Chapter One

My mother always woke promptly at 5:30 every morning. Whether it was during the week, weekends, or even during the summer. This morning was no different. I heard the shower in the master bedroom go on, and five minutes later go off. Then ten minutes after that my mother emerged fully dressed, her makeup already in place.

"Why are you up already, Stacey?" she asked when she saw me.

I shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."

"Happy birthday." And she went into the kitchen. At least she'd remembered this year.

Her name was Megan and she'd been quite pretty in her youth. She had fine and delicate features, with pretty light blue eyes and medium blond hair to her shoulders which nowadays she always had in some sort of up-do. She was a very prim and proper sort of person which made me wonder what in the world had ever attracted my father to her. He was anything but.

I was my father's daughter. We had a lot in common and I always went to him with the problems I didn't go to Carrigan for. Mom and I had never been very close. We didn't agree on much.

If she was just a little cold to me she was pure ice to Carrigan. The two never really acknowledged each other and barely ever even spoke.

"Since you're up, Stacey, go wake your sister," she called from the kitchen.

I stifled a groan. It wasn't fun to be the one who had to wake Carrigan up.

The best way to wake her up had always been to merely turn the light on, so that's what I did. And she turned and hid her head under her pillow.

"Come on, Carrigan," I whined. "Don't make this difficult."

"Go to hell."

Any normal person would be offended, but that was something she told me at least ten times a day so it kind of lost any insulting value it might have originally contained.

I smiled slightly and opened to the top drawer of her dresser. After rummaging around for a few minutes I found what I was looking for. "What's this?" I said dramatically raising it above my head, then bringing back down to open it. "Is this Carrigan's diary?" I flipped through the pages. "You did what in whose car?"

A pillow whacked me in the face. She marched over and took it from me. "Liar. It doesn't say that anywhere in there."

"I just wanted your attention," I said in an innocent tone.

"Well I'm awake now. Happy? Why are you up so goddamn early?"

For the past few months she'd made a habit of using at least one curse word ever time she spoke (when she wasn't around Mom and Dad). Did every teenager go through a stupid phase like this? I hoped I wouldn't. It made her sound like an idiot, I thought.

"I had that dream again."

She opened her closet and pulled out a couple things to wear. "That thing in the woods?" she asked as she started to change.

Carrigan always took showers at night. She didn't like using a blowdrier or going to school with wet hair.

I nodded, then realized her back was turned and she couldn't see me. I did that a lot. "Yeah. This time I saw the sky. It was orange."

"Only you."

She finished dressing and proceeded to brush her hair. I watched her. She had beautiful hair and she just yanked the brush through it, pulling out a whole lot more strands than she would if she'd just take her time with it. I'll never understand her.

I coughed. "Don't you have something to say to me, oh wonderful and beautiful older sister of mine."

"Oh," she paused her brushing. "Happy birthday, Stacey. So, does being twelve feel any different than eleven."

I shook my head.

"It never does." She pulled her hair back with a clip and started with her makeup. She didn't wear much, just some lipstick and eyeliner, though she really didn't need it. "God, I am so happy this is the last week of school. It just seems like this year has gone on forever. I'm going to be so glad when I'm not a freshman anymore."

"Is it really that bad?" I asked.

"No. I'm just exaggerating. Like I always do. Since I'm such an ungrateful brat. You know."

"Did Mom tell you that?"

She ignored me.

I sat on my bed, contemplating if I should tell her I'd seen the picture. "Car—" I began, but she stood.

"Come with me to eat. I don't want to sit there and have your mother glare at me by myself."

I never understood Mom. Carrigan was three when I was born and Mom and Dad got married. It seemed to me she would've treated Carrigan like she was her own child, and not some orphan that had wandered in off the street.

We finished eating and Carrigan left for school and I had half and hour to kill before I had to leave.

"Mom," I said, as she did the dishes. "How did you and Dad meet?" A seemingly innocent question.

