She left the house with nothing other than a knowing glance to her father, who simply nodded his head and returned to work with the smallest smile on his face.

The walk from the northern side of town to the southern side, which normally dragged, was quick. Time, as if understanding Mira’s sense of urgency, seemed to part for her. She made her way blissfully through town, ignoring or waving to some of her classmates who were taking full advantage of their ending summer days before they were forced back into the monotony of a schedule. Some greeted her with smiles. Others turned away or looked at the floor. A select few whistled from their front porches.

One voice in particular scraped against her eardrums like a grater shredding an uncooperative block of cheese.

“Where ya goin’, Arbesque?” shouted Mason Lonsdale, an incoming junior who acted older and tougher than he was. A puny kid, not too much taller than Mira herself, Mason had an ego the size of the groaning wooden watchtower he leaned against. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for younger kids to have an inflated sense of self, but Mira figured that was just what happened when you spent too much time with arrogant seniors who thought they were better than everyone.

She twirled and paused, taking in the sight of Mason on one of the prongs of the tower. The rotted plank curled beneath his weight, splinters poking from its arc. Mira half considered approaching just to kick the wood in and finish the job, but she knew Mason was looking to rile her for a response, so she stayed where she was. “What’s it matter to you?” she asked, tilting her head. “I go everywhere in this town. Not like that’s a shock to anyone.”

The boy shrugged. “I’m nosy. Just who I am. I like knowing what people are doing.”

“Interesting.”

“Don’t start, Arbesque. If anyone’s a gossip runner in this town, it’s you.”

“Being a gossip runner would imply that I spread it around.” Mira crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin, squinting. The angle of the sun irritated her eyes. “The difference is that I just like to have my fill of it and move on.”

“Once a rat, always a rat.” Mason bounced on his heels, oblivious to the creaking of the wood beneath. “What difference does it make whether you spread it around or not? You still get the same information and you still look for it. Still the same shit.”

“Big talk, coming from someone who eats up rumors like a buffet.”

The boy stopped, pouted. “You must think you’re something special, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t think, Mason. I know I am. I’m a joy to be around.”

“Must be why the ghosts love you so much.”

Mira stood straighter, clenching her fists behind her back. It was such a low blow. She knew it, too, but it didn’t make her any less angry. Biting the inside of her cheek with the left side of her jaw, her words came out carefully. “Just be glad it isn’t your grave I’m visiting. Otherwise, I’d desecrate it with the hair from your head, courtesy of the worst shears known to man.” Mason’s face blew up, red and purple near his temples. She backed away with a mocking bow, complete with a curtsy as she turned to walk away. “Consider it an honor that I have such wonderful restraint.”

“Fuck off, gravekeeper,” he muttered.

“Find some color in your words, would you?” she called over her shoulder, masking her rising temper. “At least be creative when you insult me.”

Mason grumbled in the distance, audible until she reached the market stands a few feet away. Mira passed by some of her other peers who called out to her with similar insults, but she tuned it out like the mumbled garbage they were.

It took her the usual hour to arrive at Magic’s house. Climbing the wooden porch steps, she spotted the slight disarray of the outside plants. Amelia was always very specific about which pots were where. The large one was on the right side of the door, a slightly smaller one to its right while an even tinier one sat opposite them. Now, the largest plant was haphazardly shuffled in front of the door, the smaller plants tilted as though misplaced in a rush. Magic had told her that they kept the spare house key in the plants, but refused to tell her which one, so perhaps Amelia was just rotating the position of the key.

Mira knocked on the door with her usual and the door handle rattled. She jumped back. Oddly prompt, the door clicked and unlocked, prying itself open as though moved by a psychic force. From where she stood, parts of the house’s interior were visible. Mira could see parts of the couch, the old wooden table and its tiny chipped corners. The burnished oak wall, which was darker in some spots than it was in others. The tiled poles that acted as a foundation for the upper level. She held onto the door, peering into the living room.

The lights were on, but no one was there.

Mira knocked on the door, keeping it in place. “Magic?” she called. “Mags? Are you there?”

“Yes,” came a rasp. It hardly sounded human.

