked out. It was no wonder I grew

up believing there was no problem my father couldn’t solve.

For much of my life, I’d never seen any proof otherwise.


8 H SARAH DESSEN GIf Dad was the general, my mom was the chief operat-

ing officer. Unlike some parents, who approached parent-

ing as a tag-team sport, in our family the duties were very

clearly divided. My father handled the bills, house, and

yard upkeep, and my mom dealt with everything else. Julie

Stanford was That Mother, the one who read every parent-

ing book and stocked her minivan with enough snacks and

sports equipment for every kid in the neighborhood. Like

my dad, if my mom did something, she did it right. Which

was why it was all the more surprising when, eventually,

things went wrong anyway.

The trouble with Peyton started in the winter of his

tenth grade year. One afternoon I was watching TV in the

living room with a bowl of popcorn when the doorbell rang.

When I looked outside, I saw a police car in the driveway.

“Mom?” I called upstairs. She was in her office, which

was basically command central for our entire house. My dad

called it the War Room. “Someone’s here.”

I don’t know why I didn’t tell her it was the police. It just

seemed saying it might make it real, and I wasn’t sure what

was out there yet.

“Sydney, you are perfectly capable of answering the

door,” she replied, but sure enough, a beat later I heard her

coming down the stairs.

I kept my eyes on the TV, where the characters from my

favorite reality show, Big New York, were in the midst of yet

another dinner party catfight. The Big franchise had been

part of my afternoon ritual since Peyton had started high



school, the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Rich women being

petty and pretty, I’d heard it described, and that summed

it up. There were about six different shows—Dallas, Los

Angeles, and Chicago among them—enough so that I could

easily watch two every day to fill the time between when I

got home and dinner. I was so involved in the show, it was

like they were my friends, and I often found myself talking

back to the TV as if they could hear me, or thinking about

their issues and problems even when I wasn’t watching. It

was a weird kind of loneliness, feeling that some of my clos-

est friends didn’t actually know I existed. But without them,

the house felt so empty, even with my mom there, which

made me feel empty in a way I’d grown to dread the moment

I stepped off the bus after school. My own life felt flat and

sad too much of the time; it was reassuring, somehow, to lose

myself in someone else’s.

So I was watching Rosalie, the former actress, accuse

Ayre, the model, of being a bully, when everything in our

family’s life shifted. One minute the door was shut and

things were fine. The next, it was open and there was Pey-

ton, a police officer beside him.

“Ma’am,” the cop said as my mother stepped back, put-

ting a hand to her chest. “Is this your son?”

This was what I would remember later. This one ques-

tion, the answer a no-brainer, and yet still one my parents,

and Mom especially, would grapple with from that point on.

Starting that day, when Peyton got caught smoking pot in

the Perkins Day parking lot with his friends, my brother


10 H SARAH DESSEN Gbegan a transformation into someone we didn’t always recog-

nize. There would be other visits from the authorities, trips

to the police station, and, eventually, court dates and rehab

stays. But it was this first one that stayed in my mind, crisp

in detail. The bowl of popcorn, warm in my lap. Rosalie’s

sharp voice. And my mom, stepping back to let my brother

inside. As the cop led him down the hallway to the kitchen,

my brother looked at me. His ears were bright red.

Because he hadn’t had any pot on his person, Perkins Day

decided to handle the infraction itself, with a suspension and

volunteer hours doing tutoring at the Lower School. The

story—especially the part about how Peyton was the only

one who ran, forcing the cops to chase him down—made

the rounds, with how far he’d gotten (a block, five, a mile)

growing with each telling. My mom cried. My dad, furious,

grounded him for a full month. Things didn’t go back to the

way they had been, though. Peyton came home and went

to his room, staying there until dinner. He served his time,

swore he’d learned his lesson. Three months later, he got

busted for breaking and entering.

There’s a weird thing that happens when something goes

from a one-time thing to a habit. Like the problem is no lon-

ger just a temporary houseguest but has actually moved in.

After that, we fell into a routine. My brother accepted

his punishment and my parents slowly relaxed, accepting

as fact their various theories about why this would never

happen again. Then Peyton would get busted—for drugs,

shoplifting, reckless driving—and we’d all go back down



the rabbit hole of charges, lawyers, court, and sentences.

After his first shoplifting arrest, when the cops found

pot during his pat-down, Peyton went to rehab. He returned

with a thirty-day chip on his key chain and interest in play-

ing guitar thanks to his roommate at Evergreen Care Center.

My parents paid for lessons and made plans to outfit part of

the basement as a small studio so he could record his original

compositions. The work was halfway done when the school

found a small amount of pills in his locker.

