Often, Mira found herself imagining what the town’s only educational building would have been used for before opening its doors to rambunctious youths.

It was a valid debate. The school building was a whopping four stories tall with a broad, expansive length that took up a good majority of the Southern and Central border. Had they not been chipped and worn thin from their battles with sandstorms from the dry season, the concrete walls looked like they could have easily been cut from marble or some other fancy-looking stone. A tall flagpole was mounted into the ground to the right of cracked quartzite consisting of three levels, sectioned off by three sets of rusted iron bars that doubled as the pickup spot for parents and the hangout area for older kids who loitered waiting for their friends to walk home together.

This was where rumors circulated before the stories knocked on the bakery’s front door.

Despite its enormous width and intimidating stature, the school was sandwiched between a tall apartment complex of three stories—a rarity in a town as small as Chrome—on the right and a dusty old building that used to belong to a photographer on the left. The apartments were taken by three different old couples Mira often saw mingling on the front porch. Whether or not they were kind to the children passing by, though, depended solely on the day, the weather, and what direction the wind was blowing from.

But it wasn’t just the old-fashioned build of the school that piqued her interest; rather, the column stumps with their cracked bases on either side of the staircase made Mira’s gears turn with creative energy.

“Maybe they used it for Council meetings?” her friend Janie once offered on the walk to school one morning.

“Doubtful, Jane,” countered her other friend, Thalia. “Besides, what would they need that many floors for?”

“Maybe it didn’t always have four floors,” Mira had suggested. “They could’ve easily added the other two or three—plus, I always had a feeling that the third and fourth floor felt newer than the other two.”

“You only say that,” scoffed Thalia, “because the bathrooms don’t have nearly the same issues as the downstairs one.”

“And that, my good friend, is exactly the point.”

Now, Mira wandered the roads side-by-side with Magic, watching as the school came into clearer view. Trash cans littered the nearby alleys, accompanied by the sharp tang of old urine, feces, and the scattered, forgotten corpses of dead birds and rodents in various stages of decay. Garbage overflowed from the dumpster tops, and the crates left behind from the complex had made their way into the street. Usually, these boards were taken by other townsfolk looking to make a quick buck or repurpose the trash for themselves.

To Mira, that kind of endeavor served no purpose. It was all the same useless garbage, anyway. Why anyone would try and peck at the scraps made no sense to her.

Magic paused just in front of the steps beside her, one foot resting along the edge of the landing as he tipped his head back to take in the full view of the building. His fingers sought the sleeves of his shirt.

She glanced at him from her peripheral vision. “You okay?”

“I thought it would look …” He paused, pantomiming—still gripping his shirt sleeves for dear life—as he searched for the right word. “Different.”

“What do you mean ‘different,’ Mags?”

“Grander or something. I don’t know. I knew what it looked like, but I thought that seeing it in person now would be—”

A bird shrieked in the nearby alley, followed by a harsh yowl, startling them both; Mira jumped with a start, and Magic nearly stumbled, walking away from the steps. She grabbed her brother by the sleeve and led him towards the sound despite his protests. In the shadows of the backstreet, a raggedy-looking brown tabby with bent whiskers and a nicked left ear was crouched over a flailing quail, presumably sinking its teeth into the poor bird’s throat. When the prey animal stilled and the cat began to snack, it raised its head as though sensing the intrusion, staring with caution in its eyes, a deep green shade the color of a polished emerald.

A large grin spread across Mira’s face. Without a word, she dug into the nearest trash bins to see if she could find edible scraps for the feline. Magic gagged behind her, though she ignored it. Mira knew this cat; she’d been feeding the stray—which she’d dubbed Mabel—since she was a kitten. Mabel frequented the alley before the start of every school day, so Mira brought offerings to the cat on her way to the building each morning.

Today, the cat seemed to be in an ornery mood; she hissed and curled her tail defensively around herself and the tiny bird she’d begun to snack on as Mira approached with a pitiful shred of chicken in her hand.

“Unbelievable,” she scoffed, crouching in front of the tabby. “I feed you every day for the last year and a half, and this is the greeting I get? Ungrateful cat. You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” Magic mumbled, still a shade green in the face.

