Alastair was up early again, sitting in his dorm's first-floor lounge. Having stayed with Rose and Cowdrey until after 10, he had yet to get any homework done. Students at Whitman Academy for the Gifted, or WAG, as they affectionately called it, were expected to complete three to four hours of homework daily. The schedule was such that most students had time to work from four until dinner, which was flexible. Students could eat anytime between five and seven, and student officers and seniors were allowed off campus during that time. Then from dinner until lights out at 11, everyone was expected to complete the rest of their homework. There was little time for recreation during the week, and even less tolerance for missed assignments.

Alastair had cradled Rose on the piano bench until nearly six, when Mrs. Cowdrey placed her palm on Rose's neck, seeming to break the adhesion. When Alastair had looked up, there was a feast of food enough for a dozen people set out on one of the drawing tables. He and Rose moved to the table and ate the deli take-out silently. Rose did not look up from her plate, he noticed. The whole meal. Even while Mrs. Cowdrey talked about living in France, her husband, and their three dachshunds.

Rose had fallen face-first into her cheese sandwich sometime after eight, fatigue winning out over hunger. Cowdrey continued right on talking for awhile, then had Alastair carry Rose down the hall into her apartment's guest bedroom. She had kept him there in the sitting room talking for almost two more hours. He had worried that she would ask about why Rose was crying or why he had held her. Instead, she had simply babbled incessantly in her squirrelly way. Occasionally, she would mention something of interest, like how she and Rose's great-aunt had gone to school together and how the same relative had just died. He wondered idly if her injuries and the great-aunt's passing were related. It had been closing in on 11 when he finally crawled into bed, more emotionally exhausted than physically. Sleep came quickly but not easily, and it left him feeling unrested in the morning.

And now, this morning, Alastair found it difficult to concentrate on his homework. He was haunted by Rose's song. It had obviously come from loss, from agony, from trauma. He understood it because even though he had only witnessed his mother's beatings, he knew the pain, the terror that Rose must have been feeling. From the earliest age he could remember, which he guessed was about three, he had observed his father's drunken tirades turn into physical attacks. His father had never hit him, but he always wondered when he would. Many times he had said to himself, "I'm next."

And thinking about it now was only making it harder for Alastair to focus on his work. He was in trouble. His grades were going to be screwed from day one, hardly a perfect start.

Frustrated with the way his year had begun, Alastair decided to go to the twelfth-floor student lounge. The large space on the top floor of the administration wing was used by many students as a quiet room for meditation and studying. It had a wall of windows that looked out onto mid-town Manhattan. When Alastair walked in, it was deserted, as expected at this hour, and he could see the lights of the city fading into the dawn. Fog encircled the amber-lit top of the Empire State Building so that it looked like the sun was rising right in the middle of 34th street, just a few blocks down from the school.

"Hey, Alastair," Maggie said from behind him.

"Hi, Maggs," he yawned, meeting her eyes, reflected by the window.

She walked over and pressed her forehead against the glass, gazing down at the gray street. They stood in quiet watching the sun burn off the fog and glint off the now-dark Empire State, creating an orange-red gleam. New York at dawn is a sight everyone should see at least once, Alastair thought. Maggie and Alastair had watched scenes like this a hundred times over the years.

"Did you do Bennett's homework?"

"I haven't done any homework at all."

She reached her tiny hand up and placed it on his forehead. "Are you sick?"

"No more than usual," he chuckled. "I got wrapped up helping the new girl from California."

"Oooh, she's cute."

"She's a freshman, cradle robber!"

"I'm just saying," Maggie grinned. "Is it true she doesn't talk?"

"So far."

"I like them quiet. There are more important things for her mouth to do than talk."

"You are truly filthy."

"Aw, come on Al. You can watch."

Alastair shook his head and walked away. "Get help. Seriously."

