After school, I saw Mr. Dean having a conversation with Violet in the hallway as I collected my books. With Olivia gone and Candace in the hospital, I was reduced back down to my sophomore routine of walking home alone. Violet had a solemn look on her face, and was nodding slowly, listening to every word Mr. Dean told her. I couldn't help but wonder if he was talking to her about Student Government. In all of the chaos of the weekend, I hadn't bothered making my campaign posters or lugging them with me to school. The election had been postponed because of Olivia's unexpected death, but only by two weeks. Voting had been rescheduled for the following Monday and Tuesday, so I had little choice but to get my posters in order once I got home that afternoon.

The following morning, I walked to school early, hoping with every step of the two-mile walk that no one from school, particularly Trey (who I hadn't seen at all on Tuesday), would drive past and see me carrying my giant rolled poster boards. At school, I hung my posters with little loops of masking tape by myself, finding myself hanging my posters always a few inches from those belonging to Michael Walton, which I guessed was sort of a subconscious strategy. By the time I got back up to the hallway where my locker was located, kids were already starting to stream in through the hallways, and I noticed something incredible at the far end of the hall.

Violet was hanging up a poster above the drinking fountain, and Tracy Hartford seemed to be holding a few more pieces of poster board, assisting her.

Unable to control my curiosity, I walked toward them as if in a trance. Sure enough, the poster that Violet was hanging up announced that she was running for Class President. The poster featured a picture of her smiling face, with VIOLET SIMMONS FOR JUNIOR CLASS PRESIDENT neatly written in block letters drawn in red felt marker ink, colored in carefully. It was somehow far more stylish, even though simplistic, than my own posters, on which I had tried to obscure my lack of artistic inspiration with tons of glitter.

"Um, what's going on?" I asked as Violet smoothed the poster against the wall with her palm to flatten it there.

"Oh, hi, McKenna. Mr. Dean asked me yesterday if I would consider running for Class President since the election is so close at hand," Violet said innocently.

"She'd be a natural," Tracy said, smiling at Violet, as if anyone had asked her for her opinion.

"Really," I said, sure that I wasn't doing a good job of hiding the doubt in my voice.

"Well, I was Class Secretary at my old school," Violet said, tucking her hair back behind one ear. This was the first time I'd heard about Violet's involvement with Student Government at her old school in Illinois. "And I mean, if Tracy's a shoe-in for Class Secretary here, it would be dumb for me to run against her. So if she's Secretary and you're Treasurer, we could have so much fun if I win."

"Is anyone else running?" I asked her rather impolitely. I was just so surprised that Olivia hadn't even been dead a whole week, and already Violet was running for her office. It was a cold, cold move, but I could see that Violet was already trying to innocently spin her ruthless ambition into a charitable service for the rest of her classmates.

Violet and Tracy exchanged uncomfortable looks and Tracy rolled her eyes. "Well, of course Michael Walton wants to run for Class President, but he was nominated for Vice President, and it's too late to change the nomination."

I bit the inside of my cheek. Mr. Dean was the only teacher on staff who cared much about the Student Government, so he could have easily repealed any of the rules if it suited his fancy. "How did you convince him to let you run? You already missed the nomination period."

I'd had to collect five signatures to be allowed to run, which I'd collected from Candace, Isaac, Pete, Mischa, and Matt at lunch time on the Friday before the meeting. There had to be a reason why so many loopholes were being created for Violet.

"No one other than Olivia sought the nomination," Violet said matter-of-factly. "So I was allowed to turn in my signatures this morning."

Just then, down the hall, Mr. Dean stepped out of his history classroom and nodded at all of us. He raised his hand in a friendly wave.

"Well," I said, still so confused about what was going on with Violet but getting even a stronger sense that the girl was just dangerous, "it would be cool if we were all on Student Government together."