“I don’t. Not technically.” Mira dropped to the floor, holding onto the old poultry in her hand while she stroked the animal’s back through the annoyed grumbles and meows. “She isn’t really anyone’s cat, but I like to sit with her here since I can’t have one in the house because of Dad’s allergies. But this kinda lets me have a cat without actually having one. Come here.”

“I’d rather not be bitten today. Or ever, really.”

Before she could reply to her brother, the cat stretched forward, the quail carcass still wedged between her teeth. Mabel dropped it off at Mira’s feet before climbing into her lap, purring like a loud motor as she tentatively accepted the offering of old chicken.

Mira scratched the tabby between the ears, fur smooth and warm beneath her fingers. “She might be moody, but she’s never bitten or scratched me before. Really, it just depends on the day and how hungry she is. Kinda like you, Mags.”

Dirt exploded in a cloud to her left; her brother stared at her with an unamused scowl.

“Not necessary,” she coughed, rubbing at her eyes.

“Totally necessary,” he replied dully.

“Just come over here and pet her, Magic. She’s not gonna hurt you.”

Magic paced the alley several times, shoulders rounding as he sat himself down at a distance. “Does she have a name? Or is it something stupid. Like just ‘Cat’?”

“I considered something like that just for kicks—”

“Figures.”

“But I settled for ‘Mabel’ instead. I think it suits her. She’s got a cute little stripe pattern on her fur. Isn’t that right?” Mira turned her attention to the tabby nestled in her lap. Mabel ran her tongue along the sides of her jaw, yawning with satisfaction from her meal, the rumble of her purrs tangible on Mira’s legs. She pressed her lips to the top of the cat’s head, speaking as though she were talking to her youngest cousins in their infancy. “That’s what I thought. You’re a good girl, Mabel.”

Magic was silent for a while, digging his right thumb into the soil hard enough to leave an imprint, his others grasping at loose dirt to make a tiny mound. “Of all the names you could’ve given her, you picked a name that was similar to yours?”

It hadn’t occurred to her how similar ‘Mabel’ was to ‘Mira,’ but she’d been calling the cat this name for far too long to change it now. Besides, after this much time, she couldn’t picture calling the tabby by any other name. “It was the first one that came to mind. I did the same thing with her brothers, too.”

“You probably could’ve named her ‘Almond.’ She’s got the right shade of fur for it.”

Mira scoffed. “Implying she’s nuts, are we?”

Magic rolled his eyes. “Not nearly as nuts as you.”

She ignored his jab and shuffled closer with Mabel in tow. Magic tensed and backed away on both hands and feet. He didn’t get far; Mira snagged him by the shirt sleeve to anchor him as she brought the cat within his reach. His eyes, wide and swallowed whole by his pupils, went from her to Mabel, who seemed oblivious to everything. After a minute of inaction, Magic tentatively gave the tabby three quick pats on the head before placing his hands back in his lap.

A groan of frustration rumbled in Mira’s throat. “You don’t pet a cat like that, Mags. Here.” Grabbing his arm by the sleeve a second time, Mira brought Magic’s hand to Mabel’s back, demonstrating the motion for him several times before leaving him off on his own.

The movement was stiff, rigid. Over time, his expression changed from fear to curiosity, an odd contortion of fascination as though he’d never been within five feet of an animal—maybe more—in his life.

Pity caught like a string pulled taut in her chest. Had he never pet a dog before? Felt a bird’s talons poke along his skin as it perched on his arm or brushed through the tangle of a horse’s mane with his fingers? Mira never thought twice about these things. They were all a part of her daily routine when she was outside the house interacting with animals or making small talk with strangers.

She caught herself staring at Magic as his strokes along Mabel’s back became more fluid, natural, and slightly more confident.

What would her brother be capable of without fear?

It was a question that made its home inside of her brain every time they went out for errands—a question she desperately awaited the answer to once the headphones arrived.

Mira had gotten a glimpse of it now; Magic was captivated, silently moving from simple strokes to affectionate scratches beneath Mabel’s chin. The cat purred, loud and content. With a tiny smile, Mira abruptly lifted the feline from under her forearms. The tabby was displeased; she hissed and spat, back legs tucked all the way up to her belly, tail lashing from side to side in what Mira could only pin as annoyance. She held her forward. “Take her.”