He got suspended for three weeks, during which time

he was supposed to be staying home, getting tutored and

preparing for his court date. Two days before he was due to

go back to school, I was awakened out of a deep sleep by the

rumbling of the garage door opening. I looked out the win-

dow to see my dad’s car backing onto our street. My clock

said three fifteen a.m.

I got up and went out into the hallway, which was dark

and quiet, then padded down the stairs. A light was on in

the kitchen. There I found my mother, in her pajamas and a

U sweatshirt, making a pot of coffee. When she saw me, she

just shook her head.

“Go back to sleep,” she told me. “I’ll fill you in tomorrow.”

By the next morning, my brother had been bailed out,

charged yet again with breaking and entering, this time with

added counts of trespassing and resisting arrest. The previ-

ous evening, after my parents had gone to bed, he’d snuck

out of his room, walked up our road, then climbed the fence

around the Villa, the biggest house in the Arbors. He found


12 H SARAH DESSEN Gan unlocked window and wriggled through, then poked

around for only a few minutes before the cops arrived, alert-

ed by the silent alarm. When they came in, he bolted out

the back door. They tackled him on the pool deck, leaving

huge, bloody scrapes across his face. Amazingly, my mother

seemed more upset about this than anything else.

“It just seems like we might have a case,” she said to my

dad later that morning. She was dressed now, all business:

they had a meeting with Peyton’s lawyer at nine a.m. sharp.

“I mean, did you see those wounds? What about police

brutality?”

“Julie, he was running from them,” my dad replied in a

tired voice.

“Yes, I understand that. But I also understand that he is

still a minor, and force was not necessary. There was a fence.

It’s not like he was going anywhere.”

But he was, I thought, although I knew better than to say

this aloud. The more Peyton got into trouble, the more my

mom seemed desperate to blame anyone and everyone else.

The school was out to get him. The cops were too rough. But

my brother was no innocent: all you had to do was look at

the facts. Although sometimes, I felt like I was the only one

who could see them.

By the next day at school, word had spread, and I was

getting side-eyed all over the hallways. It was decided that

Peyton would withdraw from Perkins Day and finish high

school elsewhere, although opinions differed on whether it

was the school or my parents who made this choice.



I was lucky to have my friends, who rallied around me,

letting people know that I was not my brother, despite our

shared looks and last name. Jenn, whom I’d known since

our days at Trinity Church Preschool, was especially pro-

tective. Her dad had had his own tangles with the law, back

in college.

“He was always honest about it, that it was just experi-

mentation,” she told me as we sat in the cafeteria at lunch.

“He paid his debt to society, and now look, he’s a CEO, to-

tally successful. Peyton will be, too. This, too, shall pass.”

Jenn always sounded like this, older than she was, mostly

because her parents had had her in their forties and treated

her like a little adult. She even looked like a grown-up, with

her sensible haircut, glasses, and comfortable footwear. At

times it was strange, like she’d skipped childhood altogether,

even when she was in it. But now, I was reassured. I wanted

to believe her. To believe anything.

Peyton received three months in jail and a fine. That was

the first time we were all in court together. His lawyer, Saw-

yer Ambrose, whose ads were on bus stops all over town

(NEED A LAWYER? CALL ON SAWYER!), maintained that it was

crucial for the jury to see us sitting behind my brother like

the loyal, tight family we were.

Also present was my brother’s new best friend, a guy

he’d met in the Narcotics Anonymous group he was required

to attend. Ames was a year older than Peyton, tall with shag-

gy hair and a loping walk, and had gotten busted for dealing

pot a year earlier. He’d served six months and stayed out of


14 H SARAH DESSEN Gtrouble ever since, setting the kind of example everyone

agreed my brother needed. They drank a lot of coffee drinks

together, played video games, and studied, Peyton with his

books from the alternative school where he’d landed, Ames

for the classes he was taking in hospitality management at

Lakeview Tech. They planned that Peyton would do the

same once he got his diploma, and together they’d go work at

one resort or another. My mom loved this idea, and already

had all the paperwork necessary to make it happen: it sat

in its own labeled envelope on her desk. There was just the

little matter of the jail thing to get out of the way first.

My brother ended up serving seven weeks at the county

lockup. I was not permitted to see him, but my mother

visited every time it was allowed. Meanwhile, Ames re-

mained; it seemed like he was always parked at our kitchen

table with a coffee drink, ducking out occasionally to the

garage to smoke cigarettes, using a sand-bucket ashtray my

mom (who abhorred the habit) put out there just for him.

Sometimes he showed up with his girlfriend, Marla, a man-

icurist with blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a shyness so

prevalent she rarely spoke. If you addressed her, she got su-

per nervous, like a small dog too tightly wound and always

shaking.

