It would be an understatement to say that I don’t want to go to school today. I am appalled and terrified by the idea of getting out of bed.

As my phone alarm makes rooster-crowing noises to remind me it’s time to get up, I pull the blankets over my head and pray the battery will die before anybody starts knocking on my door and asking me to turn it off.

Die it does, so that horrible noise is over, at least, but it’s anticeded by the sound of cast iron pans scraping across oven racks in the kitchen downstairs and the back door opening and closing half a dozen times.

“Breakfast is ready!” Christopher George calls, knocking on my bedroom door with three sharp raps. “Mom is making scrambled eggs and they’ll be gross when they get cold.”

So I sigh and kick my covers off, knowing they’ll get worried if I linger any longer.

Worried that I might have escaped in the night?

They wouldn’t know if I crawled out the window because my bedroom door is locked. But that’s probably pretty low on their list of concerns since most people would take their phones with them if they ran away, and my alarm must have been heard throughout the whole house, if not through the entire neighborhood.

Still, even if they would just assume that I’m sick, every prey animal knows that it’s bad news to let the predators know when you’re vulnerable.

I’m literally trembling from my head to my toes but I run my hands quickly up and down my arms as if these goosebumps are nothing more than an ordinary chill and hurry to my dresser to grab my clothes and my makeup.

Today I paint my face before I’ve even taken a shower or used the restroom.

More than ever I know that I can’t risk letting anything slip, so I’m not even going to go to the bathroom without putting on foundation.

If I…die…it’s not going to be because I messed up, I slacked off, I didn’t listen to Judith.

***

My eyes are too restless and yet bleary at the same time. 

I didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night, and every time I blink I start falling asleep.

I smell old perms and cocoa butter. Sweaty armpits and black coffee. Good and bad scents mix together into an indecipherable headache soup tinged with even more scents that I can’t begin to discern through the nausea. 

Why even bother hiding your scent with bleach? 

An Actaeon could murder me in a high school and I’d never be able to smell him coming over the scent of Old Spice and Axe Body Spray.

The words on my history book pages melt into gorp for the tenth time and I, almost, get chastised for looking out the window at least twice.

The teacher remembers, and stops herself before the scolding, this time.

And that’s a relief since I don’t share this class with Mandy and I don’t have the energy or the guts to try to make use of my ‘special advantages,’ especially when I know they don’t gain me any points with anyone BUT the teachers.

Some of the ruder kids have already started calling me a teacher’s pet. The nicer ones just roll their eyes.

I’m about to look toward the window yet again when I notice the motion of a curly ponytail near one of the desks on my left and turn my head to see Marilee picking up her eraser off the floor.

Marilee.

I didn’t even know we shared any classes-

My heart jumps into my throat for a fraction of a second and it’s all I can do to make myself look straight back down at my book before I’m caught staring and really do get in trouble.

Or at the very least leave everyone thinking I’m creepy.

Even so, despite my best attempts at willpower, my eye strays slowly but surely over to the left for a second time even as I keep my head turned toward the desk.

I catch sight of Marilee’s shimmery face for the first time ever and I have to try to mask my surprise.

She’s literally shining.

Given the level of gloss on her lips and even on her eyelids I’d guess she was going for a ‘dewy’ makeup look, and she pulls it off to a level that makes me question why it isn’t against the school dress code yet.

Can’t have people walking around looking like Instagram models. 

That’s infinitely more ‘distracting’ than a crop top, which she’s also wearing. But she has a tanktop on underneath it so I guess the teachers let it slide.

Mandy wasn’t kidding when she said Marilee was pretty.

But why would she draw so much attention to herself if she is really…?

Never mind. 

It doesn’t matter whether she is or not.

I turn my eyes back to the book in front of me and squint my eyes like I could squeeze Marilee’s face out of my memory - force myself to forget I ever noticed her.

This doesn’t make any sense - or it makes too much sense and is too confusing at the same time.

I give up trying to pretend I understand anything.

All I know is this.

If Marilee is a mermaid she’s either the worst actress ever or a genius at hiding in plain sight.

To be honest, it had never even occurred to me to try to make a ‘wet style’ my fashion statement because it seemed way too obvious, but what if being obvious makes you…less suspicious?