As I returned to my locker to gather my books for my morning classes, I was already wishing I hadn't spent the morning hanging up my own posters. I wished Mr. Dean had never bothered asking me to run for Treasurer. Collaborating with Violet until June, given everything that had happened in the last week, seemed like a very undesirable way to spend the school year. It was becoming obvious that the only way I was going to find out what made Violet tick was by getting closer. And it seemed either like she genuinely wanted me, more than Mischa and Candace, to be her friend. Or, maybe I was just gullible and pulling me closer was yet another sneaky part of whatever evil plan she had in play.

At lunch time, it was noticed immediately by everyone at our table that Violet was sitting two tables away, across from Tracy Hartford. Mischa was fuming. "Who does she think she is? Does she think she can just pick up Olivia's life where Olivia left off?"

Matt put a hand on Mischa's back to calm her down. "She's just running for office. It's not a big deal."

Nothing could calm Mischa down as she glared across the cafeteria. "It is a big deal and it's more than just running for office."

My focus on appearing unconcerned about Violet was interrupted by a boy wearing a green Army jacket near the vending machines. It was, without a doubt, Trey, although how I hadn't noticed him earlier in the day, I didn't know. His back was to me as I watched him slide a wrinkled dollar bill into the vending machine with his right hand, and punch a button to request a can of soda. With a rattle that I couldn't hear over the din of the cafeteria, the machine spat out the can as requested, and Trey took it with him as he trudged out of the cafeteria, back down the stairs that led to the locker rooms.

I found myself wondering again if Violet had seen Trey in her vision of Olivia's death. She'd seen enough to know that Olivia hadn't been driving at the time of the crash. Had she known that Trey would survive? 

With Candace still in the hospital, I was finding that my new life was starting to become disappointingly similar to the one I thought I'd left behind sophomore year. After school, Mischa had gymnastics practice with Amanda, and I avoided Cheryl's questioning eyes as I carried my bag down the stairs from the junior hallway to begin my walk home alone. A ride from her would have been a relief, but I realized that a ride home from Cheryl would be an obligation to fulfill in the future. I'd be better off walking two more miles than opening up a channel through which Cheryl might attempt to continue our friendship.

Taking a roundabout route home with less traffic passing me, I paused about half a mile into my journey to change out of my stylish wedge oxfords and into my running shoes. A fat blister, watery and pink, was forming on the back of my left ankle.  As I rounded my corner and passed the empty lot, I became overwhelmed with the hunch that something was wrong at home. I couldn't say what it was, exactly. It wasn't like a premonition or a vision of danger. It was just a slow suspicion, not so unlike how I'd sensed the blister forming on my foot half an hour earlier.

When I entered my house, it was oddly quiet. I stepped into the kitchen and opened the fridge as was my habit, even though I had broken myself of the habit of actually eating something every day when I arrived home. Then, I realized that I hadn't heard Moxie shake her collar. Her days of meeting me at the door were long over since her arthritis had gotten so bad, but typically as soon as I got home I could hear her rising from whichever corner of the house she had been dozing in and shake out her fur and collar, jingling her dog tags.

But that day: no jingling. I slowly closed the door of the fridge, starting to feel terrible. I had no reason to cry just yet, but I knew already that the tears would come. First I checked the dining room, where sometimes Moxie liked to lay down next to the radiator. Then, I peeked into Mom's room, really hoping to see a lump of black and white fur at the foot of the bed, where the dog often liked to snooze.

"Moxie?" I called down the hall, not knowing where else she might be. Moxie had her spots throughout the house, her favorite places to stretch out and rest, but I didn't find her in any of them. Finally, having already checked all of her usual places and beginning to wonder if something very odd was going on, like perhaps if Mom had taken the dog with her to work, I stepped into my own bedroom. Moxie was curled into a ball on my bed with her head resting on my pillow, a position in which she used to sleep when she was still a puppy. Jennie and I had received Moxie as a gift from our parents when we turned three because Jennie was obsessed with puppies and had been asking for one. I sat down on the edge of my bed, not wanting to startle the dog if she was sleeping, but already I knew that she wasn't. I gently touched Moxie's soft head, and my fear was confirmed. She wasn't breathing, her chest wasn't rising, her nostrils weren't flaring in their little expand-contract pattern as they did when she was deeply asleep, dreaming about chasing creatures in the yard.

