Chapter 1

YO-YO

Magnus walked up to the mic.

My heart pounded as I watched him cross the stage in slow motion from my seat in the auditorium, the entire school a sea of unimportant faces around me. I leaned forward on the edge of my seat. His illuminated suspenders held up khaki shorts, the utter picture of a total, adorable dork. His light brown hair was curly and a little unkempt in the way that curly hair is when it can't decide if it wants to fall close to the scalp or make a break for freedom. He moved across the space with tension in his shoulders and a slight tremble in his hands.

He was holding a yo-yo.

I'd seen him practicing with it.The fact that he was getting up on stage in front of the entire school to show them all what he could do was a sort of bravery I hadn't expected from him. It didn't occur to me that he was the kind of guy who just went for something like that.

This meant something to him.

He meant something to me.

The way he laughed, unexpected and bubbling with a joy that radiated from his heart always caught me by surprise. I'd noticed the way his eyes would go distant sometimes as he got lost in a thought that I wasn't able to touch. I wanted to touch him, but I didn't do that anymore. I'd seen the way he would jump and startle when I touched his arms once to ask to borrow a pen, and I hadn't touched him since.

Instead I just watched him.

It wasn't like we could spend the rest of our lives together or anything like that. He was going to go to college and I was…not.

I was going to try to go elsewhere.

I might never see him again.

My familiar Niamh, a small deer fox with tiny nubs for antlers, chirped as she rubbed her head against my chest, her small purr a balm against the tension in my chest as I watched my crush stand in front of the mic, his smile twitching with a slight tremble. I sighed as I shifted my hand, not moving it towards her despite my urge to do so. I couldn't pet her here.

No one else could see her. All they would see was me petting empty air.

So I didn't touch her, just like I didn't touch him.

I focused on Magnus as he stood there, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. The audience fell silent, excitement buzzing in the air for the performance to begin.

"Gwen, will you go to prom with me?" Magnus asked.

A vice clamped around my heart, squeezing as I took in a sharp breath hidden in the gasps that echoed around me. Something within me shattered, and a crack opened up in my chest, the years of hope reaching out into the emptiness of what I wanted, only to find that there was nothing left to support them.

"No!" Gwen yelled back, and the crowd erupted into awkward laughter.

I felt the sharp bite of tears in the corners of my eyes and I opened my eyes wider, letting the air dry them out before they could fall. I couldn't cry here in a room full of everyone who had ever been cruel to me. Someone would notice, and then everyone would know. So I sat there, stone-faced and feeling like my heart had been torn out and thrown on the floor, trampled under the weight of the snickers.

The look on Magnus's face reflected the gaping hole in my heart.

His face was pale as he swallowed, his eyes darting around for a moment before he closed them and opened them again. He had only two choices, and one of them was to run, to flee from the laughter, to bolt away from the suffering of the moment and leave the stage.

The song began to play, the thump a like a low heart beat, but discordant.

Magnus stepped back, his eyes focused on his hands as he twirled the yo-yo around in time to the music. His shoulders were slightly hunched, his mouth flat and pinched, and his movements stilted.

This wasn't the joyful crinkle of his face when he was winning at our after school board games club or the excitement of facing the fear of performing on stage. This was something else. This was the need to take the mind to another place and avoid the reality of the choices that led to this moment.

This was him getting through it.

But I couldn't couldn't get through this.

I slipped off of my seat and headed out, away, Niamh trotting beside me, her little hooves making small clicking sounds that only I could hear. I walked out the door, people glancing at me as I burst out of the auditorium, slowly closing the door behind me so it didn't make a big bang. I went out into the open air, looking up at the blue sky, the pressure in my chest compounding with the weight of the rejection. I walked away from the talent show, away from it all, until I found a small corner around the side of one of the classrooms. I hid behind a bush where no one could sneak up on me, but I could see them passing by.

I put my back against the building behind me, folded my arms over my knees, and rested my face on them.

I dug my fingers into my forearms, the sting of feelings begging to be released, but I couldn't let go here.

Niamh wound around my ankles like a cat, her fluffy tail brushing against my shins. I scooped her up into my arms and tucked her on top of my thighs. I hugged her against my body as I took deep, shuddering breaths.

"Why doesn't he want me?" I asked Niamh.

She pressed her forehead against mine, the small nubs of her horns pushing into my forehead.

You haven't acted like you wanted him, she replied, her words filling my mind as they always did. This pain you are feeling is because you had an idea in your head of what could be, but you haven't done anything to make it happen. You can't expect fruit to grow if you don't plant any seeds.

