But Caroline Mason didn’t want a new life.
She just wanted her old life back.
“What about Beth?” Lily pointed across the lunchroom with her fork. It was the first week of seventh grade.
“No,” said Erica. “Her sister’s in eighth grade here. What about Jessabel?”
Lily shook her head. Caroline knew Lily had a crush on Jessabel’s big brother.
“Maybe Caroline should pick,” offered Erica.
Caroline frowned. “Why?” she asked. “Why do we need to pick anyone?”
“It’s a new year, Car,” explained Lily. “We have to send a message. Tell the girls at Westgate that they don’t mess with Table Seven.”
“But they haven’t messed with Table Seven,” countered Caroline. “Not yet.”
Lily sighed dramatically. “You don’t get it.”
“No,” said Caroline, “I don’t.”
It wasn’t the first time Lily had singled someone out. She used to only go after girls if they did something to make her mad (back in the sixth grade, Lily had been horrible to a girl just because she’d hurt Caroline’s feelings). But this time seemed random, and Caroline didn’t like it.
“It’s preemptive,” explained Lily. “We send a message. By the time we’re done with whoever we pick, no one will want to take her place. No one will want to get on our bad side. Which means everyone will want to get on our good side. Do you understand now?”
Caroline didn’t. But she didn’t want to be on Lily’s bad side, either, and Lily and Erica were both giving her a you’re-with-us-or-against-us look, so she nodded, and tried to ignore the pit in her stomach.
“I know!” said Erica. “What about Whitney Abel?”
“Never heard of her,” said Lily.
“She’s new,” said Erica, pointing across the lunchroom.
A brown-haired girl was sitting at the edge of Table 11, but not talking to the other girls there. She stared down at her food.
“Her clothes don’t look new,” observed Lily.
“They’re not even hers. They’re used.”
Lily scrunched up her nose. “Gross.”
“It’s not her fault,” Caroline spoke up. “She’s here on scholarship.”
“How do you know?” challenged Lily.
Caroline shrugged. Her mom was on the school board, and when she found out about Whitney’s background — her dad was a single parent and had been laid off after Whitney was accepted to Westgate — she told Caroline to be nice.
“New schools are hard,” her mom had said. “And Whitney’s had a hard enough time already. Look out for her.”
“I think we should leave her alone,” Caroline told Lily.
“Overruled,” said Lily, daring Caroline to challenge her again.
And Caroline didn’t.
The house phone rang, jarring Caroline out of the memory. She imagined picking it up, and hearing Lily’s voice saying, “Whatever. This is stupid. Come sit with us tomorrow.”
Caroline went downstairs to see who it was. She could hear her mom on the phone in the kitchen, and knew it was just her dad calling from work.
“I noticed that Lily’s home,” Mrs. Mason said to Caroline when she hung up.
“I know,” said Caroline.
“Is everything okay between you two?”
“We’re fine.”
“She never comes over anymore,” pressed her mom. “Are you having a fight?”
A war, thought Caroline. An unfair, uneven, unwinnable war. She knew she should tell her mom what really happened to her uniform. And the ones before. She knew she should tell her — tell someone — about the silent treatment, and the other daily torments, and the way it all made her feel horrible and invisible and small. But she couldn’t. Because if she did, it would all be true, and there would be no going back, no making things right. It would be over.
“Caroline?” urged her mom.
“No,” she lied, forcing a thin smile. “Everything’s fine.”
Her mom gave her a long, searching look. “Why don’t you go outside? Get some fresh air.”
Caroline couldn’t say no, not without telling her mom why she was avoiding anything that might put her in contact with Lily. So she grabbed a book and trudged out onto the front porch.
Aria had waited until the lawn was empty and the students were gone. Then, when the coast was clear, she flickered back into form, letting out a sigh of relief at being visible again.
She did a quick check to make sure she was all there, but when she got to her charm bracelet, she stopped. Something was different. Something had changed. The second ring, the one where her new feather would go once Aria helped Caroline, was now two rings, linked together. Two rings and two girls. So it wasn’t a mistake. They both needed her help.
She looked down at her shadow. “What do I do?” she asked. “Who do I help first?”
Aria was prone to talking to her shadow because it was always there, and because now and again it answered in its own way.
After all, Aria’s shadow wasn’t an ordinary shadow, not by any stretch. It took her wherever she needed to go. Wherever she was supposed to be. Even if she didn’t know where that was, the shadow would.
She tapped her shoe on the ground, and the shadow gave a nervous wiggle, and then turned on like a light. Aria stepped through, and found herself no longer at Westgate, but on the sidewalk of a big, pretty street, in front of two houses. One was green and one was white, and each had a mailbox with a stenciled name. One said MASON and the other said PIERCE.
Caroline Mason and Lily Pierce.
They lived next door to each other. And Aria was standing halfway between them.
She frowned down at her shadow. “Some help you are,” she said.
There was a tug in her chest, as if a rope ran between her and the girls, but the girls were in opposite directions, and both were pulling Aria. She needed to make a decision. And judging by her shadow, she’d have to make it on her own.