I knew Ames was a comfort to my mom. But something

about him made me uneasy. Like how I’d catch him watch-

ing me over the rim of his coffee cup, following my move-

ments with his dark eyes. Or how he always found a way

to touch me—squeezing my shoulder, brushing against my

arm—when he said hello. It wasn’t like he’d ever done any-



thing to me, so I felt like it had to be my problem. Plus, he

had a girlfriend. All he wanted, he told me again and again,

was to take care of me the way Peyton would.

“It was the one thing he asked me the day he went in,”

he told me soon after my brother was gone. We were in the

kitchen, and my mom had stepped out to take a phone call,

leaving us alone. “He said, ‘Look out for Sydney, man. I’m

counting on you.’”

I wasn’t sure what to say to this. First of all, it didn’t

sound like Peyton, who’d barely given me the time of day

in the months before he’d gone away. Plus, even before that,

he’d never been the protective type. But Ames knew my

brother well, and the truth was that I no longer did. So I had

to take his word for it.

“Well,” I said, feeling like I should offer something, “um,

thanks.”

“No problem.” He gave me another one of those long

looks. “It’s the least I can do.”

When Peyton was released, he was still quiet, but more

engaged, helping out more around the house and being pres-

ent in a way he hadn’t been in the previous months. Some-

times, after he got home from school, he’d even watch TV

with me. He could only stand Big New York or Miami for

short periods, though, before getting disgusted with every

single character.

“That’s Ayre,” I’d try to explain as the gaunt, heavily

nipped-and-tucked one-time Playmate had yet another melt-

down. “She and Rosalie, the actress? They’re, like, always at

each other.”


16 H SARAH DESSEN GPeyton said nothing, only rolling his eyes. He had little

patience for anything, I was noticing.

“You pick something,” I’d say, pushing the remote at

him. “Seriously, I don’t care what we watch.”

But it never worked. It was like he could alight next to me for

just so long before having to move on to checking e-mail,

strumming his guitar, or getting something to eat. His fidg-

eting kept increasing, and it made me nervous. I saw my

mom notice it as well. Like some kind of internal energy had

lost its outlet and was just building up, day after day, until he

found a new one.

He got his diploma in June, in a small ceremony with

only eight classmates, most of whom had also been kicked

out of their previous schools. We all attended, Ames and

Marla included, and went out to dinner afterward at Luna

Blu, one of our favorite restaurants. There, over their famous

fried pickle appetizer, we toasted my brother with our soft

drinks before my parents presented him with his graduation

gift: two round-trip tickets to Jacksonville, Florida, so he

and Ames could check out a well-known hospitality course

there. My mom had even made them an appointment with

the school’s director, as well as set up a private tour. Of

course.

“This is great,” my brother said, looking down at the

tickets. “Seriously. Thanks, Mom and Dad.”

My mother smiled, tears pricking her eyes, as my dad

reached over, clapping Peyton on the shoulder. We were

sitting outside on the patio, tiny fairy lights strung up over-



head, and we’d just had a great meal together. The mo-

ment seemed so far away from the year we’d had, like

everything in the fall and before it was just a bad dream.

The next day, my mom sat down with me to talk about my

hopes for college. Finally, I was the project. It was my turn.

That fall, I started tenth grade at Perkins Day. My own

transition to Upper School the year before had been as unre-

markable as my brother’s had been eventful. Jenn and I made

friends with a new girl, Meredith, who’d moved to Lakeview

to train at the U’s gymnastics facility. She was small and

all muscle, with the best posture I’d ever seen, not to men-

tion the perkiest ponytail. She’d been training for competi-

tion since she was six. I’d never met anyone so driven and

disciplined, and she basically spent every hour she wasn’t at

school in the gym. Together, we three formed an easy friend-

ship, as we all felt a little older than our classmates: Jenn

because of her upbringing, Meredith because of her sport,

and me because of everything that had happened in the last

year. My brother’s legend, for better or worse, still preceded

me. But my choice of friends—and the fact that we avoided

all parties and illegal extracurriculars even as our classmates

experimented—made it clear we were very different.

With Peyton working as a valet at a local hotel and taking

his hospitality classes with Ames at Lakeview Tech, my dad

doing more traveling, and my mom returning to her volun-

teer projects, I often had the house entirely to myself after

school. I started to feel that sadness again, creeping up each

afternoon as the sun went down. I tried to fill it with Big


18 H SARAH DESSEN GNew York or Miami, watching back-to-back-to-back episodes

until my eyes were bleary. Even so, I always felt a rush of

relief when I heard the garage door opening, signaling some-

one’s return and the shift to dinner and nighttime, when I

wouldn’t be by myself anymore.

