On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Lila Emery-Park faced no decision more important than the one before her, with the flung-open door to her closet. A birthday was a celebration of a person’s life up to this point—and what was to come. As a self-declared fashionista and aspiring designer, she believed that clothes were just as much a window to the soul as one’s eyes and even more so an omen. What she wore today would reflect not only who she was now, but also who she would become this year. 

She considered her options carefully. An array of colors stared back at her, a variety of textures and garment types. There was only one rule imposed upon her by her mother—however she arranged it, she could not show her shoulders. 

Lila glanced up at the Hello Kitty clock on the lavender walls of her bedroom. She had to get a move on. She narrowed her eyes and returned her focus to her wardrobe. Instinctually, she picked up a lilac dress. Purple was her best color, with how it complimented her dark red hair and her tan skin, and it made her amber eyes pop. She examined the dress—it had no sleeves, so she’d need to put something over the top, perhaps a bolero or—

She picked up the long lace kimono with the billowing emperor sleeves. She held it over the dress—an outfit started to form in her head. 

She grabbed white lacy socks and her favorite white Mary-Janes, always a classic combination, and the lace details would make the whole outfit look cohesive. She’d put some safety shorts underneath, always a good move for comfort, and then it was on to the jewelry and hair accessories. She picked from her favorite silver jewelry, the rings sliding onto her finger with the same grace they slid into place on her design, the necklaces layering under the black satin choker with a jade teardrop she always wore, as something she shared with her mom.

She assembled it all and considered the final result in the mirror. There was something missing—what was it?

She tapped her finger on her gently-sloped chin. She had it! 

Lila reached into her box of hair accessories and withdrew a silver pin shaped like a princess’s tiara. She clipped it into her glossy red hair, styled out of her way with a partial high ponytail that left the rest of it cascading over her covered shoulders. 

She supposed if one had to go to school on her birthday, then she might as well make the best of it. In her mind, it should have been illegal to go to school on your birthday. 

She hesitated before the mirror for a moment. She just had to make it through one day. At the end of the day, she’d come home and Jinn would decorate the apartment on top of the shop and have cake and presents ready to go, and a video-call from her dad. 

She didn’t fully understand her own reluctance. School could be tedious, but it wasn’t that bad. Maybe it was just that she felt so tired. Despite going to bed early last night, instead of delaying so she could finish hand-stitching on some project or another, she still felt a heaviness in her eyelids, a dread-filled exhaustion. 

Maybe it had to do with her dream last night—her heart raced at the thought. 

She’d dreamed of a dragon, great and terrible with gleaming golden eyes as it spat flame. It chased her through a forest she didn’t recognize, its claws tearing at her as the branches of the trees and thickets did.

Lila glanced at her light pink curtains. They were drawn closed—there was no danger of anyone seeing. She pulled down her lace kimono, fully displaying the birthmark on her shoulder to her reflection. Shaped like a curled dragon, it was oddly distinct and was the reason for Jinn’s one rule in the dress code.

Her mother had it too—Lila saw it sometimes, when Jinn wore a tank top or similar in the privacy of the upstairs apartment over the coffee shop. But Jinn covered it up whenever she was out too, or when Lila’s father was home from his endless business travels. 

Lila never understood why it was so important to her mother to conceal the dragon-shaped birthmark. To Lila, it was a mere curiosity, an oddity of genetics chalked up to the many marvels of the natural world. 

What did it mean to her mother?

It wasn’t about modesty or the appearance of normalcy—Jinn Emery had never been one to live a life considered “normal.” She ran her own business, kept her own name, married a man whose career left them in a perpetual long-distance relationship—and Jinn was happy that way. 

And she’d encouraged Lila to do the same. Not many mothers of the girls at Lila’s school would encourage her dreams of becoming a fashion designer. She’d been the one to turn the guest bedroom into a design studio for her, the one who accompanied her to thrift stores and fabric warehouses for pieces to remodel or notions and bolts of fabric to add to her stock. 

A knock at the door interrupted Lila’s thoughts. Hastily she pulled her kimono back up her shoulders and mustered her best smile as she opened her bedroom door. 

“Happy birthday, Lila!” The corners of Jinn’s amber eyes crinkled as she smiled, the only hint of her true age on her creaseless face. She lifted a cupcake with a single candle, the gesture making the gold and turquoise bangles around her wrist jangle. “Make a wish!”

Lila grinned and blew out the candle, leaving only a wisp of smoke behind. Jinn plucked the candle out of the cupcake—presumably so she could use it again next year. 

“Eat up, and then I’ll drive you into school,” Jinn said. “Alicia can hold the fort until I get back.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Lila bit into the cupcake and felt the familiar smearing of frosting on the tip of her nose.

“Oh, here’s a tissue.” Jinn removed one from the box on Lila’s desk and gently swiped at the tip of Lila’s nose. Jinn then took a step back, her amber eyes resembling that of a tiger as she stared at Lila.

“What, do I have more on my face?”

“Chew with your mouth closed, sweetie.” The intensity did not fade, unblinking. “I was just thinking—how do you feel?”

Lila gulped down her bite of cupcake. “What, to be seventeen? Pretty much the same as sixteen—why?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” Jinn shook her head and smiled. “Come on, let’s get you to school, birthday girl.”

Fall had long come to Massachusetts. The cool October air made Lila regret the lightness of her lace kimono a little, but she didn’t mind being a little cold for the sake of a good fit. She’d have to post the selfie she’d taken at the full-length mirror to her social media during lunch. The addition of social media had been recent, and one that Jinn had been hesitant to allow—but it was the best place to launch Lila’s designer career.

“It has to stay for fashion,” Jinn had warned when she’d allowed Lila to open her accounts. “I don’t want you getting stuck on a screen—you have too many dreams for that.”

Lila waved her mother goodbye as the car pulled out of the rider-line, and she headed for the main doors of Sybil Luddington High School. As she passed through, she couldn’t help but take note of everyone’s clothes around her. Most people were in variations of the same uniform, t-shirts with a graphic, hoodies, jeans of varying states of distress, and sneakers. Maybe there was the occasional skirt or blouse, but nothing quite to the state that Lila showed up in. Still, she noted the popular colors—brown was having a comeback, she’d realized, just as she bumped into another girl. 

Luckily, being at least half a foot taller, the other girl caught her.

“Are you okay?” The girl helped set Lila up right.

“Yeah, sorry.” Lila shook her head. She really hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings beyond the clothes—otherwise, she wouldn’t have missed her. 

Willowy and thin, she wore tights with black and blue swirly patterns that emphasized her long legs, black combat boots that gave probably at least an extra unnecessary inch to her height. She wore a black vest over a blue tank top that matched the colors of her tights, and a pleated black skirt. Most of her dark hair was swept back in a high ponytail, except for a few tendrils framing her narrow face. Her brown eyes were rimmed with little stars drawn on in black eyeliner. All of it was highly fashionable, incredibly stylish, the sign of a kindred spirit.

But what drew Lila’s attention the most was that her oversized black leather jacket had slipped down one shoulder, to reveal on her shoulder the exact same birthmark Lila had concealed all her life.