A pallor swept along Magic’s face as he met her eyes. He held his hands out to dissuade her. “I don’t know how to hold a cat!”

“It’s just like holding a baby, Mags.”

“But I’ve never held a baby, either, Mira!”

“Just grab her from where I’m holding her, then tuck her into your chest before you put her on your lap. It’s simple.”

It was not.

Getting Mabel into Magic’s possession was a clumsy mess; Mira had to support the cat in ways she didn’t think she’d have to as her brother grabbed hold, pinching the feline’s skin by accident and recoiling when she yowled. After several failed attempts, he managed to get Mabel settled in his lap, watching in shock as the stray stood there, looked up at him, and curled on his legs.

Mira watched as Magic sat there with his hands held cautiously over Mabel’s back, as though he were expecting the cat to lash out or run away. When that proved not to be the case, he slowly and stiffly ran a hand along the tabby’s fur.

It didn’t take long for him to be at ease again, for his motions to be more relaxed. He rubbed Mabel’s head and ears, scratched at her chin and spoke to her in soft whispers as though she were a human child that would say something back to him, mimicking Mira’s own tone earlier—an observation that thoroughly impressed her.

Once Magic was comfortable enough with Mabel in his personal space, Mira stood, poking him on the shoulder to signal him to do the same. He wasn’t paying attention—he just continued babbling to the drowsy cat—but Mira went on with her plan, anyway. “Now, technically, animals aren’t allowed inside the building unless they’re approved by the school board, but since school isn’t ‘in session,’ would you want to bring Mabel with us while we’re inside? She might help keep you calm—kinda like right now.”

He stared up at her, eyes magnified from the angle of his lenses. He lifted a hand as if to protest but was interrupted by a noisy yawn from Mabel, who stood, stretched and rubbed the side of her face along his chest. Magic frowned—Mira wasn’t exactly sure which part of her idea annoyed him most—and rose to his feet. He clumsily took the cat in his arms, cradling her like a mother would an infant.

At least, that was what it might have looked like if Magic wasn’t wasn’t holding Mabel in all of the wrong places.

Despite the unusual position she was in, the tabby didn’t give any signs of distress. Instead, she only purred louder to which Mira grit her teeth and gave the cat an aggressive scratch beneath the chin. “I see how it is. You’ll throw a fit when I pick you up, but if Magic does it, that’s okay? He just met you, Mabel. Jeez, it’s like we aren’t friends anymore.”

Magic gently rubbed the bridge of the tabby’s nose. “Maybe she’s a good judge of character.”

“You’re a jerk, y’know that?”

“You’ve called me worse.”

“Can’t be any worse than what you’ve called me, but I take most of your insults in stride anyway.” Mira winked, ignoring his scoff of annoyance. She waved for him to follow her up the steps. “Since we’re bringing Mabel inside, I’m making her your responsibility.”

“Okay.”

“Because if the Headmistress finds out that a cat got into the building, she’ll have an aneurysm trying to figure out how that happened.”

“Okay.”

“And,” Mira added, breathless at the top of the steps, “if you get too overwhelmed, we can just sit somewhere with Mabel to give you a chance to relax. Stressing yourself out here will do nothing for you and it certainly won’t impress me.”

“Do you want to be impressed?” Magic asked, adjusting his hold on the cat.

“I want you to be comfortable, Magic. To hell with all the other stuff in between. Go at your own pace. Ready?”

The pale coating on Magic’s skin made him a ghoulish specter despite the amber flare of the sun. Mira gave him a thumbs-up, though she wasn’t sure how much it helped. He looked no better and said nothing as she pushed open the large wooden doors and walked into the lobby side-by-side with him.

The main lobby was a spacious room with a high, white-tiled ceiling, one large, lonely chandelier dangling precariously in its center. Banners and decorations designed by last years seniors still hung from corners of walls and adorned the middle of hallways. A corpse of an old balloon tree, stationed by the front desk, stood like a small weeping willow, its withered and limp hanging rubber from the festivities of graduation swaying with the breeze of the opening door. Bulletin boards on the wall were ripped clean, devoid of any posters or fliers, leaving only the porous cork beneath.

