The pearly blue sky hung far above; cool water wrapped around my toes and fingers. Sun warmed my skin and made me feel all comfortable inside. If such a thing as happiness existed, this was about as close to it as I'd ever been.

"Mirah! Wake up!"

Something whizzed through the air toward me, and before I could open my eyes it had rocketed into the pool, splashing my face. I was so startled that I flipped the pool mat I was lounging on and fell into the water. All sound disappeared for a moment, and then I surfaced, wiping the water off my face. "Mel!" I sputtered in mock dismay. "I was just starting to dream!"

"We don't have time for dreaming. We've got to get going. Registration starts in fifteen."

I stared at the foam ball floating beside me, watched it bob in the crystal water for a moment, then sighed. I'd been sort of dreading the upcoming experience of high school registration. For as much as I'd been through, such a normal event shouldn't worry me, but the normalcy itself was the unsettling part. It's not as if I were normal, and I really couldn't ever be.

Barely five months had passed since I'd awoken in a juvenile detention center with no memory of my past. I hadn't known anything about myself--not what crime I'd supposedly committed, not any piece of my childhood, not even my own name. And even though I'd escaped that place, so much of who I was remained a mystery to me. Oh, I'd figured out some things I wished I hadn't, things like I might have been recruited by a crime ring and almost robbed a bank, that I'd witnessed a murder I shouldn't have and had my memory erased because of it. But no more had returned than that murder itself and what had happened afterward. I still couldn't recall anything about who I'd been before that murder, and at this point, I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to. It didn't make much sense to me, really--if that murder had been the only thing I shouldn't have remembered, why was it all gone? And if some of my memory had returned, why hadn't the rest of it? Truthfully, it was a lot to think about, but it was with me every second of every summery day that passed, regardless of my beautiful, luxurious surroundings, and so I guess it wasn't surprising that such a mundane task as going to high school unnerved me.

I'd spent three wonderful months of nothing at the Hineses' house since everything had happened. I watched television, ate junk food, slept in a comfortable bed, went shopping, swam in the pool—things so different from the frenzied life I'd lived before finding out my name, back when I was someone without one. But even with all the diversions, I could never remove the gnawing realization that this wasn't over for me, yet.

The Hines family was no longer as verbally grateful to me (or, I should say, the daughters weren't, as their mother rarely spoke to me), but they'd treated me like gold all summer. Ella and Mel had, truly, behaved almost as sisters would. Their gratitude was embarrassing at first, and I'd appreciated its waning. I'd helped their brother, of course, and that had all been good, but the truth of it was that I'd helped Jason for my sake more than for his--because I'd hoped I'd learn more about myself and about--well, about another person I cared about. So I'd been a lot more selfish than they realized in unearthing the truth about their father's murder. In short, Jason hadn't done it, though he'd been locked away for it. My one real memory proved he hadn't done it, and that had exonerated him. Of course they were grateful. Unfortunately, it hadn't helped me too much.

Still, they'd taken me in. As no record existed of who I was, the Hineses had felt obligated (and, I hoped, happy) to foster me until any sort of plan or information could be uncovered.

There'd been no movement on that. So here I was, getting ready to start high school--from one prison to the next, it seemed! Better to be a prisoner at a high school than at Oliphant, though, that was for sure.

"Mom was just watching the news—some more about the investigation at Oliphant was on."

Mel had practically read my train of thought. I climbed out of the pool and grabbed a towel. "Doesn't matter. They won't find anything else." Rectangle head—the boss whose name I hadn't ever known—had conveniently disappeared by the time authorities started looking into the juvenile detention center, and if anyone else had been accepting bribes from a crime ring, they had probably vanished, too.

"Yeah, but they're moving all the kids out of it, anyway."

"Thank goodness. That place was horrible." I shuddered to remember. "But where will everyone go?"

Mel shrugged. "No idea. Some other awful place, no doubt. I'm just glad we never have to think about that prison again. Let's get going. Hurry up and put on some clothes. I don't think you want your school yearbook photo of you in your swimsuit!" She laughed and headed back inside, and I followed, wrapping the towel around my lower half.

The sigh I let out was audible on purpose, although it didn't have to be; Mel already knew how I felt about registration. About going to high school, where I'd never feel right. I could never mask the monster that was my murky past; I held hope that it would all come out soon, but I had a feeling that whatever it was about, it wasn't going to be clean and pretty like the Hineses' house, and what then? Would they ditch me? Would any school want me, then?

Jason drove Mel and me to the posh private school they attended. Ella was away at college, and Jason was a senior this year. I'd had to take some placement tests over the summer, and with whatever knowledge I seemed to possess, it seemed I would fit best about sophomore or junior year. Since Mel was going into tenth grade, we decided that it'd be best to place me there, too.

