On Monday morning, life returned to a state of normalcy.

It officially felt like fall that morning, with dry leaves blanketing the sidewalks I followed on my way to school. The sweet smell of autumn was in the air. In the course of just two days, the season had changed. It felt odd that just three days earlier, we'd been swimming in the Richmonds' pool. Summer was now definitively over.

Before classes began, Olivia approached me in the hallway.

"My brother said he's taking you to Homecoming," she said, and I cringed, unable to tell if she was happy or upset about that. "It's cool."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Really? Because if it's not, I can ask someone else. Honestly, Olivia. If it's going to be weird for you, I'll ask Dan."

Dan, with his buzz cut and endless freckles, was all the way at the end of the hall, out of earshot. He had already gathered up his books for first period and told me to have a good morning.

"Don't be silly! Of course it's cool. You and my brother make a cute couple. Candace might be a freak about it, but ignore her. Henry thinks she's a wind bag."

Having Olivia's blessing made me feel much more at ease about going to the dance. "What about Mischa?" I asked delicately. "Do you think she and Amanda might think I'm stepping on Michelle's toes?"

Olivia wrinkled her nose. "Michelle already has a new boyfriend at the University of Minnesota. I wouldn't worry about that."

In the cafeteria at lunch time, conversation had returned to the Homecoming game on Friday in Kenosha and whether or not we'd all take the bus across the state to cheer for our team. The verdict was that we would go to Kenosha because Candace was insistent that we support Isaac, but we would not stoop so low as to ride the bus with the gross freshmen and unruly sophomores.

"I can drive," Pete offered. "We can fit five in the Infiniti." He looked around our table and counted heads with his finger.  "One, two, three, four, five," he said, pointing first to his own chest and then to Olivia, me, Candace, and  Jeff.  Although Jeff was tall and played basketball with Pete, he wasn't especially cute or funny. I had a feeling that by the middle of the week, Olivia would pressure Pete to make Jeff ask Violet to Homecoming just so that no one would be left out.

"Amanda and I have to ride with the cheerleaders on the bus," Mischa informed Violet. "You can ride with us if you'd like. It'll be fun." Violet sat at the far end of the table eating yogurt and nodded.

I had never been to a football game as a spectator before. As a member of the color guard, I had always sat with the band in my unattractive blue uniform, waiting for performances on the field. It had never really occurred to me before that I might one day sit up in the stands eating hotdogs and popcorn with the cool crowd from school. While I wasn't much of a sports fan, the thought of the Homecoming game and riding to Kenosha in Pete's car put butterflies in my stomach.

After lunch, I walked back to my locker with Candace, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the past hour. Of our small group of friends, I was probably the least close to Candace, but our lockers were along the same wall in the same hallway, so from time to time I found myself walking alongside her, usually with little to say.

"I've been meaning to tell you something," she said in a low whisper as soon as the others had walked down the hall in the other direction toward their own lockers to exchange books for the afternoon session of classes, "about Friday. There was something weird with the story Violet told about me when we were playing that game."

I stopped walking for a second, so startled by the abrupt way in which Candace had gone from cheerfully making plans for Friday night in the cafeteria to instantaneously serious when she brought up Olivia's party, returning me to the state of discomfort I had experienced on Friday in Olivia's basement. Maybe I hadn't been the only one who'd felt a little too scared to have fun during the game.

"Yeah?" I asked, not wanting to volunteer my own unpleasant memory of the party.

"Violet said during all that stuff about being in the water that I went out into the waves far away from my brothers. I don't have any brothers. I have two half-brothers from my dad's second marriage, but I'm pretty sure I've never mentioned anything about Dylan and Jordan to Violet. I mean, they live in Green Bay. I barely ever see them."

I frowned. I had known Candace since kindergarten and I didn't even know that her dad had two sons with his new wife. Both of Candace's parents had remarried and I only knew about her younger half-sister, Julia, who was in eighth grade.

"That is weird," I agreed, wondering if I should confide in Candace about my own astonishment surrounding Violet's knowledge of the red Prius that had been parked in the Richmonds' driveway the night of the birthday party.