Peering around the barrier, she found Magic pressed against the wall closest to the door’s hinges, gasping as though he were being strangled. His shoulders trembled, rapidly rising and falling in time with his wheezes. It was a ghoulish sight—Mira hated admitting it, but his skin was pale, knuckles white from the force he was applying on the wall and his hair, which had a greasy shine to it, fell in front of his face like a veil.

She didn’t ask any questions, only invited herself in and speed walked to the kitchen. She snagged a tall glass from the cabinets and ran the tap, filling it close to the rim before she returned to her brother, holding it to his face. Magic’s hands fumbled, too shaky to hold the cup correctly, so Mira pressed it to his lips and tilted it from the bottom.

“Slowly,” she advised, coaching him out of greedy gulps that cause him to sputter and cough back into the glass. “Drink the water slowly, Magic. Breathe through your nose. You’re panicking about something, but I can’t help you if you don’t breathe. Once you’re calm enough, you can take the glass yourself. Until then, I’ll take care of it.”

Magic mumbled something into the rim of the cup in acknowledgement and they sat in silence with the occasional heavy breathing that echoed inside the glass. He didn’t look at her; his eyes were squeezed shut and when he finally had the courage to open them—first one, then the other—Magic gently nudged her fingers away from the cup with his arm, taking hold of it as she stepped back. For a while, Mira watched him stare at the floor, focusing either on the tiles beneath his feet or his warped reflection in the glass. His eyes slid up until he was looking straight ahead, but the second he caught her gaze, they darted away.

She pretended not to notice. Instead, Mira took a look around the house. It was clean, the only mess being a leftover plate on the kitchen table. The grandfather clock further beyond, nestled between two cabinets in the back of the living room, ticked endlessly. The minute hand struck twelve, but no sound accompanied the two o’clock hour; the gold pendulum at its base just continued its lazy sway from side to side.

And there was not a single sign of Amelia.

There was no commotion or the sound of boiling water from the side room of the house. It was empty, aside from her brother. Mira frowned. “Where’s Amelia, Magic?”

“West Grimmshollow,” he croaked, trying to find his voice. “Errands. Running errands.” The glass cup bumped into her arm and she glanced over at Magic, relieved to find him a little steadier, but he still looked like a mess. She took it from him and glanced over her shoulder several times as she went to put it away in the sink. “She’s not here because I told her she could go; she wasn’t going to, but I told her she could. I promised her I’d do it.”

“Huh?”

“She asked me if I needed her to go with me and I told her I could do it myself!”

“I don’t understand,” she called from the kitchen, making her way back, “what are you trying to do by yourself?”

A loud thump was her only answer. Mira quickened her pace as Magic tossed the back of his head into the wall. Her question frustrated him for reasons well beyond her; he grabbed at his hair and began to tug, wincing. “Magic, stop.” Mira seized his shirt sleeve, quickly moving to pry his hands away. “Stop that. What are you trying to do by yourself, Magic?”

“Building,” he stammered, “the big—the gray one. The big square building. The tall one. I promised her I’d go by myself.”

“The big, gray, square building?” she echoed. “The school building?”

Magic managed a nod. “I promised …”

“Well, I don’t imagine you’ll be getting very far at the moment.” Her gaze traveled to his wobbly knees, one of which buckled a little, forcing him to tilt to one side. Mira snagged him from under the arm; he raised a hand to swat her away, but paused as if briefly remembering himself. “You are going to faint hyperventilating like you are. Just take a couple of deep breaths and maybe we can sit outside on the—”

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“Don’t coddle me—”

“I’m not here to coddle you—” she started.

“I want to go—”

“And if you do go,” Mira hissed, at her wits end, “you will faint before you even make it down the porch. If I remember correctly, you wanted me here. Don’t push me away because you’re scared, Mags.”

“I’m not scared.”

“That’s not what I see. Sit with me outside for now and we’ll take it from there. Rushing into … whatever you’re trying to do at the school is only going to make you feel worse. Take a step back, calm yourself down, and then we can figure out what the hell is going on. Together.”