In the center of the lobby’s floor was a circular mural that made up Chrome’s seal, comprised of dark sandstone, pyrite, and black marble to encircle the image flown on flags and stamped on hot wax: a bird in flight with a long flowing tail shaded in bronze and gold carrying a pickaxe in its beak, the scorched red mountain range prominent at the back.

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Mira watched Magic carefully as he kicked it once, hard, with the toe of his shoe, the squeaking echoing in the empty building. His attention didn’t linger on it for long; his focus wandered from the ground to the small staircase ahead. “Where do the bottom ones go?” was the only thing he asked.

“That’s for the pre-elementary kids,” she replied, breathing a sigh of relief. “Once they reach Grade 1, they get to use the entire first floor. Their specials are also here since you couldn’t convince a six year-old—let alone a sixteen year-old—to climb up those hellish steps for specials.”

“Is it only specials on the second floor?”

“No, the second floor is for the middle school. The floor above that is for all of the special classes since they’re shared by both middle and high school. The top floor is ours.”

“So where do we eat?”

“First floor. We use the cafeteria down here and the elementary kids go downstairs to eat.”

Magic frowned. “I thought you said the younger kids were down here.”

“They are,” Mira replied, “but the school board and the Headmistress thought that, since most of the elementary kids have younger siblings, that it might be helpful keeping them together until they get to middle school. That said, there’s two cafeterias here: one for middle school and one for high school.”

Magic hugged Mabel closer to his chest and every nerve in Mira’s body went on high alert. She’d failed to recognize his emotional cues on the roof. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

Before Mira could say anything on the matter, he piped up. “This is a lot.”

“You need a minute?”

“No. I’m okay. We can keep going. Where are our classes?”

A small smile tugged at her mouth, though it was quickly discarded in favor of a grimace. At least he was handling all of the information well. “Fourth floor,” she said again. “We can walk up the steps and then sit when we get there since the climb will take some getting used to, but then after we break, we can go through the rest of your schedule.”

They scaled the steep stairwell, matching each other’s pace, footfalls echoing along the hallway of each tile, each step, each floor. Mira looked over her shoulder occasionally to check-in on Magic, who was staring at the ground while he walked. Whether he was focused on his feet or the cat against his chest, she wasn’t entirely sure, but he didn’t show any signs of distress along the way, so she considered that a win.

When they reached the top floor, high ceilings still waving banners that read “Congratulations Graduates” decorated in red, yellow and purple paint splatters, Mira leaned against the corner beside the stairwell while Magic sat on the steps, one leg propped up with Mabel nestled against his shoulder, the side of his face buried in fur as the tabby pawed at him. He was saying something, strings of repeating words and refrains, but Mira couldn’t make them out.

“Be careful with how you hold her, Mags,” she said, waving a hand in his direction. “You’ll squeeze her like that—see, she’s squirming. Loosen your grip a little.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t look at her; Magic’s attention was focused on the cat he was snuggling like a security blanket. He turned Mabel onto her back, cradling her like an infant, scratching her nose. The tabby tucked her legs to her belly and pawed playfully at his chin. “Sorry.”

“What do you think?”

“Large.”

“Large, like it’s just big?” Mira pressed. “Or large, ‘it scares me and it’s intimidating,’ large?”

“A little of the second.” He paused. “Maybe a lot of the second.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

Magic scowled. “Mira, don’t ask—”

“I know you don’t like that question, but I’m not looking for accuracy. We can piece it together as we go.”

Mira thought she spotted a hint of annoyance in her brother’s green and hazel eyes, a wariness as though he were assessing her words for danger, his strokes along Mabel’s fur slowing and growing in pressure. Unnecessarily guarded. She attributed it to stress.

“Do you want the short answer?” he finally said. “Or the long one?”

“Whichever one you think explains it best.”

“Short answer? Sick. Long answer? Being here makes my stomach hurt. But it’s weird, because even though I don’t feel okay, I don’t feel scared out of my skin either. Maybe it’s because being here is kinda familiar?”

“What do you mean, ‘familiar’?”

“I’ve been here before.”

Mira’s brows shot up. “Since when?!”