Just then, I looked up to see Trey approaching us. My involuntary reaction was to smile and raise my hand to wave, but a nanosecond after we made eye contact, he looked away and walked past me as if I didn't even exist. I blushed, humiliated. I had definitely overestimated whatever we had shared in his back yard, and I was ashamed at the force with which my heart was beating inside my ribcage. Fortunately Candace hadn't noticed my momentary distraction; her eyes followed Trey down the hall.

"Nice," she whispered to me conspiratorially with a wicked grin.

We reached my locker and Candace lingered while I twisted my combination open, her books pressed against her chest. Her focus returned to Violet and the events of Friday night. "Do you think Violet's been like, spying on us? I even went through my Facebook account to see if maybe she saw pictures of them, but I don't have any up there."

Just like that, I realized that Candace's concerns about Violet were rooted in regular everyday life, not in the realm of supernatural powers, as mine were. It was ridiculous of me to think that maybe Violet had ESP or some kind of special communication with ghosts.

"Maybe someone just told her," I suggested. "Like Olivia."

Candace frowned, unconvinced. I could understand why. Olivia didn't concern herself with the details of anyone else's life. She existed in her own little perfect world, blissfully ignorant of the trivialities of everyone else's plights. "I don't know. I just think it's weird."

Violet was in my first class after lunch, U.S. History, taught by Mr. Dean. Mr. Dean had been a teacher at Weeping Willow High School for so long that on the first day of junior year, he had squinted closely at my name and asked if I was any relation to Krista Brady, my cousin who had graduated ten years earlier.

"Class, I know that around this time of year the only election on anyone's mind is for Homecoming Court. But I'd like to remind you that Student Government nominations are due this Friday, and I'd like to encourage all of you to consider running for class office," Mr. Dean said. He was the faculty administrator for Student Government, overseeing the elections and assigning tasks to the four officers of each class. Student Government was something that rarely crossed my mind; Olivia was always our Class President, and Michael Walton, a brainiac on the Mathlete team who everyone knew would eventually be our class valedictorian, was always Vice President. Tracy Hartford, the biggest gossip in the junior class, was always Secretary, and Emily Morris had been Treasurer since freshman year.

When the bell rang and I was gathering up my books, Mr. Dean said, "Miss Brady? Can I have a word with you?"

Violet raised her eyebrows at me on her way out of class, wondering why I had been singled out by Mr. Dean for a one-on-one.

I approached Mr. Dean as he erased his notes from our class on the chalkboard. We were still studying the Revolutionary War, beginning our study of U.S. History from the top. Our homework assignment over the weekend had been to write an essay on Thomas Paine's pamphlet, Common Sense, and I hadn't done a fantastic job, since I'd been so preoccupied with thoughts of Trey, Henry, and the strangeness of Olivia's party.

"Yes, Mr. Dean?" I asked.

"I wanted to ask if you'd given any thought to running for the role of junior Class Treasurer," Mr. Dean said. "I think you'd be a natural."

I was confused as to why he'd think I'd be a natural at anything. The only class in which I really ever stood out as exceptional at all was art, and I didn't have any reason to think that elderly Mr. Dean with his suspenders and bow ties was swapping stories with Miss Kirkovic, the far younger and cooler art teacher. Besides, I had already overheard that Jason Arkadian, who was one-half of our high school's measly debate team, had turned in a nomination form with five signatures in order to run for the office. Jason was hardly as popular as guys like Pete and Isaac, but still, people knew who he was. He'd never been called fat, hadn't lost a twin in a horrific tragedy that everyone in town had heard about. Basically, I had a hunch that a victory over him would require a lot of work.

"I am terrible at math," I assured him. "I don't think I'd do a very good job of managing class finances."

"But you seem like a resourceful young lady," the old man countered me. "The junior Class Treasurer is a very important role. You'd be in charge of raising funds for the junior class trip."