I can't believe this is happening, I thought.

I leaned forward and rested my head on hers, wanting that moment never to end, for Moxie to never be further away from me than she was right there, on my bed. It wasn't possible for me to know at what time she'd passed away, but presumably she'd climbed up on my bed and drifted off to eternity at some point in the afternoon after my mom had left for Sheboygan. I thought about texting Mom to let her know, but couldn't find any words that wouldn't be too unbearably heartbreaking. It was entirely possible that this news was going to upset Mom so much that she wouldn't be able to drive home. So instead, after I kissed Moxie's head a few times and stroked her fur, I went to the garage by myself and decided to try to bury Moxie before Mom got home. It would be hard enough for her to accept Moxie's passing without having to see her immobile, not breathing.

In the back yard, I began digging a hole near the fence at the very back, where Moxie loved to dig holes, herself. After five minutes, my hands were becoming chapped from the handle of the shovel, and I was sweating. I paused for a moment to catch my breath, looking down at my progress, which was little more than a hole five-inches deep. Behind me, I heard our gate open and close, and to my great surprise I saw Trey approaching me when I looked over my shoulder, carrying a shovel from his own garage. He was no longer wearing the bright blue brace on his left arm, and without saying a word he began digging where I was digging. I wiped sweat from my brow with the sleeve of my hoodie and wondered if his left arm was healed enough for him to be using it, but didn't dare ask.

"If you don't mind my asking, what are we digging for?" Trey asked a few minutes later when he paused to catch his own breath.

"My dog died," I said as calmly as I could, not wanting to cry in front of him. I felt my nose threatening to drip as I suppressed my tears. The injuries on his face distracted me momentarily from my heartache over Moxie; the swelling had gone down but had been replaced by dark purple bruising along his cheekbone and around his lip and jaw. Trey didn't press me for more information; he just kept digging until we were both standing in front of a pretty sizable hole, about three feet deep.

(^^the real Maude!^^)

"Do you think this is big enough?" he asked me.

I nodded, really not sure. I wanted to make sure the hole was deep enough that other animals wouldn't be able to dig Moxie up, which was a morbid and horrible thought, but a valid fear nonetheless because Wisconsin was overrun with bears, coyotes, and other kinds of beasts that might wreak havoc in a back yard.

"Where is she?" Trey asked, looking past me, toward the house. I realized he was offering to go inside and retrieve her so that I wouldn't have to. I wasn't sure if he knew the layout of our house, but then remembered that all of the houses on our block were basically carbon copies. "She's on my bed," I managed to say without my voice cracking.

Trey went into the house while I stared ahead into space, day dreaming, watching my breath escape my mouth in barely visible white puffs as the day turned into evening and the warm sun disappeared over the horizon. I smelled fire and assumed that one of our neighbors was lighting their fireplace for the first time that autumn. The fireflies that had swarmed the yard just a few evenings ago were gone for the season. I swallowed hard; the thought that Moxie wouldn't live to see another summer and bark at fireflies ever again made my chest hurt. Trey returned a few minutes later, carrying Moxie's body effortlessly, as if she were weightless. I appreciated the care with which he gently set her down in the hole we'd dug, and arranged her paws as if he was trying to make her comfortable. I was on the edge of breaking into a tsunami of tears, knowing that it was strange to be so much more deeply saddened by the death of a dog than I was by the death of one of my own friends. Even assuring myself that Moxie was finally out of the constant nagging pain of her arthritis, and that maybe she was, at that very moment, looking down at me from heaven next to Jennie, didn't comfort me much.