Jason was different, after three months at home and weekly visits with a therapist. He was quiet, but not in the frightening, volatile way he'd been at Oliphant. It was more of a thoughtful silence, like he had a lot to think about. He'd get distracted often, even in the middle of conversations, and his sister or mother would have to snap him out of it. I personally didn't talk much to Jason; the only thing we had in common was the one thing we never wanted to discuss, so we didn't have much to say. He and Mel talked about simple things up front in the car, while I sat in back and just enjoyed the air conditioning. San Judo was hot in the summer.

The school building resembled a castle. I couldn't believe how big it was. If I'd thought the Hineses' house was big, well, this was about fifteen times its size. And it had turrets, really . . . like a real castle. The parking lot was about the size of a football field, and numerous other cars were parked or pulling in when we found our parking space. I ridiculously felt about as nervous as ever when I stepped out of that car and quietly followed Mel and Jason into the building. After everything I'd been through, you'd think that it would take a lot to scare me, so the feeling of dread invading my stomach embarrassed me. Nobody there knew anything about me; to them, I was just another student, and that was all I wanted to be. So why was I so anxious? We went through the routine of checking in and getting our pictures taken, signing up for a parking space and pass, and acquiring our schedules—all such normal stuff, and yet it felt foreign to me. I began to wonder if I ever had been in school before, because none of this felt familiar. Had I been a street kid all my life? When had the Circuit recruited me? Did I ever live with a family—a mother, a father . . . siblings . . . anyone? The only person I could remember feeling any closeness to was the one person that was probably farthest away from me—

I had to stop myself. I couldn't think about him. It led only to a black, cold place.

I was paying little attention to what was happening around me, but Mel and Jason had stopped to talk to someone, and suddenly my head cleared when I heard my name.

"Amirah, was it?" said a small white man, standing in front of me. He held out his hand, and I realized he wanted me to shake it.

"Oh, yes," I mumbled, realizing one of the Hineses had introduced me. I gave him my hand and he heartily shook it.

"Mr. Allen," said the man, grinning under his youthful facial hair. "I'm math, and math is me! I think you're on my roster this year."

I gave a slight smile. What was I supposed to say?

Thankfully, the man turned to Jason and clutched his hand. He got all serious. "So glad to hear of your exoneration. So glad. I hope you know that."

"Thanks, coach," Jason replied, and then Mr. Allen was on his way.

"That's Mr. Allen," Mel reconfirmed. "He's awesome. I hate math, but everybody loves him. He's the best." I glanced at Jason. "Oh," Mel chirped, "and he coaches track. Come on, now. Let's go find our lockers!"

She was practically giddy, and I wished some of her joy would overflow into me, but I just couldn't get myself excited the way she could. We found our lockers in a faraway hall (everything felt far away in that immense building), and after about five unsuccessful attempts at opening her locker, Mel began to kick it in frustration. We'd been given these little cards with our locker numbers and combinations on them, and she began insisting that they must have given her the wrong information. "We'll just have to go back downstairs," she exclaimed with an enormous huff.

"No way!" I cried. "I am not going to stand in that line again! Let me try." I snatched her card and tried the combination several times, to no avail. She was right. The numbers were wrong.

"Mirah, come on. I know it's annoying, but whatever."

I ignored her; something had kicked in inside of me, and I was crouching on the floor with my ear against the locker, next to the built-in lock. It was digital, this being a rather high-end school, and I was listening to the whisper of digits before I even knew what I was doing. Click-click-click . . . the sounds of little parts shifting into place were like the notes of a familiar music box.

"What are you doing?"

"Shh!" Click . . . wait for it . . . thunk. "There!" I lifted the latch, and the locker popped open, just as I expected it would. "You're right. The numbers are way off. It's one, seven, seven, five—not two, seven, eight, two."

It was only when I looked at Mel's astonished face that I realized what I'd just done wasn't normal. Wherever I'd gotten the talent to "speak" to digitized devices, I didn't know; I'd discovered it when with the Circuit. Somewhat sheepishly, I shrugged and walked past her.

"Oh look! There's my locker. Let me see if my combination is right." And, happily, it was.

That night, I lay in my bed unable to sleep. I had been given one of the three guest rooms in the house, and Mrs. Hines had originally said that I could "make it my own," but I had no belongings or notion of what I liked, so I hadn't done much more than sleep in the bed and fill a drawer with some new clothes. The room itself wasn't crazy big—not like Mel's room, which had a walk-in-closet half the size of my guest room—and it was decorated all in shades of blue, so on a moonless night like this one, the room was quite dark. Even the skylight, which normally showed an array of comforting stars, was black. It was during late, starless hours like these that I wished I could erase everything else in my head, just so I could get to some dreamless sleep.