Every year, during the first week of May, the junior class boarded school buses and went on an overnight trip to either Chicago or Minneapolis. The previous year, the junior class Student Government had organized a daffodil sale and a chocolate sale, both of which had underwhelmed, and the funds raised had fallen so short of the goal that kids each had to contribute two hundred dollars to partake in the trip. I didn't really want to entertain the idea of running in the election, but Mr. Dean's suggestion that I try already had me thinking about all those leaves I'd seen on the ground on my walk to school that morning. I could organize a student service to rake leaves and shovel snow, the two tasks that everyone in Willow needed help with most urgently.

"I'll think about it," I assured him, and rushed off to meet Violet, Candace, Mischa, and Olivia for gym class.

In the hallway outside the history class room, Cheryl was waiting for me patiently. I genuinely felt disgusted with myself for the way in which I had been treating her since the beginning of the school year. Cheryl was so mild-mannered, so genuinely sweet. She was the kind of girl I was sure would come into her own away at college; she'd find an intellectual boyfriend and finally be recognized for her academic potential. But in high school she was a girl with big clunky glasses and the wrong style of jeans.

"Hey," she said shyly. Poor Cheryl. I hadn't officially put the brakes on our friendship but she knew the score. I sat with my new friends at lunch and had partnered with Mischa in Chem Lab instead of with her, at the time insisting that Mischa really needed my help whereas Cheryl would get a good grade in Chem Lab on her own. "I was wondering what you were doing on Friday. My mom got tickets to the Lamb and Owl show in Madison, and I was thinking maybe you might want to go."

My heart sank. Cheryl knew that I loved the folksy duo Lamb and Owl from New Zealand. I had no idea that they were doing a U.S. tour and I was suddenly both jealous that she had tickets, and enraged with her for buying them in what was obviously an attempt to rekindle our friendship. Cheryl didn't like them nearly as much as I did. Ditching the Homecoming game to venture downstate with Cheryl and presumably her mom or dad to a hipster folk concert would definitely not have gone unpunished by Olivia and Candace.

"I would love to," I lied wistfully, "But I might have to be here late after classes on Friday for a meeting that Mr. Dean was just telling me about. And then I usually stay home on Fridays. With my mom. You know, this time of year."

I hated myself for using Jennie's death as a way to get out of having to go to the concert, but the excuse rolled off my tongue with such ease. Immediately Cheryl's face fell, a mixture of disappointment that I was rebuffing her offer, and shame that I had called her out on forgetting that it was the most emotionally trying time of year for my family.  As soon as I saw her reaction, I regretted my choice in excuses, but it was too late to rescind my lie. I wasn't sure what I'd say if she found out I had gone to the Homecoming game with my new circle of friends, but I could already sense the lies forming in my head about them insisting that I accompany them to the game, appearing at my house, honking their car horns until I agreed to drive to Kenosha.

"Oh my god, McKenna, I'm so sorry," she apologized. She looked as if she might start crying. "I just completely forgot. I just miss hanging out, you know? I thought it would be fun to go to the concert together."

(^^ McKenna, by brooklyn.jf on Instagram)

My heart was kind of breaking. I didn't have much experience in ending friendships, and I wished there was a way that I could invite Cheryl into Olivia's circle, too, but high school just didn't work that way. I was disappointed in myself and knew that my mom would not appreciate how I was behaving. But I just wanted something more from high school that I couldn't even put my finger on. I wanted to belong. I wanted to go to the Homecoming dance on Henry's arm and not have to ever worry about being called cow by any of the idiots in the junior class ever again.  I wanted memories of being popular to look back on by the time I left Willow for college. In an odd way, after the grief-saturated childhood I had endured, I felt like I was owed two years of popularity.

"It's okay, Cheryl. Maybe we can hang out next weekend," I offered, knowing in my heart that I'd make excuses the following weekend, too.

Outside on the track, with all of us dressed like clones in our red and black gym suits, Olivia and Mischa blazed past us, taking their laps far more seriously than me, Candace, and Violet. Candace tuned both me and Violet out by adjusting her iPod endlessly, skipping songs that didn't suit her that afternoon and singing along off-key to those which did. We walked casually to the annoyance of Coach Stirling, our shadows stretched out on the gravel before us. Candace's shadow was a foot longer than mine and Violet's.