No one would juggle with those odds, right?

I shake my head and try to ignore that thought - push all questions off to the side - because as far as Judith is concerned, other phants I might encounter while staying at my harbor home have absolutely nothing to do with me.

As far as Grammy was concerned - or is concerned - if she’s still alive and well enough to be able to be concerned about me - other phants are always nice to see, but it’s not safe to try to talk to them in public places.

And as far as I’m concerned, dewy aesthetics are far too conspicuous, so ‘dewy’ fashionistas are a death sentence. 

Not just to themselves, but to anyone who hangs around them too.

I plop my face straight down onto my book and try not to let the insanity and the frustration and agony get to me as the stress turns itself into tears for the hundredth time.

I’m not going to cry.

But even so, my gaze strays back to Marilee again.

***

I’m trying not to look like I’m looking for her. 

As I saunter through the hallway toward the back door I keep my eyes peeled for any sign of Marilee, and try to keep from being too obvious when I catch sight of her Jheri-curled ponytail and stray a few steps out of my way to follow it, just for a second or two.

I don’t want anyone to think that I’m stalking her,

But if I think about it, this is kind of like stalking, and I’m supposed to be meeting Mandy on the bleachers to eat lunch, anyway.

So shaking off my curiosity, or pretending to, I force my steps to redirect themselves toward the door when I lose sight of Marilee’s ponytail yet again.

I know now more than ever that it’s way too dangerous to try to talk to her about…anything…to talk to anyone about anything-

Anything more serious than track teams and flower festivals and homework, anyway.

I’m not even sure why I’m still in Larksborough at all.

Judith should have taken me back yesterday. Why didn’t she?

I have to admit, I’m starting to get more than a little bit scared.

Is it not okay for her to take me back if she can’t prove that the Georges have broken any rules?

That wouldn’t make sense. She’s done it before when the Bartlets unwittingly got in contact with the blind man, 

That time she just excused it away because of my faked ‘relapse.’

Do I need to fake another?

I cringe, and a flicker of pride gets in the way of that idea.

If I’m honest, I think I would rather be murdered than imagine someone explaining to Mandy that I’d been taken away from my foster family because I lost my mind.

Again.

The hinges on the back door make a noise like a weeping child as I swing it open and then force it closed again behind me.

Do they think that I’ve relapsed already?

What if the Sanctuary just deemed my message a false alarm and blamed it on my ‘crazed’ mental state when they couldn’t find any signs of the snake or the Actaeon?

Oh…no no no no no no.

Mrs. George told me this morning that Judith had called to say the snake skin they found was nothing more than the shedding of a rattler. Christopher George seemed chagrinned at his mother suggesting that he might have misidentified the snake but I know that if Judith HAD founded a horned viper’s molt, I’d already be back at Rookery.

So if the snake theory falls flat and they can’t find signs of the blind man what do I have to do to prove to them that I’m not losing my mind?

I’m not crazy this time.

But it’s too hard to regain your credibility when a dozen doctors have deemed you mad and a dozen caregivers and janitors have told enough tales to turn you into an urban legend-

I know what I saw. I know that I saw the Actaeon, and I believe that Christopher George really did see a horned viper. It makes too much sense. It’s too specific a mistake to have been a mistake!

Mandy has yet to arrive on the bleachers so I sit down on the first row and cry my eyes out, burying my face in my backpack, careless of the scratchy sequinned design.

I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. I know I’m not crazy. Christopher saw it too.

But what if everybody believes he’s crazy too?

I can’t help but suck my teeth a little through the tears, thinking about the unflattering nicknames I’ve made for him, even if I’ve never said any of them out loud.

What if the two of us are just a new kind of sane?

I hold both my hands out and watch the goosebumps sprout again as the river of chills courses up and down my body like I’m being drowned in a sea of snakes.

If there’s nobody left to believe me - to save me, maybe at least I could warn Marilee - 

The thought washes me in a new wave of icy fear but I try my best not to shudder.

Maybe I could find a way to pull her to the side just one time and give her a hint- some kind of code-warning that only a mermaid would understand, like the one’s Judith gives to me-

What…

…was it that Judith said to me the night I passed out…about picking irises?

I feel a hand on my arm.