“Change my life,” I tell the witch quietly.

Rain pours beyond the canopy. Around us, there’s not a soul. Maybe the weather drew everyone away. Or maybe the witch herself is keeping the boardwalk empty. It’s just me and this woman who is so soulless, yet has all the power to change my life.

One wish. It’s a gift from me.

I don’t look back at the broken glass behind me. Try to ignore the scent of candles and soap. I left quite a mess. All I want is to be free of it.

Here on this sodden boardwalk, in this unforgiving town.

“You’d trade your life for it?” she asks. Her lips barely move. That’s all that gives her away as anything but normal.

I’m more focused on the way she says it. Sounds scripted. Run-of-the-mill. Exactly how someone who isn’t a witch would speak to fool a stupid little girl.

But she is one. I’ve seen her use magic. I’m here because of it.

It’s nothing special, of course. It’s not like I threw myself from the city’s tower or tried to leap off a bridge. I simply couldn’t get up after a fall.

And she made sure the fall didn’t give me any bruises and mended my broken charm bracelet.

I can’t believe that I’ve met a real witch. I’m just a normal girl. My eyes are still puffy from crying; she looks at me with a smooth expression, simply waiting and watching. She’s allowed me dignity. Is it strange that I’ve cried harder because I’ve been allowed that?

My answer to that question on the boardwalk on that rainy day is, “Yes. I’d trade my life. I’d give anything.”

“Witches don’t give anything away for free,” she says. It’s the first indication that she isn’t kind. Her warning slices through the rain.

It doesn’t stop me from opening my mouth and saying,

“I want to make a deal. Change my life to one where I’m wanted.”

*

How I get to my classroom is hazy. It feels like I’m in the opening of a dream. But Cindy thumps her bag on my desk, just as she did earlier this morning. I jolt up and brush my mop of brown, curly hair out of my face and mumble something.

The witch flashes through my mind: Pale skin. Pitch-black eyes. It was stormy outside in the evening but it’s clear here midmorning. Did I imagine it? I go to check for bruises, but she saved me before I could even fall, so it’s not like I could check that way.

Someone…saved me.

I blink, and then I realise that Cindy’s talking to me.

Right. Normal. This happened earlier this morning, too. Cindy’s my best friend, and we tell each other everything. Just listening to my childhood friend ramble about her run-in with her hairdresser yesterday gives me déjà vu.

“Can you see these? Split ends! She only took an inch off my hair. I think she needs new glasses. Like, N.A.S.A powered ones. She let ninety-year-old Shirley walk outside with a half-done perm and acted so proud about it. I had to actually smile at her and tell her it looked great. We both knew I was lying.”

She pushes her newly-dyed red hair closer to my face.

Cherry-coloured. We don’t dye our hair in this school. As soon as one of the teachers pays attention to the middle row, she’s toast.

“It looks great,” I say, because it does. “Don’t worry about the split ends. I can’t see any.”

Just briefly, she gives me that starry-eyed look. Exactly the same one she threw me my time before. Though as she sits down, I think her chair is just a little bit closer to me.

And, numbly, I feel hollow. In the evening I dreamed or maybe lived, I wasn’t happy with Cindy at all. Had I wished her dead? I can’t remember.

Class starts, and she anxiously toys with her hair. Mr. Grey has either gone colourblind or really doesn’t care today, because he ignores the dye and starts spouting something about statistics.

Even though I’m not the greatest at the subject, I recognise it. The exact same speech. The probability of a roll of a die.

This morning is repeating. I feel as though I’m waking from a dream. Peter answers the same way. Rebecca is absentmindedly tracing a drawing in her notebook.

Did the witch give me the chance to start the day over?

The only thing that’s slightly different is that a couple of people are glancing my way when Mr. Grey calls on me to read from page 157. I remember fumbling with the pages—they were stuck together—but this time, I manage to flick to it before it becomes awkward.

And voilà. Flawless reading.

“And what,” Mr. Grey asks, “does that imply?”

As I say, I have no idea about statistics. I don’t even know how I’ve managed to stay afloat in this class. But I remember his drawling explanation, and I say it almost word-for-word.

He blinks, as though I wasn’t supposed to say that. “You’re right?”

“No need for you to be shocked.” Sourly, I sit back down.

Mr. Grey turns his back to us, writes something on the whiteboard. Someone scoots up to me, and I almost jump out of my seat. I realise it’s Sabine.

“Want to study this at lunch?” she asks, looking between me and Cindy.

My friend gives a start. I’m no help; my tongue ties up and suddenly feels like it’s being weighed down by an entire bag of sand. None of my classmates even know I exist!

Her dark features brighten in amusement. “Don’t worry, we’re not doing any studying. Actually, we just wanted to invite the two of you to sit with us at lunch. You looked so bored yesterday sitting by yourselves.”

Whatever words I want to say back to her are lost on me. My mouth’s too dry to speak. Not just because someone actually seems to have noticed my presence, but because it means the witch’s magic actually worked.

Cindy nudges me out of my stupor, and I blink to find Sabine and her friends glancing at us curiously. Well, they’re actually looking at me. That’s new.

Like they’re ribbons to be wound around my fingers.