Magic gave his sister a side glance before turning his attention to the cat, as though he were telling Mabel the story and not her. “Mom told me. She mentioned it after I told her about our conversation on the roof. She said that she and Dad enrolled me when I was four before all of my other health problems popped up. They thought maybe I could make a few friends. Live my life.

“Mom said it didn’t work very well because the teachers said I didn’t get along with the other kids. Which I don’t remember. But apparently, there was one day where I wanted to be inside with the blocks by myself and another girl wanted to use them. I called her a name when she tried to take the blocks away from me and then she tripped me when I got up.

“I ended up breaking my arm,” he went on, snuggling the cat against him a little tighter. “I came back into the classroom with a cast. Mom says that the teacher told her that I spent the entire eight-week span with the cast being miserable in class because all the kids wanted to draw on it.”

Mira’s lips twitched into a grin; the pain that shot through her face wiped it off her mouth. She hadn’t thought her brother would’ve had the spine for doing something like that.

Based on the one-sided smirk on his face, as though fond of a memory he didn’t have, neither did he.

“And then later that year you figured out that your bones didn’t heal as fast as everyone else’s. That happened to me, too—except, I didn’t call a girl names and make her trip me.”

At that, Magic smiled. He faced her. “You never did tell me what your first broken bone was.”

“Right wrist.” Mira held it up, quickly twisting her wrist from side to side as though she were shaking an instrument for sound. “I was tugging on a jump rope with one of the other girls. She ended up so annoyed with me that she yanked the rope towards her and I fell forward onto my wrist and it broke. Didn’t heal for about nine weeks.”

Her brother hummed to himself, tapping his hand against the marble floor of the landing. A mischievous glint shimmered in his eyes. “So what I’m hearing is that we’re both stubborn little jerks?”

“You? Stubborn? I would have never guessed.”

Magic laughed, loud and dry, but genuine. He reached over to shove a hand into her knee—the only thing within reach. “Shut up.”

“Feeling a little better?”

She watched him open his mouth to reply, but Mabel let out a long, high-pitched meow, her head tilted backwards; Magic must have stopped petting her, because she batted at his face, which he caught gently between his fingers. “Probably, if someone wasn’t screaming in my ear.” He scratched the cat’s head, rubbing at her ears. Mabel purred. “Thank you very much.”

“Let’s go and find your classes, then. We can take our decompression breaks along the way if it gets to be a bit much for you. We can even take a look at your locker, too!”

The next hour was spent searching the high school floor for Magic’s assigned classrooms. To her delight, much of them were diagonally across from Mira’s—with the exception of his specials and their last period class, which gave Magic access to the stairs to give him a clearer path to leave the building undisturbed.

Together, they made a total of five laps: three to get acquainted with their location and another two to practice optimal routes to avoid the crowd if his grace period wasn’t enough to grant him safety in the halls. Mira didn’t want to consider that being a possibility, but she wanted to be absolutely positive that Magic had options to be safe.

After the fifth lap, they stopped by the stairwell closest to Magic’s locker, taking a break before adding it as an additional stop along the way. Located closer to his morning classes, Mira coached him on how to open the lock and, while he fumbled with getting the numbers to slide in the right place, it eventually sprung open. Magic placed Mabel down inside of it, watching as she paced the perimeter of the rectangular space, her tail swaying back and forth, neither impressed or annoyed by her surroundings. It was large enough for the cat to have slept and walked around comfortably with a companion.

Magic made a small noise that bordered on intrigued. “This is huge! You could almost fit a whole person in here.”

Mira raised a brow, nodding her head slowly. “It’s useful.”

“How many books do you get in a school year that you need this much space?”

“Not many,” she said, watching Magic reach inside to grab Mabel so that she was freed from the locker before he closed it. “It just so happens that freshmen usually come overloaded with supplies—not even their books that they’ll get in class—so the lockers are designed for that kinda space. Good for keeping your hands empty.”

“For fighting?”

“Don’t judge.”

“Not judging. Just making an observation.”

Mira rolled her eyes. “It’s good for other things, too. Hand holding. Hugging. Waving to friends. The more books I can keep out of my arms, the better.”

Magic’s brows furrowed, forehead crinkled with doubt. He said nothing aside from shrugging his shoulders with an exasperated sigh and walked over to the steps. As he situated himself underneath the handrail, Mira strided over, hands behind her back as she sat on the landing opposite him. “Tired?”