"About Friday," Violet said shyly when Candace wasn't listening. She was nervous, and was fiddling with her locket. "I think I owe you an apology for what I said. I didn't know about your family.  I felt really awful all weekend but I didn't want to text you or anything because that would have made it even more weird."

"It's okay," I replied, not especially wanting to talk about Jennie outside on the track on such a beautiful fall day, with a crisp breeze blowing.  "You're new in town. How would you have known?"

She bit her lower lip nervously, as she often did, and I thought sinisterly to myself that if she wasn't so pretty, it would have been easy to categorize Violet among the anxious nerds and self-conscious dweebs of our school. "I don't want to sound like a total freak, but sometimes I see things."

I felt the day slowing down around me like a special effect in a movie. I wasn't sure if I had heard her correctly. Was she implying that she had some kind of psychic abilities? Perhaps my suspicion hadn't been so off-base.

"Um, could you elaborate on that?" I asked. "You can't just say something like that and not explain."

Violet shrugged as if what she had just said wasn't a big deal. "You know, like, stuff. About people. Not like, X-ray vision or anything. But I just get sort of a vague impression of something that happened to them, or is about to happen, and I never really know what it means. When I touched your forehead, I smelled fire and I saw smoke. I didn't know that you'd already survived a house fire," she said apologetically.

My walk had slowed down to a snail's pace, and because Candace couldn't hear our conversation over her music, she power-walked ahead of us.  I couldn't really believe what Violet was telling me, but at the same time, I had to believe her, because it made sense. She knew things without knowing them. She saw things without her eyes.

"So... Olivia's car?" I dared to ask. "You mentioned in your story about Olivia that her parents were going to give her a red car for her birthday. Did you know that when you said that, the red Prius was already parked in the Richmonds' driveway?"

Violet blanched and touched her fingers to her own forehead, obviously stressed that I was grilling her. It wasn't my intention to be tough with her, but I naturally had a lot of questions about her ability. "No, I didn't know it was already up there. But on the very first day of school when Olivia introduced herself to me, I just saw in my head that she would drive a small red car. I don't know too much about cars. I just guessed that it was a red Prius."

"That is really, really weird," I told her. On one hand, I was grateful that Violet had opened up to me. On the other hand, a million more questions were forming in my head. "What else do you know... about me?"

She only dared to look me in the eye for a second before her eyes darted up at the sky to avoid my stare. "Nothing, really. That's it. Just fire. And... you have a dog? Something slow and spotted and furry."

Moxie was a Brittany Spaniel, and those days she was somewhat slow, hobbling around on her arthritic legs. I nodded to acknowledge that I did indeed have a dog, but I didn't believe Violet for a second.

Violet knew more, much more.

But if I were to tell anyone, they would think I was crazy.

And somehow she knew enough about me to confide in me, I guessed because she probably already sensed that I was onto her.

What I was wondering more than anything—but didn't dare ask—was that if Violet had been able to sense the fire that had killed my sister, then were the stories that she'd told about Olivia, Candace, and Mischa also somehow based in reality?

"Mr. Dean thinks I should run for Class Treasurer," I told my mom as I was stirring noodles around on my plate at dinner time. I was being abnormally quiet at the dinner table as I thought about Violet and everything she had admitted to me out on the track. It wasn't like me to be reserved at mealtimes, but I definitely didn't want to confide to my mom that I suspected a friend of having supernatural powers. She would have been on the phone with my dad, asking him to evaluate me, in a heartbeat.

"Treasurer? Why Treasurer? You'd make a better Class Secretary," my mother said, never one to encourage me to pursue anything I didn't really have my heart set on. Save your energy for the challenges that count, she liked to say.

"I can't run for Class Secretary, I won't win. Tracy Hartford always runs for Class Secretary and wins every year. I can only run for Treasurer because that's the position I'd have a shot at," I elaborated.

