"Are you there? Are you listening? . . . What should I do about mother? She wants to take me to someone. . . Yes. I'm sorry I told her. I didn't know you wouldn't want me to, and she was so angry . . . No, I couldn't tell her that, because I don't know it. You won't tell me . . . You will? Soon? You promise? . . . I know you're my friend, but I don't trust you . . ."

Juniper sat on a swing in her backyard, not even swinging, just sort of toeing the dirt, moving very slowly back and forth. The universal slide tower with extending arm for swings and monkey bars had been long unused, the girls having outgrown it for the most part, and yet it had of recent become Junie's favorite quiet spot, as it was one of the only places she could be alone with her new friend. The house was too enclosed; she could never tell who might be listening from another room. But the backyard had great visibility, and even if her mother watched from the kitchen window (which she often did), the woman couldn't hear her daughter's conversations.

Her mother had been strange after Junie had confessed she'd not been confessing in the confessional. The girl had interpreted her reaction as mostly anger, but there'd been something else in it, as well, some undercurrent of familiarity, of concern, perhaps. And that made sense, Juniper realized; her new friend had so quickly introduced itself that any mother would wonder at the friendship. Juniper had never been a social child, not like Autumn and Mabel and Hazel. She hadn't been asked to birthday parties beyond those early elementary years when children's mothers invited the entire class, and middle school had presented one reminder after another that she greatly lacked interpersonal skills. The one mercy was that Junie herself didn't seem particularly affected by it all. She'd always been more introspective than her siblings, and a love of reading and her creative pursuits had kept her occupied. What she didn't realize was that her indifference toward friendship intensified rather than alleviated her mother's unease.

"I understand," Junie continued her conversation. "I agree it would look worse if I talked to you there . . . But you'll be with me? . . . I'll try not to, but I'll have to say some . . . All right. Bye."

The girl stayed on her swing for a few moments, eyes absently on the grass, a certain sadness shimmering at the edges of her thoughts. She couldn't explain her friend well, even to herself; she knew only that it'd introduced itself, that it talked to her, and that she was compelled to talk back. Nothing about it struck her as odd, and yet she concurrently understood why her mother and sisters considered it so. But her friend was important. Insistent, even. Junie couldn't not talk back.

A honeybee hovered over the nearby clover. Junie wished she were that honeybee, small, able to fly wherever she wanted to. Wasn't it true, though, that honeybees had only the one sting? Died for it? Better to be a wasp, then, something that could hurt again and again and not suffer for it. Because what was the point of self-defense if one died using it? Of course, Juniper didn't want to have to defend herself; she wasn't that sort of person. If she really had to be some sort of stinging creature, best to be a jellyfish; they just floated contemplatively, and if anyone came too near, they'd quickly recognize their mistake. But the thing about a jellyfish, Junie reflected, was that they really didn't notice anything around them. They were just hollow, mindless things, no brains, no hearts, incapable of feeling. They were nearly all water, just little bits of sensory organs, enough to drift about, perhaps consume something when they came across it, but otherwise entirely void of all awareness yet unwittingly something terrible to those who came too close. Best if everyone just left it alone.

Yes, the girl thought, I'd like to be like that.

"Junie! Let's go. Come on."

Sighing, Juniper chewed her lower lip, stared for another moment at the nearby nectar-collecting bee, its little legs clicking about, its wings motionless on its back as it rested. She considered stepping on the insect but changed her mind. Then she was off the swing, around the house, to her mother's waiting car.

They were going to visit one of her mother's friends. It was a Saturday, and the other girls were staying home with their father. Junie's mother hadn't told her exactly why they were undertaking this little trip, but the girl knew. Her mother was concerned, and her friend's husband was an expert in child psychology, taught at one of the most respected universities in the Midwest. Mrs. Jones wanted her daughter to meet with this man. Junie's friend had told her some of it.

The drive was mostly quiet. Junie's mother tried to strike up some casual conversation, but the girl's laconic responses put a quick end to the woman's efforts. For much of the time, Juniper stared out the window, elbow against the door, propping up her chin. Her wild, unbrushed hair made her appear all that much younger, but she couldn't see herself, and even if she could, Junie wouldn't have thought much of the nondescript fourteen-year-old glumly being transported to her dull destination. She'd never been much to look at, much to think about, just another unattractive adolescent without any truly defining qualities. She'd always tried to be a decent girl, sat quietly in church on Sundays, never complained when her parents said it was time to go to Mass. She'd always done well enough in school; any conceivably negative comments from teachers were only that she was quiet, should try to participate in class a bit more. Junie liked to get lost in her thoughts, to ponder things. That's why her new friend had wanted to meet her, it said—it thought she might be interesting.

It'd introduced itself that one rainy afternoon in the attic, and Juniper had said hello in response. That night, in the stillness of her shadowed room, it'd arrived for the first time. It hadn't scared Junie, not at all. She'd somehow known it was coming, and she'd been ready. They'd talked all night, though the subjects of their conversation were lost to her memory, and they'd talked almost every day after. Junie hadn't even tried to hide her chats; she just spent enough time alone, wandering the empty schoolyard, riding her bike, swinging in the back, that nobody had noticed until their mother had taken them to Confession.

