He realized now that the feeling of a body pressed against him had been all arms. There had been no legs.
Stop it.There hadn’t been anything there at all. Obviously.
“You’re losing your mind,” Andrew whispered, not sure if he was embarrassed or horrified at what he’d imagined.
It had felt so real. He could still feel the tongue licking toward his ear.
He stuffed his trembling hands into his pockets and hurried outside.
Get ahold of yourself.
But he didn’t know what part of himself was safe to hold on to.
FOUR
Their story had begun in the forest, a collision both violent and beautiful.
It had been Andrew and Dove’s first year at Wickwood, both of them twelve years old with awkward limbs and amorphous personalities. If the Perraults’ father wasn’t traveling, he was chained to offices and meetings in the States while his business grew faster than he could hold on to it. He couldn’t leave them in Australia, and his unpredictable hours meant boarding school was the logical choice. It meant the twins arrived in Wickwood midyear, when the other students had already settled into their cliques.
Andrew and Dove stood out painfully with their Australian accents and strange phrases and the way their edges melted together. They weren’t used to wealth, to listening to kids talk about their opulent homes and extravagant vacations and famous parents. But Dove could be tossed into anything and she’d bounce. Andrew was a glass figurine. Drop him and he shattered.
While Dove made spreadsheets of who she’d befriend and planned how to hit top of every class, Andrew started getting horrible stomachaches. The worst part was how Dove loved it here. Andrew was ruining everything, like always.
“We just need to make friends,” Dove had said firmly.
“Do it, then. Stop hanging around me.” Andrew was in tears but firm. She didn’t have to drown with him.
Except she chose him every time. She sat with him instead of other girls, and she pulled him into games and did his assignments when he was too stressed to concentrate.
Outside, at least, it was easier to breathe. Wickwood Academy sprouted between thorny rose gardens and wide, manicured lawns, and it prided itself on an enthusiastic sports curriculum that included supervised hikes and nature walks in the surrounding forest.
The class would walk the compacted dirt paths, a teacher up front and another behind to herd the stragglers, and everyone had to finish a nature sketch or trace a leaf while listening to a lesson on ecosystems. The other kids mucked around, but Andrew fell in love with the woods. It was quiet there, and the trees seemed like they could keep secrets.
But there was one boy who obviously loved the forest more than Andrew, a freckled kid with a reckless mouth and hair kissed by the devil. Once Andrew started watching him, he couldn’t look away.
Thomas Rye was a wild thing. He was everywhere at once, climbing trees and throwing rocks, racing ahead and exploring off the path. The entire forest rang with his name because a teacher was always shouting for him. Only Andrew saw Thomas kiss the tree. It wasn’t a performance. This boy did what he wanted on impulse and regretted nothing.
Andrew wanted that—to be so full of fierce life it spilled over his edges.
Instead, he’d walk next to Dove, who already had seven pages of leaf tracings, perfectly labeled and colored, and kept putting up her hand to ask complicated questions. Her enthusiasm was only dampened by the boys behind them mimicking her accent.
“Teach us some bad Australian words.” Bryce Kane had bright eyes and a bright smile, a white all-American golden boy.
“They’re the same as yours,” Dove said, exasperated. “Can you stop stepping on our heels?”
They didn’t stop; they found it hilarious. Then they discovered it was even more hilarious to trip Andrew.
The first time could have been an accident. The second time, Andrew’s knees hit the dirt and he got up bruised and muddied. Dove snapped at the boys, but they didn’t care. Teachers never got mad at Bryce Kane, and his little posse shared the immunity.
The third time, Bryce hooked his foot around Andrew’s ankle, and he went down hard enough to shred his knees. He climbed to his feet, bloodied and shaky, wanting a teacher to step in but also embarrassed that he still needed that. He was too old to be so delicate.
“Oops!” Bryce said. Then the others made fake-crying noises between snickers because it was obvious Andrew was on the edge of tears.
Then Thomas Rye appeared.
He came out of nowhere, dirt on his face and his pockets distended from collecting seedpods and pebbles. He tucked his sketchbook under one arm and wedged himself between Andrew and Dove without invitation. The three of them barely fit shoulder to shoulder on the narrow path. He was half a headshorter than both of them, which surprised Andrew, because from a distance Thomas seemed like he could fill up the whole world.
Thomas didn’t seem to care about their arms bumping together. “You’re the Australians, right?”