Okay. Whatever had happened between Lily and Caroline, she reasoned, their problems were obviously intertwined. To help one, she’d have to help the other. But she’d found Caroline first, so she would start with her. After that, she’d figure out what to do about Lily.
Aria smiled.
It felt good to have a plan.
Just then, the front door on the green house banged open. Caroline walked out onto her front porch and slumped into a swing seat with a book.
Aria started toward her. Caroline didn’t seem to notice her coming. She was staring up at the sky, like her body was there but her mind was somewhere else.
There were two porch swings, and Aria sank silently into the one across from Caroline. She rocked it back and forth with her toes, hoping to get Caroline’s attention. When that failed, she finally said, “Hey.”
Caroline jumped and nearly fell out of her swing. “Aria?” she asked, straightening. “What are you doing here?”
Trying to help, thought Aria. But what she said was, “I was walking by and saw you out here, and thought I’d come say hi. And I know you said you didn’t want anyone to see me hanging out with you but A, we’re not at school and B, I don’t really care what people think.”
Caroline glanced next door. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Aria let the swing come to a stop. “Because of Lily?” she asked.
“Because of Lily,” admitted Caroline. “If she sees you, she’ll think we’re friends.”
Aria frowned. She’d always thought friends was the best thing you could be, but Caroline said it like it was a bad word. “I don’t mind.”
Caroline shook her head. “If you hang out with me, Lily will make your life miserable.”
“I doubt that,” said Aria with simple certainty. She’d never been miserable before. “And besides, not everyone’s afraid of Lily Pierce.”
“Name one girl who isn’t.”
“Me,” said Aria brightly.
Caroline rolled her eye
s. “Well, you’re new,” she said. “You don’t know better.”
Aria shrugged. “Maybe.” She paused, and then, carefully, said, “You two used to be friends, didn’t you?”
Caroline cringed. She drew her knees up onto the seat, and wrapped her arms around them. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“Okay,” said Aria. But she didn’t leave. She could tell that Caroline did want to talk about it — could see it swirling in her smoke — but she’d figured out that sometimes people just needed a little time.
And sure enough, after a few moments, Caroline broke the silence.
“Before you showed up,” she said, “I was thinking about how much I miss summer.”
Aria smiled. “I like summer,” she said. “Until I got to fall, it was my favorite season.”
Caroline looked at her like she was weird. Aria was getting used to that.
“Summer has the best constellations,” explained Caroline. “At night I’d lie out on my trampoline and look up at the stars. And during the day, Lily and I would sit by her pool or out here on the swings and drink lemonade and read magazines.” She wiped her eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This year was supposed to be perfect.”
Aria shook her head. “Nothing’s perfect.”
Caroline let out a small, stifled laugh.
“Why is Lily being mean to you?” Aria asked.
“To get back at me, I guess,” Caroline said after a moment.
“For what?”
Just then a car pulled up next door and honked. Over Caroline’s shoulder Aria saw Lily bob out the front door and down the steps of her house. She’d traded the uniform for jeans and a T-shirt. Erica and Whitney climbed out of the backseat of the car to meet her.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Lily. She threw a glance at Caroline and added, “Something totally smells.”
“Yeah,” chimed in Erica. “Someone should take out their trash.”
Whitney didn’t say anything, only stepped aside so Lily could climb in.
Caroline sat motionless. She was gripping the seat so hard her fingers looked white. Aria crossed to her, and sat beside her on the bench, and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Hey,” she said softly. “What happened between you two?”
Caroline swallowed hard. “You really want to know?”
Aria nodded. “I really do.”
“Okay,” said Caroline, looking up. “I’ll tell you. It happened in art….”
It happened in art.
All class, Caroline had a stomachache.
Lily and Erica kept exchanging glances. Caroline knew their plan. And she hated it. It didn’t seem right and it didn’t seem fair, and her mom’s words kept playing in her head.
Whitney’s had a hard enough time already. Look out for her.
“We’re doing her a favor,” Lily had said during lunch.
“Yeah,” Erica had chimed in. “After this, she’ll have to get herself some new clothes.”
Everyone was at their desks, painting different times of day, some dawn and others noon and others dusk. Lily had been painting a cloudy night, so the water in her plastic cup was bluish black. Erica had been painting a sunrise, but she’d used too much paint on purpose to make her water thick and gross, the colors swirling into brown.
Caroline had used as little paint as possible, and hardly rinsed her brush, so her water was still practically clear.
When it was time to clean up, Lily gathered up her cup and Erica’s — she passed over Caroline’s when she saw how clean it was — and made her way toward Whitney, who was still finishing her sky. She wasn’t even looking.
Look out for her.
At the last minute, Caroline stood up, and hurried toward Lily. She only wanted to stop her. It had taken her all class to work up the courage to do it — to think of what she wanted to say, about how this was stupid and wrong and they were better than it — and she reached Lily just in time, and grabbed her shoulder.
But Lily’s forward momentum made her stumble backward, away from Whitney and into Caroline. There was a splashing sound, followed by a shriek from Lily, and then the cups tumbled to the linoleum. Everyone turned to look, including Whitney.
