Sometimes Ginny thinks that it might be possible just to be. Luna's hair drips through the gaps between her fingers; her skin is like linen beneath her palms. Luna's real, in more than the staring-through-water way things have looked since--since second year. Luna marks the place beyond which Ginny needn't try to understand. She is the line between truth and lies.
Ginny doesn't always see the things Luna sees, but that doesn't matter; she doesn't see the things the other students see, either. There are a lot of things Ginny doesn't see, things she's not old enough or responsible enough to know about, officially. Things they won't tell her yet. There are things she does see, too, things that are impossible and beautiful and dangerous to imagine: what was, and what could have been, and what might be--things she still believes too deeply to escape in dreams.
But when Ginny turns back towards the castle and Luna grabs her wrist, when Luna says--round white teeth flashing between her lips, and eyes still searching for something beyond the lake--"That's not your truth at all," Ginny finds that she doesn't have to see ghosts in the dark after all.
Ginny doesn't always see the things Luna sees, but that doesn't matter; she doesn't see the things the other students see, either. There are a lot of things Ginny doesn't see, things she's not old enough or responsible enough to know about, officially. Things they won't tell her yet. There are things she does see, too, things that are impossible and beautiful and dangerous to imagine: what was, and what could have been, and what might be--things she still believes too deeply to escape in dreams.
But when Ginny turns back towards the castle and Luna grabs her wrist, when Luna says--round white teeth flashing between her lips, and eyes still searching for something beyond the lake--"That's not your truth at all," Ginny finds that she doesn't have to see ghosts in the dark after all.