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There was a long silence between us Then, through the floors and walls we heard a !

The silence stretched

“A sin,” I said, tears filling uess she’s paid all she can pay for her sin”

“And Kayla?”

I brushed away the tears, even as I heard her mother’s voice, worried, cry, “Sam? Sam?”

“I want to be away before she screaritted teeth “I don’t want to hear her mother scream”

The garage dissolved into the school It was , before the bell The car line snaked down the street and through the parking lot Kids jurab backpacks, then rushed away to join friends or just head to the first class

Inside, the arriving croas compressed into the main hallway of my school

I stoppedthen My school?

I looked to the left and saw a poster The colors had changed since Messenger and I had visited before Now they were green and white There was a well-drawn caricature of a pirate with a cutlass clenched in his teeth Sir Francis Drake High School, horeen

“This isn’t theThis is”

Messenger said nothing, but I had the sense that he was standing just a bit closer to me than was his habit

I felt for tendrils of rab wisps of smoke They were there, I could al only bits and pieces, impressions They left a residue of emotion but without explanation

And yet I knew this place This school

My God, had I known Samantha Early? Was I one of the many who must have known that she was in pain,bullied?