"I'll cover her," Trey said finally, observing that I hadn't moved a muscle since he'd stepped back from the hole. Putting dirt on top of her was something I just couldn't bring myself to do, I realized. I wasn't sure if I would have found the necessary strength if Trey hadn't been there, or if having him there provided me with an opportunity to be overwhelmed by my sorrow. But either way, I turned my back and quietly cried as Trey filled the hole again with dirt from the small mountain we'd made.

"You can turn around now," he announced a few minutes later, when there was a soft mound of gray dirt over where the hole had previously been.

We both turned as we heard my mom's car pull into the driveway, and the engine shut off. She stepped out of the car, still full of energy from an enjoyable day of teaching on campus, and waved at us over the top of the fence.

"Hey kids, what's going on?" she asked, stepping through the gate. Immediately her smile fell when she saw us standing awkwardly in the yard with our shovels, the pile of dirt visible behind us. "What is this?"

"Mom," I started, "it's Moxie—"

My mom put her hand up to silence me, already knowing what I was about to say. She looked down at the ground near her feet to avoid looking up at us. "Alright," she said abruptly, as if she simply couldn't stand to hear me say the rest. "Alright."

"It was very peaceful, Mom," I blurted out, wanting to ease her pain in some way, but knowing that for Mom, Moxie's death was the equivalent of one of the few remaining pieces of Jennie that she had left to cherish being ripped away from her. She was already on her way into the house, shaking her head, and I imagined that she would disappear into her room and not emerge until morning, as she sometimes did on the anniversary of Jennie's death.

"Do you want to be alone?" Trey asked me.

I thought about it for a minute, and decided that I actually really did not want to be alone in my yard with a pile of dirt. I also did not want to be alone in my house, listening to my mom's sobs through the wall that separated our bedrooms. "No," I replied.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked, looking kind of uncomfortable, shoving his free hand into the pocket of his jeans. "I mean, we could have driven somewhere, but you know... my car."

I agreed to go for a walk, and we put our shovels back in our respective garages. Not wanting to venture back into the house too far, I grabbed one of my mom's unfashionable heavy cardigans from a hook on the wall just inside our side door, and met Trey back on my front lawn a few minutes later.

Without exchanging words, we took a left at the end of Martha Road and began walking toward one of our town's small shopping centers. It was one of the few paths in town from my house that could be traveled entirely on sidewalk, as so many sidewalks within town limits withered off into ditches along rural highways, making it kind of difficult to take a long walk without having to worry about being mowed down by a speeding car. Dry, sweet-smelling leaves crunched beneath our feet and the chirping of summer crickets was noticeably absent. Autumn had arrived.

"So, I've been meaning to ask you," Trey began once we were a few blocks away from home. "Monday night in your yard you apologized that I had been messed up in all this. What did you mean by that?"

Trey's words pulled me out of my fog over Moxie's death and I tried to remember back to exactly what I had said when we were on my deck. Had I given him any reason to think that Olivia's death was related to anything else?

"I just meant, you know, that you were involved in the crash, that's all," I tried to explain, not especially wanting to think about Violet at such a sensitive time. But then I got to thinking; Violet had made mention of Moxie. She knew I had a dog. Was it crazy to think that Violet had played a part in Moxie's death? Other than her ongoing problems with arthritis, the dog really hadn't given any outward signs of health problems in recent weeks. The simple notion of Violet having done anything to bring on Moxie's death made me so angry I broke out into a light sweat despite the cool night.

"That's not what it sounded like when you said it," Trey insisted after a moment. "It sounded like you knew something about the crash. And it freaked me out, you know? Because right before that truck hit us, Olivia was going nuts in my car. She kept saying, it's just like the story. You have to pull over. We're going to get hit. Do you know what she was talking about?"

I remained silent, not sure if it was the right time to confess to him everything from Olivia's party. It hadn't even been a week since he'd survived the accident, so it was crazy to think he was emotionally ready to hear all of the details of Violet's story.