Maggie laughed, a loud burst like an explosion, as Alastair left the room. Maggie had a way of making him feel better even in the darkest moments. She was always hilarious, and her over-the-top lust for the other girls made it easy for him to talk to her. And of course, she loved to tease him. He was inexperienced, and he blushed whenever she worked blue. Not that her one kiss counted as experience either. He shook his head again as he made his way down to the dining hall. One more than me, anyway, he thought wryly.

««•»»

The plastic package seems so loud in the suffocating silence. My stubby fingers, coated with sticky dirt, tear at the white sleeve of crackers, trying to get to the broken bits at the bottom. My stomach is tight with hunger, days of hunger. As the seam gives way, my hands lose their grip, and the crumbs scatter to the floor. My tiny legs crouch down, like a chubby ballerina, to grab the larger pieces. I suck at the salty taste on my fingertips, then swing my head back to the cupboard. The bottom two shelves, all I can reach with my five years of height, are barren. I want to cry, but my eyes ache from days of sobbing, which no longer have any effect on Mommy, who lays wide-eyed and broken in the bedroom.

It has been weeks since Daddy and RJ died in a car accident, and days since Mommy has been...a mommy. I tried to pull her out of bed the first few days. Crying. But she just slumped like a heavy bag of bones. Her wide-eyes had just stared at the half-open closet door, blinking a minuscule click in the quiet. I sat down and wailed. I cried for hours the first day, wanting Mommy to hold me. Wanting to be fed.

But I wasn't held. And I wasn't fed.

Rose knew she was dreaming. She had the same dream over and over. Except it wasn't so much a dream as a memory. She could feel the weight of her body on the bed. But she couldn't wake up.

The only food left is cans of beets and beans on shelves too high to reach.

I walk to the kitchen table and push a chair toward the cupboard. The chair is heavy under my small hands, but I am determined. When it's in position, I push my fat knee onto the seat and pull on the back of the chair until my body weight is securely centered. Then I stand carefully on the chair. I saw RJ stand on these chairs many times, but he was big.

I grip the edge of the cupboard to steady myself as I remember the voice of some stranger at the funeral.

"What a shame. They said the boy's body was too mangled even for the family to identify."

I don't fully understand, but I know RJ is the boy.

My hands close around a can of alphabet spaghetti, lowering it to the bottom shelf. Then I push the chair, puffing like a cartoon character, across the room to the drawers. After a bit of searching, I find a can opener.

Rose's hand gripped tight shut, her fingernails digging into her palm.

I sit down on the floor, with the can between my chubby legs and the opener poised, when the doorbell rings. I freeze. Mommy and Daddy told me never to open the door.

Perhaps this will get Mommy out of bed. The ringing phone hadn't. I don't even notice it anymore. But maybe Mommy will answer the door. A light knocking, followed by a voice: "Hello? Liz?"

The knocking turns into pounding. And I find those tears that have been hiding. I am scared.

Rose's heart began to pound. She desperately wanted to wake up. She knew what was next.

There is a crash from the hallway, and before I can move, the sheriff stands in front of me, gun out.

"Shit," he says (a bad word) and puts his gun away. "Hey, Rosie, honey. You're okay. It's okay." He takes the can opener from my hand and lifts me into his arms. I wrap my arms around his neck. I know him--Charlie and Sean's dad. Sheriff Hoover.

"Mrs. Regitano needs medical attention, sir. She's--" another voice says from the bedroom. "She seems to have had a break--a breakdown."

The next hour is a blur of ambulance lights and Mommy wheeled away from me. I stretch out my arms after her. I eat hot alphabet spaghetti in a plastic bowl. I point to my favorite stuffed animal, a fluffy dog named Donut, as the sheriff packs clothes into a bag.

And then I am gone, carried away from my home in the sheriff's arms.

The dream changed. Rose recognized Betty and John's house and herself, but bigger.

They are cold and harsh, like the Chicago winters they describe for me when I complain of the weather. Mom had been transported, I know now, to a facility in Pasadena. "A home for the disturbed," Grandma Betty calls it, her voice floating in an empty room.

I ask to see my mom, some of the first words I've said to them, "Grandma Betty, can we go visit her? My mom, I mean."