“Don’t keep us hanging,” she says finally.

“I—Yeah, we’re sick of being by ourselves,” I say quickly.

Sabine quirks her lips—it must’ve been amusing?—and Cindy starts toying with her hair.

“And—Is anyone paying attention in my class?” barks Mr. Grey.

Sabine quickly turns away, and I look at the board, run my eyes along the equation I’ve seen before, and quickly write it down. Unfortunately, my notes didn’t follow me here.

Now that I see it, after Sabine’s conversation, everything is slightly different. I’m called on more. I don’t need my notes.

My heart soars. This world—the witch made it come true. That meeting did happen.

Someone saved me.

Elated, I find myself grinning so hard I need to turn around to stifle my expression before it becomes embarrassing. But would it be embarrassing? If that magic is working—if this is real—

I blink.

There’s a girl sitting at the back of our class, looking out the window to her left. Her arms are propped on the desk, and she looks around lost, as though she’s just woken up. Short, blonde hair. Dark, downturned eyes that could be green. She looks like a doll. My head hurts when I see her.

I don’t remember her being in our class. I try to search my foggy memory and find that I don’t even remember a desk being there. Thought I would’ve remembered it if we were one month into our class.

Whatever. She looks like she’s far away. Like she can’t quite fathom the windows in front of her.

The bell rings. The girl stares out at the window.

“Viola?” Sabine calls.

I switch back around and look up at her. It’s a big group. Cindy’s looking at me, wide-eyed. The fierce, dyed hair disorients me for a second.

This might be the only chance I get to right this. The only wish I ever get. I can’t waste it.

*

At lunch, Sabine yawns and rests her head on Emily’s shoulder. “That lesson seemed to go on forever.”

Her friend, Emily, rolls her eyes from under her bangs. Her hair’s untameable at the best of times, and today she’s put in pink clips to match her scrunchie. “I took notes, since I knew you wouldn’t.”

Sabine squeals with delight. Harry shakes his head and focuses on his soda.

“You actually answered that question,” Sabine says, looking to me. “You’re usually so quiet in statistics.”

She noticed that? Maybe the witch’s magic is at work. It occurs to me that this strangely invested curiosity must be part of this wish, this world.

For a moment, it feels incredibly fake. But then I remember the boardwalk, the incomparable pain, and I see what I want materialising right in front of me. I’m sitting at the table of my wish.

“I mean…” It’s not like I’m any good at maths, in all honesty. I half-expect Cindy to cut in and mention this, but she seems more quietly curious than anything. Where I once felt her shadow, now it’s in reverse. Another part of the magic? “…I’ve just heard that problem before.”

“Sabine’s still going to have to copy off of Emily, then,” Harry says, finishing his drink. Sabine sticks her tongue out at him from across the table.

“How do you feel about parties?” Emily asks me. She’s focused on me, too. It feels like a little light is shining on my seat and the others can’t look away.

Out of habit, I look to Cindy. I’ve hardly ever been to one. For once, though, she’s waiting on me.

“Love them,” I say, turning back to the girl.

“Drinks?”

“Non-alcoholic.”

“Noted. Want to come to a party on Friday? I’m hosting.”

“It’s kind of our thing,” Sabine adds.

My heartbeat starts thrumming.

Cindy picks at her nails. That nail polish flecks off. Right…If this was going normally, we would be outside. Our original conversation was back to her hair, and then to a pair of concert tickets.

I look at her out of the corner of my eye, this disorienting feeling, this space between what happened and what’s here now, and I remember hating her on that boardwalk.

Maybe it’s bad of me to feel a little bit of vicious pleasure that she’s the one uncomfortable now. Just for today, just right now, I’ll ignore her.

“We should totally go,” I say to her. “Right, Cindy? A party sounds good.”

She hesitates. She never wants to go anywhere.

“Right?” I say.

She opens her mouth to argue—she gets that tiny furrow in her brow—but quickly switches and says, “A party would be good.”

“Great!” Emily claps her hands. “It’s done, then. We’re out on farmland. We have a pool, too, so be sure to bring something to swim in.”

I nod along, pretending to know what that’ll entail, exactly, or how to get there. Cindy looks at me helplessly, and I shrug.

“Great! We’ll have so much fun.” Sabine bangs her fist on the table. “We need to go get a DVD, Harry.”

“Why me?”

“Emily’s license got suspended.”

I turn to the curly-haired girl, shocked, and she merely shrugs her shoulders. Sabine curls her lips, and Harry looks smug. Clearly, it’s a guarded secret.

For their part, the three in front of me seem ecstatic that I’ve decided to join. It’s like…they see me.

“It’s strange that we haven’t talked before,” Sabine tells me suddenly. “How do I put it…I’ve seen you around, but I can’t quite remember what classes you go to.”

“Sabine!” Emily almost yells it. “You can’t just say that.”

“But it’s true.”

As they bicker, I look to Cindy.

“We don’t fade into the background like that, do we?” she hisses to me.

My smile’s more forced than it has to be. My heartbeat’s fluttering. “Maybe that’s changing,” I say.

Cindy looks dubious.

I shrug and answer some question Harry’s volleyed my way.