He continued, "Because I really need to know. It's been driving me crazy, McKenna. It's all I can think about. What was she talking about?  What story? How did she know that truck was going to hit us? She was so certain that we were going to be hit head-on that I was afraid she was going to open the passenger side door and jump out of the car. When we got hit, I couldn't see anything through my windshield. I was swerving to the right to pull over alongside the road over to the shoulder so that she'd shut up. She just wouldn't... shut up."

We were on a long stretch of wooded road that preceded the intersection where a handful of stores were located, and very few cars were driving past us. It was almost dark out and the few street lights that lined the road were coming on. Somehow, the onset of night made it more difficult to tell Trey the truth. Talking about any of what we'd done after dark seemed like an invitation for more terrible things to occur. Nothing was safe in the dark. "Do you have any idea what she was talking about?" he asked again.

I took a deep breath, knowing there was no way to reverse things if Trey decided I was a total nutcase after I shared the events of Olivia's party with him. "Okay, all of this is going to sound completely insane. I will admit that. But there's something just so weird about it that it has to fit together somehow." I dared to look up at him to see if he looked skeptical yet. He appeared eager to hear more, so I continued. "At Olivia's birthday party two weeks ago, we were up late and we decided to play a game."

"Just you and Olivia?" Trey interrupted.

"No, it was me, Olivia, Candace, Mischa, and Violet, that new girl at school from Illinois. Violet suggested that we play this game called, 'Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.' It's a dumb game, something that kids in like, middle school play. But we were bored, so we said okay. The whole thing with this game is that one person is the story teller and makes up this elaborate tale about how one of the other players is going to die. Then, at the end of the story, the other girls playing the game chant and raise the girl whose story was just told up with their fingertips."

"What do you mean, with fingertips?" Trey asked, trying to visualize what I was describing.

"Exactly that," I said. "Okay, I forgot to say that while the storyteller is telling the story, the girl who's the subject of the story is laying down on the floor. And at the end of the story, if the game works right, she's weightless. It's like a spell has been cast on everyone playing the game, and that girl can be lifted effortlessly until someone sneezes or laughs or something to break the spell."

"Okay, that sounds like some messed up kind of game," Trey said. "I've never heard of a game like that."

"Yeah, well," I agreed reluctantly, "a lot of people say it's a game that invokes evil spirits, but that's just silly. My father says it's a form of group hypnosis. Everyone playing the game becomes hypnotized by the chanting. You can do a lot of seemingly impossible things when you're hypnotized, you know."

"So, you guys played this weird game and someone predicted Olivia's death?" Trey asked.

I stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk in the dark and he grabbed me by the elbow to steady me before I fell. "Yeah. But it was so, so much more than just predicting her death, Trey. Violet was the storyteller, and... I can't even explain it. She just told the story so convincingly. Right down to minor details. She knew all of it, about Olivia going to the mall to buy shoes, about it happening the night before Homecoming. She even knew that someone was going to offer Olivia a ride home in the parking lot after her car refused to start."

I saw Trey shiver beneath his army coat and he looked ahead toward the strip mall, stone-faced. My heart was racing as I waited for his reply. I hadn't wanted to sensationalize the story, or lead him to believe that we'd willingly played some kind of scary paranormal game, but I'd been unable to control my blabbing and had done exactly that which I'd tried to avoid.

"Did she predict me? Did she know it was going to be me driving Olivia home?"

I'd been wondering that, myself.

"She didn't say anything about you, Trey," I told him honestly. "But that doesn't mean Violet didn't know it was going to be you. She just didn't mention that part."

We reached the shopping center and began walking across the parking lot slowly as Trey led the way toward Rudy's Ice Cream Shop, where a whole bunch of kids who appeared to be in around the fourth grade were spilling out of a minivan in their soccer uniforms.

"Have you guys told anyone about this? Like, parents?" Trey asked.