My mother poured a little more cold spaghetti sauce out of the jar and onto her pasta. Most nights, dinner at our house was a very low-effort affair. We ate a lot of microwave dinners, and at least three nights each week we'd eat take-out that Mom would pick up as she drove back from teaching in Sheboygan. I had noticed a weird pattern develop over the last two years I'd been in high school; on Tuesdays she'd bring home Chinese food, Wednesdays it would be hamburgers, Friday meant pizza. I didn't point the system out to her even though she was probably unaware of the cycle.

"That's not the attitude of a winner," she chided me. "I didn't even know you were interested in Student Government. If you're into it you, you should run for the office you want. Otherwise, you're going to be resentful if you win. Who else is running?"

"Jason Arkadian," I said, swirling my spaghetti around even more.

Explaining to my mother that there was no possible way my fellow students would vote for me over Tracy, and that if I chose to challenge her for her role of Class Secretary I would suffer certain public humiliation, was futile.

"Well, does Jason Arkadian really want to be the junior Class Treasurer? Wouldn't you feel badly if you denied him that opportunity just because it seemed like fun for a few days?" my mother asked me critically. She just didn't get high school.

"No, because I'm interested in it, too," I admitted. Now that Mr. Dean had suggested it, all of the planning and possibilities associated with the election offered my brain a safe haven from more disturbing thoughts of Violet and her strange visions. I could lead a successful fundraiser; I was pretty sure of it. And since Emily had been somewhat of an ambivalent Treasurer, I wouldn't even have to try very hard to do a better job than she'd done. I had never known Emily very well, but had gotten the sense that she'd run for office just because Olivia had. "I would have to organize a fundraiser to pay for the class trip in May. I already have some ideas."

My mother stared at me across the table as if an alien was sitting in my chair instead of me. "You're serious about this."

"I am," I told her.

"Well. If you're into it, then I'm into it. It'll look really great on your college applications. What do you have to do?"

I told her I'd have to formally announce my nomination on Friday at a meeting after school. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized that attending that meeting might complicate my trip to Kenosha to see the Homecoming game. I felt a little better about declining Cheryl's offer to go to Madison.  I hadn't been completely lying to her after all about having an obligation on Friday after school that would prevent me from going to the concert.

"I'll pick up some poster board at Walgreens' on the way home from Sheboygan tomorrow. But I really wish you'd consider running against Tracy Hartford. Her mother has the biggest mouth," my mother complained.

That night as I did my homework, I left my blinds raised intentionally because I could see that Trey's were still open over the fence. I couldn't see him stirring in his room, but his lights were on, suggesting that he was still awake. Henry texted me, making my heart rate slow down to a thud thud thud when I read his message, asking me what color my dress for the dance was. He was renting a tux and wanted to make sure the cummerbund matched, so that we would look like a real couple. I wondered briefly if he'd buy a corsage. My mother would be absolutely floored if a boy showed up at our house with a corsage to slide onto my wrist.

Finally around one in the morning, I was too tired to even keep my eyes open any longer, and got up to lower my blinds. The moment I stood up, I looked through my window and saw Trey looking right back at me. This time, I stopped myself before I waved. I wouldn't be made to feel like an overeager fool twice in one day.

For a moment, neither of us looked away. Without waving, Trey finally nodded at me, acknowledging me. I wondered how those kittens were, if they'd survived their first night when Trey had slept outdoors with them. It would be insane of me to sneak into the Emorys' yard to satisfy my own curiosity. I looked away first, and closed my blinds. I shamefully wondered what might have happened if I left them open while I changed into my pajamas. Would Trey have watched?  Would he have wanted me to know that he was watching? Even just imagining the possibilities made my cheeks burn and my heart race. Why was I even thinking about flirting with Trey Emory? We might as well have lived in different galaxies instead of fifty feet away from each other.

That night, I tried to think of slogans that I might put on posters to encourage kids to vote for me. I wondered who else might show up to the Student Government orientation meeting on Friday afternoon, potentially threatening my chances in the election. My status among Olivia's circle was still so new that it wasn't a surefire thing that I'd win. And if I lost, it might be enough of a kick in the teeth for me to fall back down to color guard status. That was reason enough to not even try, although a victory would secure my popularity until at least the end of the year.

