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Prologue

For I shall learn from flower and leaf

That color every drop they hold,

To change the lifeless wine of grief

To living gold

--Sara Teasdale, "Alchemy"

The tree wo Most of her leaves had already fallen, but those re her back She pulled her roots up fro hairy tendrils that flinched in the chill late autumn air

An iron fence had surrounded her trunk for years, the stink of the metal as faed her roots over it She tuhts filling with pain

A huainst the brick wall of a building A taxi screeched to a halt and blared its horn

Long branches tipped over a bottle as the tree woman scralass as it rolled into the street, watching the dregs of bitter poison drip out of the neck, seeing the familiar scrawl on the little strip of paper secured ax The contents of that bottle should have been a tonic, not the instruain

One of the dogs started barking

The tree wo her breath and befuddling her She had been crawling soreen patches, like bruises, bloo her trunk

"Ravus," the tree wo "Ravus"

Chapter 1

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the saet somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

--Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Valerie Russell felt so cold touch the s Her slap connected with flesh A can of soda hit the concrete floor of the locker roo as it pooled Other girls looked up frole

Hands raised in hed "Just a joke, Princess Badass of Badassia"

"Sorry," Val forced herself to say, but the sudden surprise of anger hadn’t entirely dissipated and she felt like an idiot "What are you doing down here? I thought being near sweat gave you hives"

Ruth sat down on a green bench, looking exotic in a vintage s velvet skirt Ruth’s broere thin pencil lines, her eyes outlined with black kohl and red shadow that lossy black, paler at the roots and threaded with purple braids She took a deep drag on her clove cigarette and blew smoke in the direction of one of Val’s teammates "Only my oeat"

Val rolled her own eyes, but she smiled She had to admit it was a fantastic response Val and Ruth had been friends forever, for so long that Val was used to being the overshadowed one, the "normal" one, the one who set up the witty one-liners, not the one who delivered them She liked that role; it made her feel safe Robin to Ruth’s Batman Chewbacca to her Han Solo

Val leaned down to kick off her sneakers and saw herself in the s out fro her own hair since the fifth grade, first in colors you could buy in boxes at the superreen and poodle pink, but Val had only dyed her hair once It had been a store-bought auburn; just darker and richer than her own pale color, but it had gotten her grounded anyway Back then, herto show that she was growing up Moet a bra, didn’t want her to wear short skirts, and didn’t want her dating until high school Now that she was in high school, all of a sudden, her otten used to pulling her hair back in bandannas, wearing jeans and T-shirts though, and didn’t want to change

"I’ve got some statistics for the flour-baby project and I picked out soiantThe front flap was smeared with paint and studded with buttons and stickers--a pink triangle peeling at the edges, a button hand-lettered to say "Still Not King," a ss exist whether you believe in the ht and we could work on it"

"I can’t," Val said "Toa toone of her purple braids around her finger

Val frowned She couldn’t help noticing the edge in Ruth’s voice when she talked about Too?" Val asked "Did he say so?"

Ruth shook her head and took another quick draw on her cigarette "No No Nothing like that"

"I was thinking that we could go to the Village after the game if there’s time Walk around St Mark’s" Only a couple of months earlier, at the town fair, Tom had applied a press-on tattoo to the s the spot wet before pressing it to her skin Now she could barely get hiht Roht sheon with you?"

"Nothing," Ruth said "I’" She fanned herself with one hand "So irls in one place"

Val nodded, half-convinced

"Did you look at those chat logs like I told you? Find that one where I sent you statistics about all-feet a chance I’ll find it tomorrow, okay?" Val rolled her eyes "My mother is online twenty-four, seven She has so sound

"What?" Val said "I thought you supported online love Weren’t you the one who said it was love of the mind? Truly spiritual without flesh to encumber it?"

"I hope I didn’t say that" Ruth pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, letting her body tip backward in ht "Hey, is that a rubber band around your ponytail? That’s going to rip out your hair Get over here; I think I have a scrunchie and a brush"

Val straddled the bench in front of Ruth and let her work out the band "Ouch You’reit worse"

"Aren’t you athletic types supposed to be more butch?" Ruth brushed Val’s hair out and threaded it through the cloth tie, pulling it tight enough so that Val thought she could feel the tiny hairs on the back of her neck snapping