Betty snaps, "She's dead."

I look at Grandpa John, my eyes filling with tears. He rocks back and forth in a beat up tan recliner, nodding slowly, as a sad expression clouds his face.

Rose awoke with a start, wet eyes flashing open and searching the room through half-awake blurriness. The room was lit by hazy light coming from a window above her head. She was in a large bed covered in a brightly colored quilt with intricate patterns. There was an old-fashioned dresser with a mirror across from where she lay, and she could see a door reflected in it. None of it was familiar.

She closed her eyes and searched her memory, finding no answers with her sight. She remembered that she had come to school, to Whitman, that the cute boy had used magic on her wounds. Oh god, she thought. A flood of humiliation drowned her confusion--crying in Arts class, crying in front of the boy with electric blue eyes. She had no clue how long she had remained glued by her tears to Alastair's shoulder.

Mrs. Cowdrey appeared at the door. "You fell asleep at the table last night. I know the first day can be exhausting." Rose had the feeling that Mrs. Cowdrey understood that there was so much more that had sapped her energy, but as always, she merely nodded in response.

As Rose stood to leave, Mrs. Cowdrey caught her in a hug, which Rose retreated from quickly. She found her bag by the front door and grabbed it as she left, heading for the library. She didn't want to offend the Arts teacher, but the last thing Rose needed was to start crying again. She was determined not to do it at all anymore, glancing at the clock by the stairs, which read 6:30. There was still time to get some homework done before breakfast, so she returned to the same worn couch that had served her so well yesterday and began working on the ridiculous pile of homework that her teachers were expecting to see completed today. If nothing else, all this work would keep her mind off everything else.

««•»»

Two hours later, Alastair arrived to Grant's English class having read only a few pages of the anthology Autobiography, Poor Richard and Later Writings, by Benjamin Franklin, rather than the whole first book as he should have done. He just couldn't get his mind to focus. Images of his father, of Sarah, of Rose had burned themselves into his eyes and would not fade, no matter how many times he closed his eyes or shook his head.

Grant was the kind of teacher who would not take any excuses, and Alastair dreaded facing him even though Cowdrey had offered to speak to the dean on his behalf.

"Mr. Silver," Grant called sharply.

Alastair straightened his spine in preparation for the verbal lashing Grant's tone indicated he was about to receive. "Yes, sir."

Grant seemed to expand in size, pushing his shoulders back and broadening his frame (though he still had to look up to make eye contact with Alastair), his face shaking with tension. "Can you explain to me why I have a request from Dean Whitley to excuse you from last night's reading?"

Alastair breathed out. If the other teachers received the same request, he would be golden. Only Grant would hold him to it. That was his style. Tough. No excuses. He had really high expectations, which Alastair worked hard to fulfill. He respected Grant all the more for it because it made him a better student.

"No. I apologize, sir. I read part of it."

Mr. Grant shook his head emphatically. "Not good enough at all. You will fail today's quiz." He was famous for his second-day-of-school quizzes, which were notoriously difficult. Alastair had typically done well, but then again, he had typically done the work.

Alastair looked at his feet, sneakers poking out from his uniform pants. He turned to take his seat and found Sarah's eyes on him. His heart soared for a second to see her looking at him so softly, but just for a second, as Mason walked in, and she traded sympathy for disgust just in time for her boyfriend to see.

What could he do but shake his head and take his seat? After all, he had a quiz to fail. And so he did. Miserably.

Alastair had AP art history with Mrs. Cowdrey next.

"Oh, Alastair, dear," she greeted him with a bracing grasp on his forearms. "How are you this morning?"

"I'm a bit behind on my work, but otherwise, good."

"Hm." She stared at him, and Alastair thought one syllable never had held so much meaning before. The silence hung there until another student entered the room. "Hm, I'm glad you're well. You can use the time, now, in class to catch up."

"Oh, it's okay," he shook his head. "I'll get it done tonight."