Magic groaned and knocked his head back into the wall—or, rather, he would have if Mira hadn’t let go of his hands and shielded him. Pain radiated through her fingers and knuckles; she wondered if he knew he was liable to give himself a concussion if he kept this up, but didn’t want to press the possibility of an injury on him while he flared, so she kept her mouth shut.

Without a single word, Mira ushered him out of the house. Magic muttered and cursed under his breath in unintelligible strings. Aside from his complaints, Mira was shocked at how well—albeit grudgingly—Magic accepted her help. He didn’t fight with her, didn’t push her away, didn’t bite back with snarky insults or jabs. He just plopped himself down on the porch steps, pushing himself as far as he could into the spaces between the railings, seizing the poles with a vice grip. Mira sat down silently on the far right, putting as much space between them as possible.

She observed him in silence, waiting for him to speak first. The hunch of his back accentuated the curve of his spine despite his baggy clothing and his ink black hair shielded the sides of his face like blackout curtains. His hold moved to the railing banister just above him and she spotted gauze wrapped neatly around the center of both his palms. Mira didn’t know when he could’ve possibly injured himself, if they were new or just remnants from the last week, where he’d torn them apart on the florist shop roof, but the sight sent a sharp pain into her chest.

Even under the shine of the afternoon sun, Magic looked … unwell? Vulnerable? Mira wasn’t sure what the right word would have been to describe her brother, but his posture lost the rigid, flaring temper he had moments ago, replaced with something softer.

“I think,” Magic started after an agonizing ten minutes of silence, “I think I am scared. I don’t know if that’s the right word for it though. Doesn’t feel like it is.”

“Does it have anything to do with what you promised Amelia?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I feel like it’s a lot of things. That’s one of them, though.” He turned to look at her with puppy-like eyes, as if he were asking for permission to continue. Mira nodded, pantomiming for him to go on. “I decided on my own after I talked to my mom about it all that I wanted to be at school. I saw it in her eyes with the way they got wider that she was really happy. Like, really happy. Didn’t last long. Because then she frowned and wanted to know if I was sure. If I was absolutely positive that I wanted to go and I told her that she didn’t have to worry and I told her everything you told me about the school being open for the schedules and stuff.

“But then after that,” he said, “my mom went and called the Headmistress. She asked if I wanted to talk to her on the phone. I told her that my stomach hurt and I wasn’t comfortable doing that. She told me it was fine and she’d do it herself. Then, she invited me to go with her when she met with the teachers because they’d give me my schedule then and we could go over it. But I still didn’t … I didn’t feel right. I don’t know, Mira. She even offered to go with me yesterday instead of buying the stuff we needed for the week, so I told her that it was okay and that I could do it by myself. That she didn’t have to sideline what we needed just to babysit me.”

Mira raised a brow, keeping quiet to give him more of an opportunity to speak, but when he said nothing, his jaw twitching back and forth, she nudged the conversation again. “Did you? Did you go to the school building yesterday?”

Through the gaps between his strands of hair, she watched his eyes close. “No,” he whispered. “I couldn’t get past the front door. And I couldn’t tell her the truth, so I pretended I did.”

Briefly, she recalled the hurried rearrangement of the plants by the door.

I don’t think it’s the school that’s the problem.

“You didn’t see her face when she asked if I wanted her company, Mira,” Magic went on, clearing his throat to remove the waver in it. It wasn’t successful. Mira did her best to ignore it. “You didn’t hear what she sounded like. That’s why I wanted to tell her I could do it by myself. And then when I tried to do it yesterday and earlier today, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Breathing was hard, my chest was aching and I ran back to my room. I stared at the ceiling from my bed for three hours until I couldn’t take the rock in my stomach anymore and called you.”

Mira frowned, propping one of her legs up. “What do you mean by ‘rock,’ Mags?”

“Like food when it doesn’t agree with you. It was downright agonizing. My stomach kept doing flips and it was so uncomfortable.”

Guilt.

Or maybe it was shame. Either way, his inability to act on his promise was clearly upsetting him. Mira pivoted so that she was facing him. Something was gnawing at her. “Why did you wait so long to tell me about all of this?”

“Slipped my mind.”

“I don’t think it did, Magic. You’ve got too good a memory for something like that. Why did you wait?”

