A string of bright white buildinh, glistening like teeth over the slurping mouth of the ocean.

But if you do believe, then you already know all about magic.

If Cassie was invalidated because she caught the disease, or because Fred suspected her of it, I can only imagine what he will do to me and to my family if he discovers that the cure did not work perfectly.

I don't understand how everything changes, how the layers of your life get buried. Impossible. At some point, at some time, we must all explode.

Could it be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On a Friday?” I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Did you do a lot of acid in the sixties? Could be a flashback.” “I was two years old in 1960. I came too late for the party.” He leans down and pecks me on the head. I pull away out of habit. “And I’m not even going to ask how you know about acid flashbacks.” “What’s an acid flashback?” Izzy crows. “Nothing,” my dad and I say at the same time, and he smiles at me.

This is the past: It drifts, it gathers. If you are not careful, it will bury you.

Black is too morbid; red will set them on edge; pink is too juvenile; orange is freakish