Class dragged by slowly as Cowdrey lectured and pens without hands scrawled the notes. Object Manipulation is tied to Consciousness; what the practitioner thinks or tells the object to do, it will do, but lapses in concentration cause the OM to fail. Thus, a student's pen will only write what his brain tells it to. This was one of the first things Alastair and the other kids learned in Primary Magic, first grade. But Alastair just instinctively told his pen to write every word his ears heard and copy everything his eyes saw, regardless of what he thought of it. His pen moved with automaticity, recording everything, down to the bizarre drawings Cowdrey used to illustrate points and the snotty comments made by his classmates. He had filled six pages of notes by the end of the period. The pursuit of perfection wasn't easy.

««•»»

By the time Rose arrived for history of magic that morning, she had completed nearly all of the work due in all her classes today. But as she entered the room, Mr. Bennett waved her over to his desk.

"Dean Whitley has asked me to excuse you from last night's homework, as you were touring the campus yesterday evening." Rose was surprised. First, because it was totally a lie. And second because it meant the dean knew about what happened yesterday. Without a word, Rose retrieved her work from her bag. He glanced quickly at her neat script of answers, set it aside, and started the lesson with a wink and a grin. She couldn't help but return his smile, the closest to a real one since she got to Whitman.

When she made her way into English two classes later, Mr. Grant cast her a hard look. "Rose Regitano," he snapped, "Come here."

She really liked the book he had given them, but she was surprised by his harsh tone, and as she walked towards him, she found herself leaning away.

"We have very high standards here at Whitman. You need to meet them. But, I was asked to give you a pass on your homework for last night."

Rose stared at him. He was probably forty, with light brown hair, clearly going gray, and a stern face. He carried a little extra weight around the middle, but he carried it well.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" He waited for her to respond, and when she didn't, he began to get heated. "I take your education seriously, even if you don't!"

She noticed his ears twitching back and forth as he spoke, clearly becoming agitated.

"I do not excuse you from your homework, do you understand? You will fail today's quiz." He raised his voice, his face shaking back and forth as he spoke.

She gave one sharp mocking nod and walked away with a flip of her hand. I'm not deaf. She rolled her eyes in frustration as she sat down.

"Out!"

Rose lifted her head. He was pointing right at her. Unbelievable. She rolled her eyes again and left.

Where do students go when kicked out for having done their homework but not admitting to it? She walked down two flights of stairs to Dean Whitley's office.
"Rose, what are you doing here?"

Rose shrugged. She sat across from the dean's fancy mahogany desk. "You have Mr. Grant right now?"

The nod.

Clearly irritated, Dean Whitley picked up the phone and directed someone on the other end, Grant presumably, to send work. She hung up, and the two sat staring at each other in silence until a single sheet of paper arrived, carried in by a secretary.

Rose took the offered page, shaking her head with a scoff.

The first item read, "What are the the three main characters' reactions to not having adult supervision?" It was the quiz on the first two chapters of Lord of the Flies that he told her she would fail. Rose had already read three-quarters of the book.

She wrote furiously, scribbling answers by hand faster than her brain could think. She finished in fifteen minutes, handing the quiz over to the dean, who stood, saying, "Come with me."

Whitley led Rose back to the classroom, where all of the students still pored over their quizzes. She summoned Grant with a beckoning finger. He stomped across the room like a toddler throwing a tantrum, seemingly unhappy to see Rose back so fast.

"Dean, I saw your request, but I cannot excuse her. She is already behind, having come from some other school. She cannot afford softened expectations."

Without a word, the well-dressed woman handed Rose's quiz over to him. He read it equally wordlessly. He looked sharply up at Rose twice as he read, then waved a dismissive hand at Whitley.

"Sit down," he said to Rose gruffly.

She felt satisfied, having proven that she had done the work, and that she had a properly working brain in her head. But he wasn't satisfied.

For the rest of the period, whenever he asked the class a question, he called on Rose first. Each time, she simply stared back at him, as her classmates stared at her. His face reddened to crimson, his ears twitching like an elephant shooing flies. She grew more and more angry each time, wishing she could find the words to shout the answers into his stupid face.