Magic wrung his hands. “Because I needed to do it by myself. You don’t get it, Mira, I had to do it by myself. I told her—I promised her that I could before she left … but I don’t think she believed me. I want to hope that she did. Because if Mom doesn’t think I can do it on my own, then …” He trailed off, gripping onto his own hands with such force his nails whitened. His voice squeaked when he spoke again. “I don’t know. Forget it all. I can’t find the words.”

“You know what you want to say,” Mira said, leaning forward, “you just don’t know how to word it. No harm in that. That just means you’re more careful with what you say.”

He nodded, silent, pained.

“Can you look at me, Magic?”

Her request was ignored; Magic resorted to rubbing his hair between his index finger and thumb, gripping the bridge of his glasses with the other hand.

I don’t think it’s the school that’s the problem.

“Are you worried that if Amelia doesn’t think you’re confident enough, then neither will the other kids? That they’ll think you’re weak?”

“Not just them.” He took the eyewear off his face, delicately rubbing the lenses with the edge of his shirt. Magic handled it with grace, making gentle circular strokes along the glass. The longer he stared at them, the more Mira realized what his real worry was.

“Are you afraid that Bennett would think you’re weak?”

He placed the glasses back onto his face with a slow nod. “Mom. Dad … Benji … You.”

Mira felt her chest tighten. How poorly did Magic think of his own failures to be paranoid over these thoughts for nearly four straight days and not say a word? How poorly did he think of his family—both of them?

“I’m … nervous?” He sounded like he was testing the word aloud to determine if it suited his purpose. Somewhat satisfied, he nodded and continued. “Nervous about being in the school with the other kids and it makes it hard … to leave the house, I think. I don’t want their attention. It doesn’t make sense.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having company, Magic. It’s no different from us running errands together. Makes it less of a chore, anyway.”

“Right,” Magic scoffed, his tone abrasive as ever. It felt accusatory. “Because my charming wit really enhances the conversation. Don’t be stupid, I know that’s not the reason why you come with me to the market.”

“Mags—”

“You can say it to my face, Mira. It isn’t a secret. I can’t run errands on my own. I can’t go near the shops, let alone in them. The shops that even bother to care are open far beyond their regular hours just so that we can go there in the evening. They shouldn’t have to be.” He knocked his forehead against his knees. If he was trying to shield his face to hide his tears, it wasn’t working. Mira could hear it in his voice. “I can’t do basic shit on my own without a crutch. Everyone knows it—you and Benji know it—and it’s embarrassing. And it makes everything so much worse because then Mom feels like she has to be home to go places with me...”

Mira drew her brows together, unable to hide her frown. “People walk in pairs and groups around town all the time, Mags. It really isn’t that big of a deal—”

“To you.” Magic looked at her without turning his head, sunlight glinting in the hazel of his eye. “It isn’t that big of a deal to you. Do you know why it isn’t? Because you don’t have my problems. You don’t freak out like I do. It isn’t a big deal to you because you can already do stuff like this. I can’t. So it is a big deal. To me.”

Clasping her hands together, she leaned forward, resting her chin on them. For once, Mira found herself speechless. “I … didn’t think about it that way. Sorry.”

He shrugged, fidgeting with his glasses. “It’s okay.”

“So what do you want to do about it all?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would it help if you talked it all out?”

Magic turned to face her, face encased in shadow. The rays of light seemed to be completely absorbed by his hair, black as night with a slight shine. “I still want to go to the school building … I’m just too scared to go by myself. And I don’t want it to look that way in front of the other kids in town.”

“So then we treat it like one of our normal errands,” she suggested. “Just another day out in the town. We can even stop by for a snack or something. I’m sure Mister Oreson wouldn’t mind getting a visit to his store.”

“Just another day in town,” he echoed, looking both ways down the street. “Okay … What are we gonna do about the other kids, though?”

“Don’t worry about them.” Mira balled her fists and planted them on her hips. “I can handle them—in and out of the school building. I have a plan for it but for now, just treat the kids if we see them like a song on your old radio.”

Magic squinted. “You mean like background noise?”

A dazzling grin widened on her face. “Exactly like background noise.”