But this whole idea of school, of going somewhere every day and pretending like I was some regular person with the same ambitions as the others, was preying on my thoughts. It wasn't that I thought I was better than them—like I had some amazing life that just could never mesh with theirs. It was more that anything and everything I participated in at any sort of school would be fake. I could never forget the things I'd done and seen, no matter how hard I tried. And I told myself that I had tried, very hard . . . Jason's therapist had offered to work with me, too, and it had only taken about twenty minutes of sitting with him to make me realize that, deep down, I didn't want to forget. I never wanted to forget him.

No! I had to stop myself again. But how? I was so alone, and it was so quiet. I began humming some song I'd heard in the car, just to try to occupy it. I couldn't let my mind return to that place of eternal questions and no answers. It left me angry and anxious.

The humming wasn't working. Throwing my blankets off, I got up and turned on the lamp. Then, I began pacing in my room, just walking around the bed, to the door, to the window, wherever my feet took me, and I rubbed my head, my eyes, my arms--anything to get my mind cleared. School! I'd think of that! Though it was distasteful, it was preferable to the alternative. Nights like these happened more often than I admitted to Mel. I was sleepless more nights than I could count.

A faint knock on my door startled me just as I was beginning to memorize the classes and teacher names on my schedule. At first, I jumped back in bed, thinking it might be Mrs. Hines, and for as kind as she'd been to take me in, there'd always been a weird distance between us. But when I heard Mel's voice say something and the door opened, I relaxed and sat up again. "What?"

"It's me," Mel repeated. "I . . . I need to tell you something."

She looked concerned, which surprised me. Mel pretty much never looked concerned, these days. "Everything okay?" My thoughts jumped to Jason for some reason. I guess because I knew too much about his potential for violence.

"It's Old Lisa."

The name brought up a lot of emotions, but nothing too personal. Old Lisa had helped me when I'd been looking for answers; apparently he'd been working undercover, trying to figure out what was going on with kids going missing. I knew he'd been talking to Mel and Ella, too, when they thought all was lost for their brother. But I hadn't seen or heard from him since everything had happened last May.

"He's dead. My mom told me earlier, and I haven't been able to sleep because of it."

My expression didn't change, as Mel made clear.

"Dead, Mirah! Did you hear what I said?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but . . . I don't mean to sound rude, but why are you so upset about it? We haven't had any contact with him in a long time. It's not like we knew him that well, anyway. People die all the time."

She sighed. "It's not just that. It's . . . it's how.

I didn't ask her what she meant—I didn't want to know. Old Lisa had helped me once; he'd been kind. But Mel seemed determined to go on.

"It was like putting a puzzle back together—pieces of him were everywhere. Small pieces. My mom said they probably took their time in killing him . . . you know, to get information out of him."

"Stop, Mel. I don't want to hear about it."

"But doesn't it freak you out? I mean, what if . . . what if someone thinks we had something to do with him?"

"We did."

"What if they come after us?"

"They might."

Mel gasped. "You aren't making me feel any better!"

"You're the one who started this conversation!" I sighed, forced myself to smile. I wasn't really trying to argue with her. "I'm just being realistic."

She pursed her mouth. Every time she did that, she reminded me of an old lady, and I had to laugh a little. Mel was actually what most people would think cute. She had long blonde hair and deep brown eyes that, large in her round face, made her appear some charming little animal. Like a puppy, maybe.

"Listen," I changed tones. "I actually think we're pretty safe, here. You've got the best security system money can buy, right? Even better with the cameras your mom recently installed. And I think that with everything that's happened, the Circuit would be idiots to come after your family again. As far as I can guess, they all left San Judo, and I bet they're probably trying to lay low."

"Then why murder Old Lisa like that?"

"How do you know it was them? Maybe someone else had a grudge. I mean, who knows?"

Mel stared at my comforter, bunched it into little mountains with her hands. "But it's so freaky--how they did it."

I couldn't disagree with that one. "Obviously they met their goal."

She looked up at me. "What do you mean?"

"Well, people that kill like that--they want to scare other people. And you and I are both scared right now, right?"

"You are, really?" Mel gave me a small animal look.

I returned it with a grim expression, leaned a bit closer to her, and said quietly, honestly, "Always."

"Thanks, Amirah." She gave my arm a squeeze and slipped back out of my room to head back to bed.

I sat there in the soft glow of my lamp for a few moments, wondering. Not so much about Old Lisa, because his demise hadn't really surprised me as much as it had shocked Mel. No, I thought more about what she'd called me. "Amirah." No matter how many times I heard my name, no matter how many times I saw it in writing, I'd never felt like Amirah. I didn't know who I felt like, honestly, but it wasn't her. And yet I'd been given that name from a strange and short memory. "What's her name then?" the voice in my mind had asked. Then, "Looks like Amirah."

I'd yet to feel linked to that name. Was I her? Was she me?

I still didn't know.