“Yeah. Aren’t you?”

“Not really. Little sore in the face, but not tired.”

Her brother looked down at the cat in his lap, rubbing the tabby’s ears between his fingers. “You should get that looked at before you get home.” His posture straightened. “Or, if you wanted to save the zirca coins, maybe I can help sew it?”

Without thinking, she placed a hand to her face, tenderly prodding at the skin surrounding the hole in her face, all warm and swollen beneath her touch. The last thing she wanted was for it to be infected but she doubted that Magic had nearly the right kind of material to close this kind of wound. That, and there was one other thing Magic had forgotten about. “It’s okay. The clinic can handle it. Besides, I don’t think you’d be able to stitch it shut, Mags.”

Magic puffed himself up, looking childishly indignant. “I’m good at what I do.”

“I’m not saying you’re bad at sewing. You’re a great tailor. But I don’t think you’d be comfortable enough touching my face to stitch it closed. I can’t even high five you, Mags.”

His lips pressed together into a solid line, white at the edges as though he were holding back pain. Mira took a breath and wrung her hands. “You’ve gotten a lot better,” she added quickly, “but I just don’t think you’re there yet. I do really appreciate the offer. The clinic can handle me just fine, Magic. Don’t worry about—”

Yowling echoed off the walls of the hallway; Mabel scrambled to her paws, fur bristling as Magic yanked his hands away, fingers curled to his palms. Mira was about to jump and scoop up the grouchy cat, but Mabel shook herself out and, with a dismissive twitch of her tail, stomped away from Magic and over to Mira, curling up on her legs instead.

Magic stared, too shocked to process the events. As realization slowly dawned on him, his shoulder rounded and she knew that he, too, felt the sharp sting of rejection.

She shouldn’t have done it. She knew she shouldn’t have found it funny.

But Mira couldn’t help it.

She cackled, hugging the cat to her chest as a bright scarlet flooded into Magic’s skin, highlighting his cheekbones, ears swathed in vivid red. He bunched himself into a ball as Mira continued to laugh. “Oh, don’t get upset, Magic! What did I tell you? Mabel’s a moody bitch sometimes!”

“She’s not being moody,” he mumbled. “I squeezed her ear by accident. Now she hates me. Go figure.”

“She doesn’t hate you, Magic,” Mira said, expression sobering. “If you give her some food, she’ll forget all about it. Speaking of, she might be hungry. It’s not like I gave her much and it looks like it’s kinda late out—”

Magic’s head snapped up. “What time is it?!” When Mira didn’t respond, he snagged the handrail and pushed to his feet. His fingers wiggled, sought his sleeves, gripped them hard.

“I don’t know.” She stood, looking down one of the hallways and out the window. “I don’t know. From what I can see, it looks like the sun is starting to set—”

“Mira, we need to go. We need to leave.” He pressed his hands against his chest, nearly grabbing around his neck, like he was choking. “I need to leave. I need to go home.”

Sudden realization dawned on her.

The factory bells.

Fuck.

Mira waved for Magic to follow her down the steps as she pressed Mabel against her chest despite the tabby’s loud meows and screams of protest. She should’ve paid attention. Should’ve kept a better eye on the sun through the windows. The two of them had gotten so caught up in finding the classes that she’d completely neglected to get him home on time.

And if he gets caught in the bells, that is your fault.

But in a few weeks, Magic would be free. Free from the bells. From being rushed home to deal with his panic in isolation. From the silent torment brought about by the noise.

There was a moment in time where her brother was in front of her on the steps and one where he wasn’t. Once Mira reached the large, wooden doors of the school, she hurled them open with her shoulder ignoring Mabel’s meow of surprise. A breeze rushed past her as Magic ran by and she followed him, gently tossing Mabel onto the floor with a silent promise to return with more food as a treat for keeping her brother calm in the building.

She got to Magic’s house just as he was fumbling with one of the spare keys, spitting curses under his breath. His shaking fingers were betraying him and Mira was about to yank the metal from his hands, but the lock clicked and the door opened. Magic poked his head inside. They must have made it with time to spare because his shoulders dropped and he leaned against the doorframe, sliding down it to sit on the floor, half in and half out of his house. Magic was breathing hard, face flushed with exhaustion and a few long black strands sticking to his face.

