I’ve been eavesdropping on you for the last three years, and even though you don’t know me, I feel likeIknowyou.
You always say “Excuse me” when you sneeze, even when you’re alone. Your friends like to gossip, but you never participate; you only listen, and their secrets are safe with you. You don’t like mustard on your hotdogs. I know this because I once overheard Ricky tell Jordan that the secret to keeping more hotdogs for themselves was to smear mustard all over your share. But you adore your little brothers no matter what tricks they pull, and you’ll dote on them—and they’ll probably let you—even when they’re too big to be doted on.
On second thought, Ash definitely shouldn’t say that.Anyof that. He’d sound like such a creeper.
It was probably better that he couldn’t speak around Cassidy.
He shook the melody of her voice out of his head. If he didn’t tear himself away from the fence, he could lose the whole morning just soaking in her closeness.
Ash crossed the strip of grass in his backyard without making a sound. He had a knack for being eerily stealthy despite his size. When he was younger, his mom said it was because his father was a ghost. Ash was almost certain she meant that his father had disappeared without a trace. But Ash was only 90 percent sure,because his mom still never shared anything about him. Onny, in particular, kept Ash’s 10 percent of doubt alive; she loved the possibility that he really was part ghost.
Ash slid open the latch on his studio. Sunlight streamed in from the glass-paneled ceiling, illuminating the canvases stacked on the shelves, the dozens of masquerade masks hanging on the walls, and the table covered in plastic tarp and paint. Wrapped hunks of pale-gray clay cluttered one corner, and a garment bag hung on a coat hook by the door. This studio may have started out with garden-shed blueprints, but having a carpenter for a stepdad meant Ash got all the natural lighting and work space he needed.
He threw on an apron and sat down to work. These midnight-gala masks had been months in the making. Ash insisted on doing things the authentic Venetian way, which meant first creating clay face models (like mannequin heads), then making plaster molds. He’d orderedcartalana,a special wool paper, from amascarerin Venice, and then painstakingly made each mask with layers of thecartalanasoaked in water and glue. Once heated and dried (which took longer than you’d think, because Ash often messed up and had to start over again), he extracted the mask from its plaster mold, and only then was it ready to be painted.
Ash had already delivered Onny’s and True’s masks to their houses, and his own was nearly finished and sitting on the windowsill. He spun in his chair to grab his mask and almost knocked over the small vial of love potion Onny had brewed.
Crap!He caught the vial before it toppled over onto a tiny paper crane barely the size of his pinkie.
That would have been bad if the potion had spilled on theorigami bird. Not only because it was the only vial Ash had, but also because he didn’t know who had made the crane.
He discovered the miniature origami in random places. The first time—a few years ago, when he still biked to school—Ash had found a thread of them dangling from his bike handle, like a tiny mobile constructed by pixies. Occasionally, one would already be on his lab table when he walked into biology class. Other times, he’d find one in his backpack, unsure when it’d been left. And this past April, after spring break, Ash had opened his locker to be greeted by a flurry of paper cranes, flying out joyfully at his arrival, cascading onto him in a shy but persistent rush of infatuation.
Part of Ash thought it was someone playing a joke on him, toying with his emotions. He wasn’t crush-worthy like the athletes or the beautiful, popular crowd. He was just an awkward artist, all long limbs and quiet voice, who didn’t fit neatly into high school life, other than in the odd trio of The Coven.
And yet, part of Ash wanted to believe the origami meant that somewhere out there,someoneliked him, which is why he kept this single paper bird. Maybe that’s why he picked up the tiny crane now and put it in his hoodie pocket. It was a soothing reminder that even though Cassidy was mostly unaware of Ash, at least one person (other than Onny or True) might have found him worthy of admiring.
With the crane in his pocket, Ash took a deep breath to refocus himself, then picked up his mask. It was decorated in a patchwork of gold, black, and white rectangles. In keeping with the spirit of the “Founders’ Fable,” Ash was going to Onny’s party tonight as part of Gustav Klimt’s paintingThe Kiss.Maybe thatwas pathetically romantic of him, but he liked the grand gesture of showing up in costume as half of a famous pair of lovers. If magic reawakened in Moon Ridge tonight, maybe his other half would show up, use the love potion with him, and seal their fate before midnight with a kiss.
At that thought, though, Ash laughed softly at himself. He’d be lucky if Cassidy even noticed his existence, let alone requested to be bound to him for eternity.
Shaking off the silly hope, Ash set his mask on the worktable and began to work on reality: affixing spirals of gold filigree to the edges of his mask, the final touches to match Klimt’s painting.
Half an hour later, he had just secured the last spiral when a crash echoed through the backyard and shook the glass panes of the studio.
“What the—?” Ash bolted from his chair and ran outside.
The heavy pole holding up the Riveras’ basketball hoop had fallen and smashed through part of the fence. Wooden planks and pole and net piled in a heap in Ash’s yard. Cassidy lay tangled on top of it all.
And yet, somehow, she looked magical, like a mermaid caught in fishing line. Her hair fanned out all around her in undulating chestnut waves. The morning light glimmered off her sun-kissed skin, and her arms rested in elegant angles, as if she were swimming.
Then she groaned and cradled her elbow.
Ash snapped out of his daydream and opened his mouth to ask if she was okay. But no sound came out.
Right, because his voice disappeared when she was around. Maybehewas the little mermaid in this case.
What is wrong with me?
Cassidy opened her eyes and squinted at him. As soon as she realized where she was, her cheeks went bright pink.
Ash still couldn’t find his misplaced voice. So he started making panicky mime gestures.
This was why he had no chance with Cassidy Rivera. She was graceful and smart and, by all accounts, a normal human being, whereas Ash was…
Well, right now he wished he really was half ghost, because at least then he could vanish into thin air.
But while Ash silently cursed his corporeality, Cassidy had gotten up and was struggling to drag the basketball hoop upright.
