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“Leave me alone,” I said, my voice weak, my whole body sick and unsteady

“Alone?” Oriax er, you have soto be BFFs Sooner or later, you’ll break, little girl And I will laugh as you are carted away to the Shoals Shall I tell you about the Shoals? Would you like me to show you around that happy, happy place? You’ll end there eventually”

She laughed It was a sound full of glee and e and lust But it faded one, as was Oriax I felt a chill breeze on my face There was salt in the air I knew even before I looked that I was on that beach, the one from my dream The one from my memory

We were alone, Messenger andtoward the horizon, touching the thin clouds with fire

Messenger did not rush , content to wait He knehat I would have to say, the words that would be wrung froh by some terrible torture And finally, I said them

“I killed Samantha Early”

He did not speak, but he had heard, and he then released the last of his hold on my memory

My name is Mara Todd My birthday is July 26 I was born in the maternity ward of Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu My father had been stationed there at the time

We had moved around, like inia, the panhandle of Florida, and when my father was deployed overseas for the last time, we moved to San Anselrandparents lived My ood for e

Middle school had been hard for me, but e moved to San Anselmo, I found a place for ood place to live Steep, wooded hills in the shadow of Mount Tamalpais—Mount Tam, to everyone who knew it We were just north of San Francisco and south of wine country

I had liked it immediately, and loved our house above the creek, hidden away in the trees We’d been happy there, et away on leave, my dad

Then he had died And that hen I began to feel that I had stories to tell That hen I started to feel the urge to write My teachers praised me It hat I had that made me special, a talent

And then, Samantha Early had leaped past , a soon-to-be published author, and I wasa kid with promise

“I was jealous,” I said

“Yes,” Messenger said