Then, the day after Valentine’s Day, my brother left his

job at the regular time, a little after ten p.m. Instead of com-

ing home, however, he went to visit an old friend from Per-

kins Day. There, he drank several beers, took a few shots,

and ignored the repeated calls from my mother until his

voice mail was full. At two a.m., he left his friend’s apart-

ment, got into his car, and headed home. At the same time,

a fifteen-year-old boy named David Ibarra got onto his bike

to ride the short distance back to his house from his cousin’s,

where he’d fallen asleep on the couch while playing video

games. He was taking a right from Dombey Street onto Pike

Avenue when my brother hit him head-on.

I was awakened that day by the sound of my mother

screaming. It was a primal, awful sound, one I had never

heard before. For the first time I understood what it really

meant to feel your blood run cold. I ran out of my room and

down the stairs, then stopped just outside the kitchen, sud-

denly realizing I wasn’t sure I was ready for what was hap-

pening in there. But then my mom was wailing, and I made

myself go in.

She was on her knees, her head bowed, my father crouch-

ing in front of her, his hands gripping her shoulders. The

sound she was making was so awful, worse than an animal in

pain. My first thought was that my brother was dead.



“Julie,” my dad was saying. “Breathe, honey. Breathe.”

My mom shook her head. Her face was white. Seeing

my strong, capable mother this way was one of the scariest

things I’d ever endured. I just wanted it to stop. So I made

myself speak.

“Mom?”

My father turned, seeing me. “Sydney, go upstairs. I’ll be

there in a minute.”

I went. I didn’t know what else to do. Then I sat on my

bed and waited. Right then, it felt like time did stop, in that

five minutes or fifteen, or however long it was.

Finally, my father appeared in the doorway. The first

thing I noticed was how wrinkled his shirt was, twisted in

places, like someone had been grabbing at it. Later, I’d re-

member this more than anything else. That plaid print, all

disjointed.

“There’s been an accident,” he said. His voice sounded

raw. “Your brother hurt someone.”

Later, I’d think back to these words and realize how tell-

ing they really were. Your brother hurt someone. It was like a

metaphor, with a literal meaning and so many others. David

Ibarra was the victim here. But he was not the only one hurt.

Peyton was at the police station, where they’d taken him

after a Breathalyzer test had confirmed his blood alcohol

level was twice the legal limit. But the DUI was the least of

his problems. As he was still on probation, there would be

no leniency this time and no bail, at least at first. My father

called Sawyer Ambrose, then changed his shirt and left to

meet him at the station. My mom went to her room and shut


20 H SARAH DESSEN Gthe door. I went to school, because I didn’t know what else

to do.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jenn asked me at my locker

right after homeroom. “You seem weird.”

“I’m fine,” I told her, shoving a book in my bag. “Just tired.”

I didn’t know why I wasn’t telling her. It was like this

was too big; I didn’t want to give it any air to breathe. Plus,

people would know soon enough.

I started getting texts that evening, around dinnertime.

First Jenn, then Meredith, then a few other friends. I turned

my phone off, picturing the word spreading, like drops of

food coloring slowly taking over a glass of water. My mother

was still in her room, my dad gone, so I made myself some

macaroni and cheese, which I ate at the kitchen counter,

standing up. Then I went to my room, where I lay on the

bed, staring at the ceiling, until I heard the familiar sound of

the garage door opening. This time, though, it didn’t make

me feel better.

A few minutes later, I heard a knock on my door, and

then my dad came in. He looked so tired, with bags under

his eyes, like he’d aged ten years since I’d seen him last.

“I’m worried about Mom,” I blurted out before he could

say anything. I hadn’t even been planning to say this; it was

like someone else spoke in my voice.

“I know. She’ll be okay. Did you eat?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at me for a minute, then crossed the room,

sitting down on the edge of my bed. My dad was not the



touchy-feely type, never had been. He was a shoulder-clapper,

a master of the quick, three-back-pat hug. It was my mom

who was always pulling me into her lap, brushing a hand

over my hair, squeezing me tight. But now, on this weirdest

and scariest of days, my father wrapped his arms around me.

I hugged him back, holding on for dear life, and we stayed

like that for what felt like a long time.

There was so much ahead of us, both awfully familiar

and, even worse, brand-new. My brother would never be the

same. I’d never have another day when I didn’t think of David

Ibarra at least once. My mom would fight on, but she had lost

something. I’d never again be able to look at her and not see

it missing. So many nevers. But in that moment, I just held

my dad and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make time stop

again. It didn’t.


Summer 2015 Penguin Teen Sampler

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