And now here they were. Perhaps her mother's reaction had been inevitable, but Junie didn't feel particularly upset about any of it. She only didn't want to upset her friend.

The house they eventually pulled up to was lovely, a cottage-like gray-stone structure with purple and blue hydrangeas in big bunches at the front, sunlight speckling the lawn through three large shade trees. The house worked itself into a few interesting angles, a gingerbread peak over the door, a bay window to the right, and something almost like a turret at the left. Junie was mildly interested as her mother led her up the path, but when she reached to pet a large calico cat calmly lounging on a wicker chair, the animal reared back, bared its fangs, and hissed before darting off into the bushes.

A little hurt, Juniper frowned at her mother, whose tight mouth didn't inspire confidence.

"Helen!" A woman in her fifties opened the door at their ring. Her cropped silvery hair and big funky jewelry gave her an artsy vibe, as did the flowy kimono she wore over her fitted dress. "Come in, come in. This must be Juniper. It's so good to see you. We haven't caught up in—what's it been, six weeks? Something like that?"

The girl tuned out whatever conversation her mother and the woman were having as she was ushered into the veritable museum, everything in it cool and pristine and rather expensive in appearance. Junie had no idea how her mother knew these people, but she wasn't quite looking forward to talking to them, so when a bearded and bespectacled older man joined them from some side room and introduced himself, paying special attention to the girl, she could offer him only a grim smile in return. The adults chatted for a bit, but then the women went into the kitchen to "catch up" while the man encouraged Junie to join him in his office. Juniper met her mother's eye for a brief moment before they parted, and the sudden surge of fury Junie felt and transmitted in that gaze startled even herself.

Resigned to her fate, though, Juniper settled in a comfortable leather chair across from Dr. Stukell, as he called himself. The office was beautiful, huge windows allowing in great swathes of sunlight, surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. A small fireplace rested dormant in the sitting area, and a large desk dominated the other side of the room.

Dr. Stukell said some random things. Something about a painting of a dog, something about knowing her mother through mutual friends, something about having a nephew her age. He got a little bit of smalltalk out of Juniper, though the girl paid very little attention to what he was actually asking and what she was actually answering. In fact, the conversation in general began to grate on her.

"I know why my mom wants me to talk to you," she eventually interrupted.

Her comment didn't phase Dr. Stukell at all. He seemed ready for the change. "She worries, as most mothers do," he said casually, no hint of emotion in his own voice. "But I'm not particularly worried about you, Juniper. You seem like a well-adjusted young girl. So we'll just have a talk, and then I can assure your mother everything's all right."

"About my friend."

"Yes," he nodded. "About your friend. What can you tell me about her?"

Junie looked at the windows. "Not her," she said absently. "Or him. I don't know."

"All right, my apologies. What else can you tell me?"

"I . . . I like to . . . talk, to my friend." The girl kept her face turned toward the wall of the office, toward the world beyond the panes of glass, to the sparkling summer sun waving amongst the branches of thick emerald leaves right beyond the window.

Dr. Stukell didn't ask her to turn toward him; he kept on with the nonchalance of years of practice. "And what do you talk about?"

Junie sighed. Her fingers gripped the arms of the chair. "Oh . . . things. I don't know."

"Mm hm. Probably little things, just about life. Your sisters, perhaps? Your frustrations about school and friends?"

The girl turned to him a little quickly. "I said I don't know."

"I'm sorry. You did say that," Dr. Stukell nodded, entirely unmoved. He watched Juniper as she placed her hands in her lap and began to study them rather intently. "You feel better, though, when you talk to your friend?"

"Better?" Junie muttered, confused.

"Your friend brings you happiness, I'd hope. Is that right?"

"I . . . I don't know."

The man waited for more, but more did not come. At length, he tried, "How did you meet this friend, Juniper?"

"How . . ." Junie began clasping and unclasping her fingers, first slowly, then erratically. A sensation purred through her, the awareness that she was not alone, anymore. Her body tingled with cold, and she snapped one hand back up to the wooden arm of the chair, curled her fist, and began rapping with her knuckles. Words formed in her mouth.

Dr. Stukell cocked his head, regarded the girl with curiosity. "Junie?" he tried. "What are you saying?"

The girl repeated herself, continuously rapping on the chair arm, and she lifted her eyes to meet those of the man across from her. "Knock, knock, knock," she said quietly.

"Knock . . . ? What do you mean by that? Is your friend here, now?"

"Knock—knock—knock!" Junie raised her voice.

The man began shifting in his chair, blinking a bit. "All right, Juniper. It's a joke, then."

"Knock—knock—knock!" The girl increased her volume, continued to stare through her unkempt curtains of hair, continued to bang her reddening knuckles against the wood, persisted in repeating the word, and she grew so loud that Dr. Stukell asked her to stop, to calm down, and her mother and the other woman hurried into the room. But by then Junie was screaming it over and over so loudly that the adults grew frantic, and the small bones of her curling fingers were beginning to bleed, and her body was wound so tight that she began to convulse, and even as she fell to the floor and seized, she continued to repeat in fragmented breaths: "Knock . . . knock . . . knock!"