But the election was just a diversion, I knew. It masked my other thoughts, the ones that were keeping me awake far past a time when I should have been asleep. Thoughts about Violet and who she was, if she was as innocent as she seemed, and if she knew as little about me as she claimed. And then even more thoughts about Trey, and if he hated me, and if so, why. I shouldn't have been thinking about any of these things, I knew.  I should have been smiling to myself in the dark because Henry Richmond was thinking about me; he had my phone number, and I'd be seeing him on Saturday night.

"Check it out guys. I think this is it."

Olivia stepped out of the dressing room modeling the dress she had found on the rack at Tart, one of two cool boutiques at the small mall in Ortonville, the next town over from Willow to the West. The mall in Ortonville was nowhere near as big as the one in Green Bay, but we had decided to drive over on Wednesday after school to see if perhaps Olivia's dream dress could be found there. Candace's mother owned a nail salon inside the Ortonville mall, and Candace insisted that we avoid that hall of stores so that her mother wouldn't know she was shopping instead of doing homework.

"Whoah. I think that's the one, dude," Candace said, slurping on her frozen chocolate latte through a straw.

The dress—strapless and cream-colored in a shade that was just dark enough not to be too summery for September—fit Olivia perfectly. It was covered in a layer of delicate eyelet, and when Olivia spun in front of the mirror, the full skirt swung around her knees as if she were a princess in a Disney cartoon.

"I kind of love it," Olivia announced. "It's not really what I was picturing, but it might even be better."

"It's hot," Violet assured Olivia. "You should buy it just in case it's not here later this week."

The numbers I saw on the price tag made me cringe when I saw them in a flash before Olivia returned to the dressing room to change back into her melon-colored jeans and silk blouse. I wondered if Violet recognized the dress that Olivia would carry home in a bright pink bag from Tart that afternoon. She had been uncharacteristically lively and talkative on the drive over from Willow, and I suspected that she was intentionally avoiding eye contact with me.

 Mischa insisted that we stop at the cookie shop before piling back into Olivia's car to purchase snacks for the ride home. I abstained, envying Mischa her fast metabolism, and desperately not wanting to gain back any of the weight I'd shed over the summer. Once back within town borders, Olivia dropped Mischa off first, because she had to go to gymnastics class at the gym with Amanda. Violet insisted on being left at the library, where her mom would pick her up after work. I was surprised to be the last one remaining in the car other than Candace, who rode shotgun in the red Prius. In a weird way, being the last one to get dropped off was sort of like being the last one who Olivia hoped to get rid of.

I decided it was as good a time as any to test my plan to run for Class Treasurer against Olivia. I announced it casually, as if I was still kind of kicking the idea around.

 "Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, Student Government is so boring. It's the worst. I only ran for President because my dad really wants me to try to get a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin."

After stewing over the possibility of winning the election all day on Tuesday, by Wednesday evening I was sure I wanted to run. More importantly, I was sure I wanted to win. It was odd how I had gone from not even considering Student Government to feeling like my life couldn't go on if I didn't win the election in just three short days at the suggestion of Mr. Dean.

"Totally," I said. "It wouldn't be boring for me. Don't think I'm a freak, but the more I think about it, the more I'm into it."

"You are definitely psycho!" Olivia teased.  "But meetings will suck less if you're there. We should run together, like running mates!"

Having not only Olivia's approval, but her enthusiasm as well, solidified my resolve to run. Participation in the election went from being a high-risk gamble of my social standing to a necessary step in my certain victory in less than a minute with just a few words from Olivia.

"Oh my god, you guys are so political," Candace complained. "What am I going to do in this dump of a town when you're both passing bills on Capitol Hill?"

"Marry Isaac and have like, fifty kids," Olivia teased.

We pulled into my driveway and my chest ached a little when I saw that Mom's car wasn't in the driveway. She was probably still on her way home from Sheboygan, quite possibly picking up take-out hamburgers at that very moment. Entering a dark house by myself was my least favorite part of any day. At least Moxie would be happy to see me, even if only because I would let her out to go sniff things in the back yard.