««•»»

Alastair arrived to Bennett's period four Symbology class ahead of the crowd as usual. Fitzhugh, the aged history teacher, hadn't given him any trouble about making up the missed assignments, and he knew Bennett would be the same. Bennett was a younger teacher who engaged his class in dialogue, a sort of Socratic seminar. He liked to ask them what they thought, pushing them to think critically.

As he settled in for this challenging class, Alastair spotted Sarah and Mason in the hall entwined like vines outside the familiars lab. His face turned red and his body reacted physically to what he saw, nauseated and aroused simultaneously.

"Disgusting," Maggie slid into the chair next to him. "I do not understand what you see in her."

Sarah was beautiful. She had green crystalline eyes and blonde hair, which was cut short to the chin. He appreciated, obviously, how her body had developed as well. She had been scrawny as a child, but now she was rounded out in all the right places. Thinking of all her loveliness made him grin, but his gut squirmed with the anguish of losing her. He ached at the idea that Mason fucking Warner got to hold onto those curves. It's supposed to be me, he thought bitterly. And it's my own fault.

Maggie was snapping her fingers in Alastair's face, "Hello!"

"Hey, be careful where you snap those things. They're a dangerous weapon!"

"Aw, I'd never hurt you, Allie. Where'd you go? You okay?"

He nodded and tried to focus on the assignment.

They were tasked the rest of the period with unlocking codes written in ancient symbols and determining their meaning. He found this pleasantly distracting, and the time passed quickly.

««•»»

Rose skipped lunch and went straight up to the Student Officers room because she had to turn in her finished essay on her blooming to Dean Whitley before going to myths of magic, the third class she had with Bennett. She was curious if the dean would have anything to say about the incident today in English or what had happened yesterday in arts.

The office was closed when she arrived--annoying--so she slid down the wall to sit on the floor, her knees up to her chest. She took out Lord of the Flies and continued reading, already at chapter ten. She thought the characters were sort of like those boys who had been teasing Alastair in the cafeteria, again. The kid whose chair she melted was like Jack, wild and cruel, the other like Ralph, a leader who never could lead. Alastair was like Simon, kind because kindness was in his soul, not because society said he should be.

"Good book," said his deep voice, and for a second, Rose again questioned whether she was sane.

I think about him, and he talks to me, she thought. But obviously, she looked up to see him standing about two feet in front of her. Her heart thudded at the sight of his grin, one eye hidden by a shock of black hair. She lifted the book with a tight smile to show she agreed. He plopped down next to her, his arm grazing her knee.

"This place is a bit like that island sometimes." She turned toward him with her eyebrows raised and nodded emphatically, laughing silently through her nose.

"That's the first real smile I've seen from you," he nudged her arm. The joy drained from her as she cast her eyes down. Why did he have to remind her? "Aw, come on. It was nice to see you smile. Okay, which character do I remind you of? Ralph? Samneric?"

Rose couldn't help it. She lit up with a genuine smile as she pointed at the page.

"Piggy?!"

She laughed noiselessly, shaking her head. Although Piggy was probably the smartest of the bunch, so it wasn't that insulting.

Alastair was so happy to see Rose smile, and for a change, she didn't seem so small and fragile. She gestured again at the book, and he shook his head seeing the name. Is she trying to say I'm weak? he thought.

"No. No way! Simon passes out every five seconds," he said. "Plus, he's crazy."

She shook her head and pointed to where he sacrificed his food for Piggy. She flipped pages, pointed to another example where he stays loyal to Ralph, another where he tells them how to heal a wound. His face became serious. He looked at her with fresh eyes. "You've only seen the good in me," he whispered hoarsely, turning away, the recollections of his cruel behavior with Sarah still fresh in his mind. In that moment, he was Jack, malicious and uncivilized.

Rose tugged on his sleeve and pointed again at the name, Simon. His bright eyes focused on her face, finding her dark eyes. She pointed again. He didn't know what to say. He was no Simon, who was good. Good to his core. But he liked that she saw him that way. That's who he wanted to be.