When Lily spun on Caroline, the front of her uniform was covered in dirty water.
“What did you do that for?” growled Lily.
“I’m sorry,” said Caroline, eyes wide. “I was just trying to —”
“Girls, what’s going on?” asked Mr. Ferris.
“It was an accident,” said Caroline.
“Yeah, sure.” Lily wrung out her skirt, brownish water dripping to the floor.
Erica appeared at Lily’s shoulder with paper towels. When Caroline tried to help wipe Lily’s shirt, Lily shook her off. “It’s fine. Get off me.”
“You’d better go to Ms. Opeline and borrow a fresh uniform,” said the teacher.
Lily scowled at Caroline, then turned on her heel, and stormed out.
“It was an accident,” Caroline called after her, but Lily was already gone.
“So that’s why Lily turned against you?” Aria asked. Caroline nodded. “Why did she want to spill paint on Whitney?” pressed Aria.
Caroline explained about Lily’s plan, to pick a girl and make an example out of her.
“That’s horrible,” said Aria.
Caroline stared up. “I know. But it worked. Everyone wants to fit in. They want to belong. Be a part of something. I just wish,” she said under her breath. “I wish I could go back.”
“What would you do if you could?” challenged Aria. “Not stand up for Whitney? You did the right thing.”
Caroline felt ill. She’d told herself that over and over but it hadn’t helped. If it had been the right thing, then why was she being punished for it?
“I thought it would be okay,” she said. “I thought we would be okay. But everything changed. Lily didn’t come over after school that day, and she didn’t ride with me the next morning. And when I got to lunch, Whitney was sitting at Table Seven. In my spot. When I went to sit down, all three of them got up and just … walked away. Like I wasn’t even there.” Caroline felt her throat tighten. It was the first time she’d talked about what had happened with anyone. She didn’t know why she was telling Aria so much. But it felt good to talk. It felt good to have someone to talk to, and it was like once she started, she couldn’t stop.
“Does Whitney know what you did?” asked Aria.
Caroline shrugged. “I don’t think so. And she probably wouldn’t listen if I told her. She’s exactly where she wants to be. Where everyone wants to be. At the popular table.”
“Caroline!” called her mom from inside.
She sighed, and stood up. “I’ve got to go.”
Aria hopped off the swing. “Okay. See you at school.”
Caroline hesitated. She didn’t want to put Aria in Lily’s path. Aria claimed she didn’t care, but that was only because she didn’t know. But it felt so nice to have someone on her side. It made her feel less like a speck of space dust and more like a planet.
Aria was halfway down the stairs when she turned back and said, “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” asked Caroline.
“For telling me what happened.”
Caroline shrugged. “It doesn’t change anything.”
Aria smiled, the kind of smile that seemed to brighten the front yard. “It might.”
Aria got to the other side of the street before she realized that she had nowhere to go.
Gabby had lived in an apartment building with a nice flat roof for Aria to sleep on. But Caroline’s roof had points that didn’t look very inviting. The house itself looked like it had extra rooms, but Caroline would have to invite Aria in for her to use them. And since she just left, Aria felt kind of weird about going back.
“Where should I go now?” she asked the shadow at her feet. The shadow fidgete
d, trying to decide if Aria wanted it to take her somewhere, but she shook her head and said, “Never mind.”
She walked up to to a large tree, and sat down at its base to think. Even though the leaves were changing, the weather was warm enough to sleep outside. But Aria didn’t want to get caught, and she didn’t want to spend the night invisible, not if she had another option. She leaned her head back and took a deep breath.
Then she saw something up in the tree.
It looked like a house.
Aria raised a brow. She had never seen a house in a tree before, but there it was. At first she wondered if she had summoned it — it looked like it was held aloft by magic — but then she saw the branches supporting the floor, and the way the old planks were warped by age, and decided it had already been there. (It still seemed magical, though.)
A magical house for a magical girl, thought Aria with a smile.
There was a rope ladder hanging down, and Aria climbed up. The tree house had no door, only an opening in the floor, and a window between two makeshift walls. The wooden boards groaned under her feet, but the structure held steady.
“Hello?” she called out, even though the house was in fact only one room and she could see that it was empty. Still, it seemed polite to ask.
There was a beanbag in one corner, a shelf nailed to one of the rickety walls, and a couple of candy wrappers on the floor, but otherwise the space was bare. The air whistled through the planks of wood. Aria thought the place was perfect.
Her favorite thing about the tree house was the fact that it didn’t have a roof. The branches — full of leaves changing color — made a patchy covering, and past them, she could see the sky.
“This will do,” Aria said to her shadow.
She summoned up some pillows and sat down, then emptied the contents of the backpack she’d finally conjured onto the floor. She studied the handouts the front office had given her. Handouts on Westgate’s history, its reputation, on what to do, and what not to do, and how to dress (though it didn’t say anything about purple shoelaces), and how to be a model student. Handouts on clubs, and sports, and a flier for an upcoming dance with Eastgate, which was apparently the boys’ school down the road.