As I gathered up my backpack and opened the back door of the car to climb out, Olivia said, "So, Violet still doesn't have a date for the dance."

I froze. Olivia's tone had gone from funny and joking to threatening just like that, at the change of a topic. How was it possible that it was Wednesday and Violet still hadn't worked up the nerve to ask someone? Didn't she know that Olivia and Candace wouldn't permit her to attend the dance alone? Going to the dance with girlfriends was fine for girls who weren't in the popular circle, but it was absolutely not going to be permitted among her own friends by the girl who was sure to be named Homecoming Queen.

"Has she mentioned anything to you about going by herself? I mean, I know she said she has a dress, but that would just be..." Candace trailed off, looking for the right word. "Pathetic."

I shook my head, wanting to distance myself from Violet's dateless state as much as possible. "No, she hasn't said a word," I claimed.

"Well, if she says anything, could you, like, discourage her from going to the dance alone? I mean, obviously she can do whatever she wants, but that would be really weird," Olivia said.

I let myself into my house through the back door with my keys feeling uneasy despite the fact that I knew Henry's interest in me would prevent any such conversations about me from being had behind my back. But I knew Olivia and Candace would have turned on me as quickly as they'd turned on Violet for any little reason. It was stressing me out to think about it, but it was becoming evident that having a real boyfriend was going to be more important in securing my popularity than even winning a Student Government election. Henry had only asked me to one measly dance; he'd given no indication of actually wanting to be my boyfriend.

Moxie limped over to the back door to greet me, her tail wagging, and I pet her and stepped out into the back yard with her to watch her stretch her legs. The sun was already setting even though it was barely seven o'clock, yet another reminder that summer had passed. Moxie's attention was captured by something in the far corner of our yard by the back fence, and I wondered if she'd have enough energy to play fetch with one of her chew toys in the yard.  I heard the Emorys' back door open, and felt what seemed like a bolt of electricity shoot through my body when I looked over the fence and saw Trey stepping outside carrying a can of cat food.

"Hey," he said unenthusiastically to me, crossing his yard to where we had seen the mother cat with her kittens under the bushes near the fence earlier in the week.

"Hi," I said, trying to sound as casual as he had sounded.

He disappeared as he crouched down to place the cat food beneath the azalea bushes, and I shifted uncomfortably, wanting to say more. "How are they doing?" I called over the fence, wishing I could cure myself of the desire to have Trey pay attention to me.

A moment passed before Trey stood up again and replied, "They're alright," he said, looking right at me over the fence. "One didn't make it that first night. But the other five are already getting kind of bigger."

I cringed. The thought of a kitten not living through its first night of life took my breath away with sorrow for a moment. Grief filled me, as familiar a sensation as hunger or sleepiness. "Which one?" I dared to ask, trying to visualize what the six little balls of fur had looked like on the night I'd seen them. The only kitten I remembered clearly was the fuzzy gray striped one, because Trey had singled it out for attention.

"One of the black ones," Trey said.

For a moment I wondered what Trey had done with its little furry body; presumably he hadn't left it beneath the bushes with the mother cat and the other kittens. I stopped myself from asking, though.

"That sucks," I said, my voice cracking a little. I hadn't realized I was so close to tears over the loss of a little cat that I'd never even touched.

Trey frowned for a few seconds, looking down at presumably where the mother cat was beneath the bushes, and then agreed, "Yeah."

 It wasn't quite dark out yet, but it almost was, and our solemn moment mourning the death of the kitten was punctuated by the early chirping of crickets.  The moon was already high in the evening sky, waxing that week, bright and almost full.

Trey looked over his shoulder toward his own house for a moment, and then quickly back at me. "That's weird," he said.

"What?"

"Do you feel that? It feels like someone is watching us."