I sniffled and wiped my eyes with one hand.

"Sometimes fruit grows on its own," I pointed out, thinking of the blackberries near my grandfather's house. "Like weeds."

Niamh headbutted me gently.

"Ow." I pulled my head back and rubbed my forehead. "Fine, oh wise mythical creature of magic, tell me what to do."

You can spray him with your mounting scent to let him know you are ready to mate, she replied. A demon like him will not be hard to convince.

"I'm not a deer fox." I laughed. "I'm not spraying anyone with anything."

Then do what humans do to tell each other they wish to mate, she said. If you want your circumstance to change, you must be the one to change it.

I looked down at my baggy clothes. My shirt was an oversized, hole-ridden hand me down from my dad. My scuffed shoes had tread at some point, but now the soles were as smooth as silk.

I already knew I wasn't doing the mating dance thing that everyone else seemed to have down. The other girls wore makeup and cute outfits, giggling and sitting in boys' laps when they were interested. I could observe, but the thought of doing all that was so far away from who I was now that it could be the moon.

I'd been wearing what I was given and saving my leftover lunch money. I'd spent it on a few select things that I needed to complete the ceremony to summon Niamh a week ago, but that was it.

That money wasn't going to mean anything when I left this realm in a few months.

I heard the chatter of the talent show letting out and I set Niamh down on the ground. I couldn't change who I was or how I looked. I wasn't going to suddenly start putting on makeup or abandon the simple ponytail that kept the back of my neck from getting hot.

Magnus walked by me, his eyes distant, lost in the world inside his own head, just as mine often were.

Now is your chance to squirt all over him, Niamh commented.

I bit my lip to hold in a laugh at her encouragement, but she had a point.

If I wanted things to change, I had to be the one to change them.

"Magnus," I called out, my heart loud in my ears, a drumbeat background for what I was about to do.

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes focusing on me, that familiar slice of lightning ricocheting through me as I struggled to look back at him. I wanted to look away, run away, be anywhere but here with this person I wanted to be near so badly.

"Instead of going to prom, do you want to go backpacking with me that day?" I blurted out in a panic, saying the first thing that came to my mind, the first thing that I actually wanted to do. I wanted to spend more time with him.

I wanted to spend time with him alone.

"Backpacking?" he asked.

"Yeah, like we carry stuff into the woods and camp," I said. I wrapped my arms around myself, grabbing my elbows and squeezing in an attempt at self soothing.

He blinked at me.

A small furrow appeared between his eyebrows, the inner corners of them turning up as the skin around his eyes tightened and also widened, like he was seeing me for the first time and didn't understand what he was looking at.

The silence in this moment between when I asked and when he would reject me was terrifying.

I could feel it looming, a cliff edge I was rushing towards that I couldn't back away from.

I'd already cut my own brakes when I opened my mouth and asked him to spend time with me.

What was wrong with me? He didn't even like me - he liked Gwen. He liked her enough to risk asking her out in front of the entire school, and here I was, asking him to spend prom alone with me in the woods. I was a disheveled nerd who had barely spoken two words to him the entire time we'd been in school together, except in our after school club, where I acted like a dork.

Plus, the first and only time I'd been backpacking was to summon Niamh.

I had no idea what I was doing.

"Okay," he said.

I opened my mouth to say to forget it, to not worry about it; to take the rejection and try to pretend that it didn't mean anything to me.

Wait, what did he say?

Did he just say okay?

It sounded like he said okay.

Like he was actually going to go camping with me.

"I- I'll pick you up in the morning?" I asked.

"Of prom, not tomorrow," he clarified.

"Yes." I nodded.

"Okay," he replied.

"Okay," I said back.

He smiled at me, a tentative, confused smile that just barely crinkled the corners of his eyes.

I smiled back.

There was a bridge that spanned across that cliff, made out of hope and deliberate, direct action. My smile spread with the full weight of my own bravery, and he looked back into my eyes, his ice blue ones glittering, unmelting icicles in the late afternoon sun.

Then he turned and walked off.

I put both my hands over my face.

My heart pounded with excitement and something else I didn't quite understand until I focused on it, rolling the emotion over and over until it rubbed smooth and clear.

Pride. I was proud of myself.

I invited him on a date.

Except, what if he didn't think it was a date? I didn't call it a date.

What was I thinking?

"Lumi?" Magnus asked.

I lowered my hands to see he had come back and was standing in front of me, holding a phone.

"I should get your number," he stated. "If we're going camping, I should have your number."

I nodded and typed in my number in his phone.

He took it back, then walked away again.

It would be simpler to spray him, Niamh commented.