"Oh my god, no," I said. "We would sound like idiots. Or lunatics. No one would believe us. Mischa and I confronted Violet and she acted like the whole thing was in our heads. Maybe... maybe it is."

Trey stopped and lingered in front of the door to the ice cream store. "Do you want any ice cream?"

I did, but refused. "I can't. It's too fattening."

Trey raised an eyebrow at me, like he couldn't believe I was turning down ice cream because of potential weight gain. "Well, what if I get a cone and you just have a lick?"

We ventured inside and waited in line behind all of the rowdy kids on the soccer team. Trey ordered a double scoop chocolate cone for himself and had the woman behind the counter put rainbow sprinkles on top.

"I would never have figured you for a rainbow kind of guy," I teased him.

He replied with a smile, "I'm full of surprises."

Back outside in the parking lot, he handed the cone to me before he even sampled it. "The first lick is yours."

I was about to emphatically refuse, but then thought, what the heck, a cute boy is offering me a lick of his ice cream cone. What could one lick hurt? I licked the tiniest bit of sprinkles off the top scoop, and savored the sweetness on my tongue. It had been months since the last time I'd had an ice cream cone. Olivia's birthday cake had been the last sweet I'd permitted myself to eat, and I'd only indulged in a tiny sliver of her cake.

A pickup truck pulled into the lot and momentarily blinded us with its headlights. As it pulled into a parking spot, I saw that the driver behind its wheel was none other than Henry Richmond. I motioned for Trey to slow down, feeling obligated to say hello to him, at least.

"Hey, McKenna," Henry said after he closed the truck's door. He waved at me shyly, looking every bit as cute as he had a week earlier, when my heart was still throbbing over the possibility of slow-dancing with him. He wore a checked button-down shirt and jeans without a belt, and had enough stubble to suggest he hadn't shaved since Olivia's wake.

"Hey," I said, waving back. We were standing just a few feet apart, and I was all too aware of Trey standing to my right, eating his ice cream. "So, you're still in town."

Henry shrugged and looked down at the ground before glancing back up at me. "Yeah, well, I decided to take the rest of the semester off to stay home with my family. You know, because it's my freshman year and all, it just seemed like it got off to a bad start and it might be best to wait until winter to start over."

"Oh," I said foolishly, hating myself for my heart swelling up a little bit at the idea of Henry being in town all season with Trey just a few inches away from me. The fact of the matter was I already knew that I felt more of a connection to Trey, but had never been in a position before of having to turn away the interest of a cute boy. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm sure your parents will be glad to have you around."

"Yeah," Henry agreed, seeming to notice Trey for the first time. As if a lightning bolt was striking me, I realized that Henry must have met Trey at some point in the last week during the police investigation of the crash. "Hey, man. How's it going?"

"Okay," Trey replied coolly. I sensed he wanted this little meet and greet to end quickly. His eyes were already fixed on a point ahead on the rural highway in the direction of Martha Road.

"Well, text me some time, McKenna. It would be good to go see a movie or something. Get my mind off of... you know," Henry said.

"Okay, sure," I agreed, fully aware that he was basically asking me out right in front of Trey. It wasn't like Trey was my boyfriend, or had even indicated that he had any interest in being my boyfriend, but still... it was awkward.

"Gotta go inside," Henry said, nodding his head toward the donut shop next door to Rudy's. "My mom really wants a cup of tea and we're all out of teabags."

Trey and I were back in the darkness on the sidewalk before he popped the remainder of his cone in his mouth and said, "You like that guy."

"He's okay," I replied, not wanting Trey to have any idea just how much I'd liked Henry just as recently as a week earlier. "Sorry about that. That must have been weird, him being Olivia's brother and all."

"It's fine, just..." Trey trailed off and paused while he tried to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. "Last year that guy used to call me a freak in the cafeteria. This year, I'm the person who hears his sister's dying words. High school is just crazy."