I looked around, very aware in that instant that he was right. It did feel like someone was with us, watching us, just like it had felt in Olivia's basement the previous Friday night, when we had been playing Violet's game. I felt the little hairs on my forearms raise with goosebumps. The feeling was unnerving and made me wish that Trey and I were both at least on the same side of the fence.

"Yeah," I admitted. "I feel that, too."

Trey looked as if he was about to say something more, but then we both heard the engine of my mother's car and the flood of light from her headlights blasted the aluminum siding on the Emorys' house as she pulled into our driveway, country music playing on her stereo.

"See ya," Trey waved, dismissing himself at my mother's arrival. He returned back to his house through its back door, and I clapped my hands to summon Moxie.

"Moxie! Come on, girl," I called. My beloved old dog's ears perked when she heard me call her name, and she limped back toward me as quickly as she could in those days. Behind me, in the house, I heard Mom enter through the side door and set down paper bags on the kitchen table. A moment later she was behind me, poking her head out through the back door as I waited for Moxie to make her way across the back yard.

"Hey there," Mom greeted me. "I brought dinner home."

"Hamburgers," I said.

"How'd you guess?" Mom asked, genuinely surprised that I'd known.

"Just lucky," I told her.

Inside, she unpacked two foil-wrapped stinky sandwiches from the greasy white paper bag and set them down on the table while Moxie licked her lips and started whining. "Was that Trey you were talking to when I got home?" she asked.

I couldn't figure out why my mom was so eager to pair me up with Trey. Surely she saw what everyone else in town saw: a guy with smoldering eyes, a permanent scowl, and habit of wearing an army jacket every single day. Not exactly the kind of guy most moms would encourage their daughters to pursue.

"The Emorys' have kittens in their back yard," I said, dancing around the matter of my having been talking to Trey. "There were six, but one didn't make it."

"He could use a haircut, that Trey," my mother continued, blocking my attempt to change the subject and handing me a plate. "You and Jennie used to always play over at the Emorys' when you were little. They had that great swing set. Trey took you girls on the school bus for the first time when you started first grade."

I unwrapped my hamburger in silence, not wanting to remember back that far. I vaguely remembered the three of us in the Emorys' yard, pumping our legs on the swings, soaring higher and higher. Jennie used to say she wanted to touch the sky.

"I always used to think that one of you girls would marry Trey. The three of you were as thick as thieves back then. Mary Jane used to let that boy run wild. He absolutely would refuse to eat the crust on bread whenever he would stay here for lunch, because she always used to cut it off for him—"

"Mom," I interrupted her coldly. "I really don't want to think about it."

The words were out of my mouth before I thought them through, but they were accurate. I didn't want to remember. It was just too weird, made me too nostalgic, to remember back to what it was like to run up and down Martha Road with Jennie. We roamed the neighborhood during summers when we were kids, and the memories were flooding back of bicycles toppling over, skinned knees, hide and seek up and down the block, climbing over fences.

Mom made a serious matter out of squirting ketchup and mustard onto her burger and then setting the bun back on its top and patting it into place, trying to prepare her response for me with care. "I'm sorry, McKenna. It's just that time of year. As soon as the leaves start to change, I can't help but remember what things were like when you girls were little."

Choosing to ignore her, I handed Moxie a significant chunk of the meat from my burger. "I don't have a crush on Trey. So just... stop thinking we're going to get together. It's not gonna happen."

Later that night as I waited impatiently to fall asleep, all of my apprehension earlier that week about Violet and her strangeness had abandoned me, and my thoughts were completely devoted to Trey Emory. In both of my recent encounters with him, I hadn't thought to look closely enough to see what color his eyes were. Light, I was pretty sure. Green or blue? I couldn't recall. He hadn't been wearing the army jacket earlier that night, and I'd been so surprised to see him in the yard that I hadn't even noticed while we were talking. I was thinking about his biceps, how they had been a little more noticeable than I'd been expecting beneath his tight black t-shirt. I was wondering if he lifted weights, and if so, where, and why he went to such great lengths to hide his jacked arms beneath his ratty jacket.

I wasn't thinking about the fact that Olivia had found her dress, but still didn't have a pair of shoes for the dance.