He peeked at her book to make sure he wasn't spoiling it, "I don't want to end up dead," he joked, needing to break the seriousness of the moment. She grinned the mirthless grin of yesterday, today's brief joy faded to dust.

Dean Whitley approached from the elevator. "Well, hello. Mrs. Cowdrey let me know that you were helping Rose yesterday, Alastair, so I asked your teachers to give you a break on the work. Did they?"

"All but Grant."

"Mister Grant. Yes, he gave Rose a hard time too. All right, let's get to work."

She opened the door and shuffled them inside, taking the pages outstretched in Rose's hand, and setting Alastair to a job of alphabetizing and storing the new student files in the cabinets. He was tempted by the folder labeled "Rose Regitano" but thought better of it, filing her away with the rest without prying. It was good mindless work that lasted until eighth period, arts.

Alastair wanted to capture the haunted darkness that had hovered over him all day. He grabbed his sketch book and charcoal and sat down to draw. Rose's obsidian eyes had surprised him, shining joy and grief seconds apart. Weariness framed them. He would start there. His hands moved over the page for forty-five minutes, and he was just beginning to see the ghostly expression from her music fading and darkening his page.

He let all his sorrow over Sarah loose on the image before him, giving his sadness for his own mistakes a voice it never had before. Alastair wished he was unwavering and beneficent like Simon in Lord of the Flies. Maybe Sarah would have loved him had he been good, had he bloomed some other color. But he bloomed a dark charcoal gray, and she didn't love him. Many of his classmates had believed he would become a dark practitioner. Most students bloom primary colors or pastels, innocuous colors that don't scare the other kids. Alastair decided he would rather be a little dark and a lot alive than innocent and dead at the hands of Tommy Roarke and Mason Warner.

««•»»

Rose slept in the dorm for the first time that night, waiting until the other girls had gone to sleep before heading in. Her primary goal of the day was to make it to bed without crying, and so far, so good. Some anger, yes. Crying, no.

She didn't have much to unpack. She had bounced from neglect to abuse, home to home, for seven years, 19 placements in all, so she wore mismatched, ill-fitting clothes when Marie found her back in June. Now all she had were the new clothes and books Marie bought her and a few pictures of her parents and brother, which she hid under her neatly folded T-shirts.

Not wanting to think about the real world at all, she read by the light of her lavender mist until she finished Lord of the Flies, some of the last few lines resonating in her mind as she drifted off to sleep. "... great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body... Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart..." She knew exactly what he meant.

The next week and a half felt like a house settling in the summer, when the beams expand after a winter of cold contraction. Rose created a routine for herself, spending every morning in the library. Like a starving child, she could never get enough. She had gone without for so long, now she feasted on the texts like she might never be fed again.

Rose's classes were pretty challenging academically but were at least growing more interesting as the teachers all began to connect the core subjects to the students' magical abilities. It reminded Rose of the way the nuns at St. Matthew's had connected everything they taught to God. This was more fun, so Rose guessed the nuns would say it must be a sin.

Rose was enjoying myths of magic. The first week had been full of myth-busting. There are no wands, no brooms, no pointy hats. This was all obvious looking around the school, but Rose liked learning where the myths came from. Apparently the idea of wands originated from the scepters that wise-men or shamans used way back in Egypt, giant six-foot tall poles. That's a far cry from the smaller wands portrayed today. Practitioners of magic didn't use cauldrons to mix potions, they used beakers and Bunsen burners. Some had cats as familiars to enhance their magic, like the black cats of superstition. But some had dogs. Or birds, or whatever pet they wanted. And Bennett's style of teaching was so easy and fun that Rose often forgot she was in a class at all.

She was starting to feel that this school might be exactly the right place for her. The only class where she had continued to have any problems was English. Grant had continued to challenge her to speak every day, and she continued not to. They both ended up angry and red-faced by the time the chimes sounded. A few times she could tell he wanted to give in and just let her write her answer on the board, but he was obstinate.

She wasn't stubborn. She was broken.