I had forgotten that Henry was the kind of guy who had picked on less popular kids when he was still in school with us. Trey was cool, I was realizing. He looked kind of like he was in a rock band, but was kinder and more sensitive than I ever thought a boy my own age could be. It made me ashamed that anyone ever teased him at school; nevermind that a year ago, I was teased from time to time, too.

"So, you like him," Trey repeated, seeking some kind of confirmation from me.

"Used to like him," I said.

"When did it become past tense?" Trey teased.

I was pretty sure I knew what he was getting at and I was eager to know if he was interested in me or if I'd just been imagining the closeness between us over the past week.  "Recently," I said. "Probably right around the night those kittens were born, he lost his appeal."

Trey stopped walking, and reached for my right hand. He laced his fingers through mine, and a car drove past us as he looked into my eyes. I knew then what he was about to do, and I wished I could record everything that was about to happen to memory forever. He leaned forward and awkwardly kissed me. At first our lips did all the wrong things, our noses bumped and teeth clashed. I guess that's how first kisses between people usually go if neither person really knows what to do. But then after a few seconds everything fell into place and Trey pulled me closer. 

"Glad we finally got that out of the way," he said with a shy smile after we both took a step back.

"Really? What was it in the way of?" I teased.

"Everything," he replied perfectly, making my heart soar.

And for just a split second, looking at Trey barely illuminated by the street lamp down the road, I was grateful that all of the recent events had happened exactly as they had, because if Violet hadn't told her story, and Olivia hadn't died, and even if Moxie hadn't passed away that afternoon, I wouldn't be standing there with Trey at that very moment. Then, as quickly as that thought had occurred to me, I felt ashamed of myself for being grateful for any of it.

"So, let me ask you this," Trey said as we continued our walk back home, my hand in his. "When you guys were playing this game, did Violet tell the story of anyone else's death? Did she predict yours?"

I felt the darkness around us swell, and all of the comfort and joy I had just experienced a moment ago, when had Trey kissed me, vanished. How could I have forgotten so quickly that death was right around the corner? It could claim me, or Trey, at any moment. "She predicted everyone's," I nearly whispered. "Except mine. She couldn't imagine any kind of a death for me, except..."

Trey looked at me with intense interest.

I continued, "She said she just saw fire. She saw Jennie's death. Not mine."

We walked for a block in silence as Trey thought about this. For the first time I wondered if my own death was imminent. Not even when Jennie had died had I so strongly sensed my own fragile mortality. Everyone dies, everything dies, but never before that moment on the sidewalk with Trey did I ever really wonder when my own death would occur. What was it that Violet had done to invite so much tragedy to unfold in a matter of days? Was it intentional? Did she have some kind of secret desire to kill all of us who had befriended her?

"How well do you know this girl Violet?" Trey asked, as if reading my mind. "She sounds like a pretty crappy friend."

Trey agreed with me that something was not right about Violet. I shared with him my plans to get a little closer to her in an attempt to try to figure out what exactly her deal was, and he didn't seem too enthusiastic about it, but agreed that it was a good idea.

In the morning, it was strange to not be awakened by the sound of Mom pouring food into Moxie's bowl in the kitchen. When my alarm went off and I ventured out of my room, Mom's door was still shut. On my way out of the house, I hurriedly put Moxie's food and water bowls in a box in the garage so that my mom wouldn't have to see them if she ever got up for work. Unexpectedly, Trey was sitting on our front stoop, waiting for me. Without exchanging words, we embarked on the walk to school together.

Together, which felt right in every way.

I wouldn't read the article in the Willow Gazette about Olivia's wake and funeral until I got home. Beneath the headline "A Community Mourns High School Student," Weeping Willow High School junior Violet Simmons was quoted as saying, "No one can believe this has happened. Olivia Richmond was an inspiration to all of us and was one of my best friends."

Anyone in town who read that article in its entirety would have thought that Olivia and Violet had been friends their whole lives.