Christian is standing by the lake in the moonlight. I watch him bend to pick up a rock, turning the smooth stone in his hand a few times before he leans and skips it across the water.

Every time I see him I’m struck by the fact that I don’t actually know him. In spite of all the conversations we’ve had, the time we’ve spent in Angel Club together, the way I memorized practically every detail about him last year like some obsessed little Mary Sue, he’s still a mystery to me. He’s still that stranger who I only get glimpses of.

He turns and looks at me.

“Hi,” I say awkwardly, suddenly aware that I’m in my jammies and my hair must look like a bird’s nest. “Sorry. I didn’t know anybody would be out here.”

“Can’t sleep?” he asks.

The smell of roses lingers in my nose. My hands still feel pricked by the thorns, but when I inspect them, they’re fine. It’s all in my head. I am driving myself loony tunes.

“Angela snores,” I say, instead of trying to explain myself. I bend down to look for my own skipping rock, find one—a small flat stone the color of charcoal. I stare out at the lake, where the moon is rippling. “So how do you do this?” I ask.

“The trick is in the wrist,” he says. “Kind of like Frisbee.” I toss the rock and it goes straight into the water without even a splash.

“I meant to do that,” I say.

He nods. “Sure. Perfect form, by the way.”

“There’s something off about this weather,” I say.

“You think?”

“No, I mean, something missing. It feels like summer except—” I think back to all my late nights with Tucker last summer, gazing up at the stars from the back of his pickup, naming the constellations and making up the ones we didn’t know. The thought of Tucker makes my throat get tight. I remind myself that my dream doesn’t happen until spring. I don’t even know if it’s this spring. I have time. I’ll figure this out. Stop it, somehow.

“Crickets,” I say as it occurs to me. “In the summer, there are always crickets chirping.

But here it’s quiet.”

We listen to the sound of the water lapping at the shore.

“Tell me about your vision, Clara. The new one, I mean,” Christian says then. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to know, officially. Because you’re thinking about it pretty much nonstop, and I’m not doing a very good job at not noticing.”

My breath catches. “I already told you most of it. It’s Aspen Hill. Springtime. I’m walking up the hill with all these people, apparently headed for a grave. And you’re there.”

“What do I do?”

“You . . . uh . . . you try to comfort me. In my head you say, ‘You can do this.’ You hold my hand.” I start searching around for another rock so I won’t have to meet his eyes.

“You think it’s Tucker who’s going to die,” he says.

I nod, still not daring to look over at him. “I can’t let that happen.” He coughs, then does his laugh/exhale thing. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve decided to fight your vision.”

This should be the part where I feel sorrow, if Mom is right. I’m definitely fighting my purpose, pushing back against all that I think is expected of me. But all I feel in this moment is anger. Even though I suppose it’s true; I can never accept things. I can never let them be what they are. I’m always trying to change them.

“Hey, you asked me, and I told you. You don’t like it, tough beans.” I start to storm off back toward my tent. He catches my hand.

I really wish he would stop touching me.

“Don’t get mad, Clara. I want to help,” he says.

“How about you mind your own business?”

He laughs, lets go of my hand. “Okay, too late to tell you not to get mad. But I mean it.

Tell me why you think it’s Tucker’s funeral.”

I stare at him. “You don’t believe me? That’s not exactly helpful.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just—” He’s tongue-tied in a way I’ve never seen. “Well, I thought my vision was showing me one thing, and then it turned out totally different.”

“Right, because I blew it for you,” I say.

“You didn’t blow it.” He catches my eye. “I think you changed it. But what I’m saying is that I didn’t really understand it before. I couldn’t.”

“And you understand it now?”

His gaze breaks away. “I didn’t say that.” He picks up a rock and skips it perfectly across the water. “I want to make sure you know that I don’t think you ruined anything, Clara. It’s not your fault.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You followed your heart. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You actually mean it.” I’m stunned. I’d always assumed he’d blame me.

“Yes,” he says with a ghost of a smile. “I actually do.” Chapter 9

Paradise Lost

“Farewell, happy fields, / where joy for ever dwells! hail, horrors! Hail, / infernal world!

and thou, profoundest hell / receive thy new possessor! one who brings / a mind not to be changed by place or time,” reads Kay Patterson. She has a nice reading voice, I’ll give her that, even though I suspect that underneath her polished exterior beats a heart of pure evil.

Okay, so not pure evil. Because Christian liked her, and Christian’s not an idiot. Even Wendy says that Kay’s not so bad when you get to know her. So there must be something I’m not seeing.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself / can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven,” she continues.

“Good, Kay,” Mr. Phibbs says. “So what do you think it means?” Kay’s immaculately tweezed eyebrows squeeze together. “Means?”

“What is Satan saying here? What’s he talking about?”

She looks at him with clear annoyance. “I don’t know. I don’t speak old English, or whatever this is.”

I’d mock, but I’m not doing much better. Or any better, truthfully, when it comes to this book. Which doesn’t make sense. I’m supposed to be able to speak and understand any language ever spoken on earth, so why am I so lost on Paradise Lost?

“Anyone?” Mr. Phibbs looks around the room.

Wendy raises her hand. “I think maybe he’s talking about how terrible hell is, but for him, it’s better than heaven, because at least in hell he gets to be free. It’s that ‘better to reign in hell than serve in heaven’ idea.”