Mira supported herself with one hand on the house. Her mouth felt uncomfortably dry and she could have killed for some water—even juice. Something. But those seemed trivial considering what was more important at the moment. “How much time?”

“Eight minutes,” he huffed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah. Go for it.”

“Even with the headphones and my escape routes and … whatever else, how bad is it going to be? I want an honest answer without circles. Don’t lie to me.”

“It won’t be easy,” she said, taking a deep breath despite the aching in her ribs and side. “I’m going to get in touch with my friends tonight or tomorrow morning. See if they’ll help me keep an eye out for you since the headphones will single you out a bit more. Children of coal miners are easy targets.”

“I’m not a child of a coal miner anymore, Mira,” Magic said. The correction made her want to strangle him. “It’s not like my dad’s alive. But I’ll do my best not to bawl my eyes out about it in front of them.”

“If your goal is to trick me into thinking you’re not scared or worried about this, I got some news for you, buddy.”

Magic pushed to his feet. “Not working?”

“No. Not at all. There’s no amount of preparation that can prepare you for what they’ll do or say, but we can still keep our routine so that you’re comfortable in the building. That way, it’ll be familiar and you won’t have to worry about it.

“Once school starts,” she went on, “we can leave early in the morning so we can avoid being stared at by everyone else and we can even sit with Mabel in the alley before we head to class. We’ll even miss the crowds that way because no one in their right mind would want to be at school early.”

“Except you,” Magic pointed out.

“Except me. And you. And by then, my plan will be made and in motion.”

“You mean the plan that you haven’t figured out yet?”

Mira huffed, her curls bouncing along her exhale. “It will be. I’m not going to just leave you to drown, Mags, I promise. How much time do you have until the noises?”

Magic shrugged and looked back into his house. “Five minutes. I think my mom is listening to the radio in the sewing room.”

“Go sit with Amelia then. Block out the sounds. I don’t want you out here when they go off.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to be, either. Cowering in public isn’t a good look.”

There was no point in sugarcoating her annoyance. It left her mouth before she could take it back and tame it. “You won’t be doing that. Not when you get your shiny new headphones. Think about that when the noises are going off: all the great things you’ll be able to do with them.”

The look of hope in her brother’s eyes was unmistakable.

Whether he was too overwhelmed with the mere idea of being relinquished from this everyday hell or simply eager to hide away from the coal mining sirens, Magic nodded his head and waved her off as he closed the door. Mira saluted him with a wide grin, already running through the plans in her head.

Her feet walked her down the front porch. She’d need to go to Mister Oreson’s store to grab that extra meat for Mabel as a thank you, and then when she got back home, there was the matter of calling her friends—

“Mira!”

Mira whipped around. Magic was poking his head out of the doorway and her heart thudded in her chest. Why was he still by the door? He needed to be inside. She was going to have to look for him if he was still out here by the time the bells rang. That was the last thing she wanted. For both their sakes.

Go inside, she pleaded silently. Go inside the fucking house, Mags. “What?”

He fidgeted with his hands, which were swallowed by his sleeves, rubbing them against each other. She could just barely spot the wiggling of his fingers as though he were searching for words. As if sensing her anxiety, coupled with his own, Magic forced words out of mouth in broken, barely strung together thoughts. “I liked … It—the walk—I appreciated the walk. The school stuff. Today. All of it.”

I appreciated the walk.

A roundabout way of saying two simple words: thank you.

Despite the concerns, Mira smiled. “You don’t have to thank me, Mags. Head inside. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

With a tiny chuckle, Mira made her way back in the direction of the market as the front door slammed shut. The streets were emptying out. People had abandoned their porches in favor of cooking a hearty meal indoors. Her father was probably cleaning to prepare for closing time. She imagined Mister Oreson was doing the same, but he would still be open and generous enough, as he often was, to hand over the remainder of the meat to families for free to prevent it from spoiling.

As she reached the storekeeper’s front porch and placed a hand on the doorknob, sirens ripped through the air, loud and powerful as rolling thunder.