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“She made it happen, that’s all I’m saying,” said Walker.

“If it was her dad,” I said, “then why did she listen to him? She spent her entire adolescence defying that man. Why obey him then?”

Walker shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll never know, I guess, because we can’t ask her.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling that really wash through me, the certainty of it. I was not going to see Opal ever again. Opal was dead.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRST TIME I met Opal, she was out on the back deck of her house, where there was a pool. She was swimming in the water, and she pulled herself up on the side, her blond hair looking dark as it streamed wet down her back. She smiled at me.

I had been sent out to say hi after that conversation in her dad’s study where it was made clear that it was everyone’s responsibility except mine not to have sex with me, something I did not understand and would not understand until the first time I went into heat.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

I bit down on my bottom lip, confused. “What?”

“Your name is Leona, right?” she said.

I nodded.

“That’s such an old lady name,” she said, pushing herself up out of the pool. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s… sometimes people call me Leo.”

“That makes you sound like you’re a boy.”

She wasn’t acting like I was the best thing that ever happened to her. She was acting kind of mean, actually. I didn’t think she liked me. She was the kind of girl who wouldn’t like someone like me, anyway.

I had encountered them before. Together girls, girls who looked like they were a painting or a magazine spread. I was the kind of girl who still wore pink octopus boy shorts. I hunched my shoulders, wanting to make myself small.

She dripped all around me as she stood in front of me in her tiny little bikini. She was my age, but she was way more developed than me. I tried not to stare at her breasts.

“All my life, I’ve been told that I’m going to have to mate whoever the new cyning is,” said Opal to me. “No one ever asked if I wanted to choose who I wanted to marry, or if I wanted to fall in love, or if I wanted to do anything like that. No. Just, all decided. And then…” She gestured at me. “You.” She smiled. “So, thank you very much, Leo, for giving me back my life.”

I scrutinized her face as if trying to discern the truth there in her features. Did she really mean that or was she just doing the bare minimum, trying to perform niceness to me because she’d been told to do so by her father or something?

She walked over and got a towel from where it was slung over a chair. “I know, I know. Why have a pool when you have the river right there?”

I supposed I hadn’t thought that, but it was true. The house itself was sort of dug into the cliffside here, and the pool was surrounded by a fence, and the forest was surrounding everything. It was a private little fortress, this house, with everything a person could need, and it was strong enough to survive the force of the river, if it decided to flood.

Before this, I hadn’t known people like this, people who had so many resources that they could remake the world into a vision of their liking. That was what Opal grew up with. A father who was the leader of a pack, of a town, who could have whatever he wanted if he got creative enough.

“The river is dirty,” she said. “The river has a current. The river is different than a pool. It’s nice to have both.” She was drying herself off. “We’re going to have fun, Leo, you and me. You’ll see.”

I tried smiling at her, then. I tried on the idea of believing her.

It seemed too good to be true, a girl like her wanting to be friends with me, being thrust into this entire new world. It seemed impossible, and I was wary.

Guess it turned out that I was right, but it took a long time for the other shoe to drop.

CHAPTER SIX

THE NEXT DAY was the funeral. It was early in the day, which surprised me, because I guess I thought funerals should take place in the afternoon or something, but this one was scheduled for ten a.m. It was as if someone wanted it over with.

There was no graveside, because she was being cremated. And because of this, there would be no body laid out to look at either. I was surprised about that as well. Riverside was a traditional community, and they tended to do things in a traditional way.

Of course, I had to admit, it was just like Opal to buck the trends even in death. Sure, everyone else had a casket and was laid out, made up and dressed up for everyone to look at their dead body. But Opal would be the one to say, “Absolutely not. Burn me up, please.”