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I shake off my feet, pull my sandals back on. “Everybody’s going?”

Ribbit nods quickly, sensing that I’m about to cave.

“All right,” I agree. “I’ll come.”

The fish flash away as I move, my shadow crossing the water, their world changing again, light to dark, in a moment. Like mine. At least theirs changes back quick, the sun returning to warm them.

My world can’t be fixed. But maybe it can be put right.

Chapter 5

Felicity

In Amontillado, calling someone rich is an insult. Everybody knows who has money and who doesn’t, so you don’t need to go around showing it off, especially if you’re new blood, like we are. Of course, new blood means your family hasn’t been around for at least five generations. Time carries more weight than money in Amontillado, something Gretchen Astor enjoys reminding me of every time we pass the stone pillar in the center of town with the founding fathers’ names inscribed: Allan. Astor. Montor. Usher.

I’d like to think she’s not doing it on purpose, that maybe running her fingers over her last name as we walk by is an unconscious movement, something she’s learned from watching her parents, who worship at the altar of their surname and expect the rest of us to as well. But everything I know of Gretchen is careful and calculated, and despite my money—and we do have it—this is her silently reminding me that Turnado isn’t up there and never will be.

That little snub isn’t the only thing that bothers me about that pillar, though. The Allans are gone. The Ushers are still here, struggling along, clinging to the power embedded in the history of their last name. It’s sad enough, knowing how the Allan and Usher lines of Amontillado ended up. It’s the other name—Montor—that gives me goose bumps, and for the opposite reason. Nobody knows what happened to Lee Montor, the last male survivor of his name.

And Tress . . . She turned her back on the town—literally—when she went to live in the hills with her grandfather, and metaphorically by refusing help from everyone who tried to give it. And people did try—I know, because I was one of them—to do what they could for the last Montor. But Tress is Tress, and Mom says that pride always was a Montor trait. That and thinking they’re better than everyone else, she had told me once, with a sniff. That’s how I know Mom wishes Turnado was up on that pillar, too.

But it’s not.

New money might spend the same as old, but it still isn’t worth as much to the people of Amontillado. So Mom and Dad were careful, putting a deck on the back of the house first, waiting a few years to add the porch on the front. Mom says nobody’s better than anybody else, and we don’t want people thinking the Turnados got too big for their britches all the sudden. The gas pocket the company hit on our land wasn’t exactly a secret—you can’t hide a long line of white company trucks. But Dad says every landowner in Amontillado has some money from gas, it’s just that nobody needs to know exactly how much.

I don’t even know how much, just that they stopped talking about community college a few years back, then told me if I wanted my own car I could pick something out . . . just nothing flashy. They didn’t have to clarify. Gretchen Astor’s dad had bought himself a BMW when we were in junior high. Somebody spray-painted ASStor across the hood two days later. He took the hit and traded it in for a Civic. That car had all the bells and whistles: heated seats, satellite radio, entertainment centers for the kids in the back. Gretchen’s mom had worried that it was still too much, but the Civic had passed. Like her dad said—as long as you keep the money out of sight, you’re allowed to have it.

Brynn Whitaker is sprawled on my bed, a separator between her toes, her tongue half pushed out between her teeth as she concentrates on painting them. “You’re sticking with the clown thing?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

The package described my Halloween costume as a “sexy clown.” Brynn said there was no such thing, but she’s going as a taco, so her opinion doesn’t weigh very heavily with me.

“I like the bells,” I tell her, and I do feel a little validated as I slip the jester’s cap on.

It’s cute, the purple and pink ends each tipped with a silver bell. They ring when I toss my hair over one shoulder, the curls tickling the bare skin between my shoulder blades. There was not a lot of fabric in that package, for it costing thirty bucks. What there is of it is thin as hell, and it sticks to me like water. I can even see the dimple of my belly button, which is only a few inches above where the skirt fans out into slashes, each of those carrying their own bell.

Brynn glances up from her toes, her skeptical expression falling away. “Fuck. You are a sexy clown.”

“Yep,” I agree. I know I am. People will be looking at me, which is nothing new. But they’ll be able to hear me, too. The bells will signal my entrance and exit, everybody’s eyes and ears full of Felicity Turnado. And maybe I can even feel good about myself, for one fucking second.

“Help me out?” Brynn asks, lifting her taco costume from where it’s propped in the corner. She’s wearing one of my leotards under it—a bright green one from when the dance studio did Peter Pan—and when her arms pop out the side and her head comes out the top, she’s the most awkward thing I’ve ever seen. And she’s thrilled.

“Ridiculous,” I tell her as she spins, apparently happy as she floats in bulky foam. “How am I going to get you into the car?”

“I’ll ride in the back,” she says. “Unless you’re too sexy to drive.”

Both our phones go off at the same time, the ringer we set for the school announcement system—“Fuck School,” by the Replacements—filling my bedroom.

“What the hell?” Brynn asks, echoing my thoughts.

It’s a Friday night. Everybody’s big plans are to head to the football game, then out to the Allan house. There’s no reason for the school to be calling.

“Oh my God, you don’t think they know about the party, do you?” Brynn asks, eyes wide above her tulle lettuce.

“Right,” I say, picking up my phone. “And they’re using the all-call system to warn us off. You’re a genius.”

I accept the call, as does Brynn, so Principal Anho’s voice is in stereo when she says: “Due to reports of a sharp increase in the flu within the district, the health department in coordination with the superintendent and myself have decided it is in the best interest of the public’s health to cancel this evening’s football game.”