"Why do you ask?"

I shrugged, even though her back was to me. She was doing dishes, you know. "I don't know how you met, and it seems like a story every child hears at least once in their life."

"I was a teenager going through life with no purpose and doing the stupid things teenagers do, and I met him and became pregnant, and then I had a purpose."

That was all she said.

A very odd answer to a seemingly innocent question.

I got dressed and walked to the bus stop where I stood for five-fifteen minutes not talking to anyone. I didn't have many friends. Any really. I think I frightened people.

Then the bus drove up. Late again. And off I went to school.

School was neither a place of learning or a place of socialization for me. It was a place to zone out for six hours. By the age of twelve I had mastered the art of looking like I was paying attention when my mind was a million miles away. School bored me. What I didn't learn in class I learned reading textbooks and that kept me at a B average. And seven hours after I left home I was back in my bedroom reading. I loved to read. I also really like to go online but the computer was downstairs and I didn't want to be around Mom. We'd never…we'd just never been close. She wasn't close to anyone.

Dad was a teacher. He was a professor at the local community college and taught literary arts. I got my love of reading from him. He wrote a lot of poetry and short stories which he'd let me seen a few of. I liked his stories a lot. They were weird and sort of haunting. My favorite was about these two kids who found ruins of an old city that had been flooded. That became their secret place and as they grew up the ruins decayed more. And finally, when the two had died the city crumbled to the ground, like it had become a part of them. A bad summary, but my father had worded it beautifully. Dad wrote a lot of things that made me think. And I didn't always like that.

Once I'd asked him if he was ever going to attempt to publish his writing and he shook his head. "These are my secrets," he explained. "My inside world. I wouldn't want to share them with anyone outside of you and Carrigan."

That had made me happy.

Reading began to bore me so I decided to brave myself to my mother's presence. I found her sitting at the kitchen table flipping through clothes magazines.

I took the seat across from her, sliding my legs under the table. "Hi, Mom," I said.

She glanced up and then back to her magazine. "You're father's bringing home a cake."

Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten about my birthday. And I'd been so excited about it yesterday, too. But having seen that picture I suddenly wanted nothing more than to ask about Anastacia Angelique Roberts. Should I chance it? I couldn't decide.

"Mom?"

"Yes, dear."

"Did you ever…know Carrigan's mother."

She dropped her magazine and stared at me. "What brought this on?"

I shrugged. "I'm just curious."

"That curiosity might get you in trouble one day, Stacey. Get rid of it."

And that was all she said about that.

Thankfully, Dad chose that time to come home and I ran to the door to greet him. "Daddy!" I screamed and hugged him, nearly knocking the cake out of his hands. It was something I was getting too old for, but I didn't care, and neither did he.

"What kind of cake did you get me?" I made a face. "It's not a girly pink one with flowers and hearts on it again, is it?" I'd made a big deal about my mom's taste in cakes my past two birthdays, I'd been hoping they'd get the message.

Walking towards the kitchen, he shook his head, a wry smile playing on his lips. "Not this year. It's Pokemon. Is that non-girly enough for you."

I shrugged and gave an exaggerated sigh. "I guess that's good enough."

"I'm not getting you a cake with blood and gore and decapitated body parts all over it. You're mother would freak."

I smiled. "I know. For my sixteenth birthday, maybe?"

"You're twenty-first, maybe?"

"Daddy! That's nine years away!"

He smiled at me and set the cake on the kitchen in front of Mom. "And maybe you'll forget about it by then."

I crossed my arms across my chest. "Not very likely."

"Is Carrigan home yet?"

I shook my head and went over to get a look at my cake, hoping he was joking about it being Pokemon. He wasn't. Dad had such a weird sense of humor. Pokemon was definitely non-girly, but it was so little kiddish. And a little kid I was not. "She's never home before eight anymore. And I don't know where she goes." Not exactly the truth, but…

My mother stepped into the kitchen, taking the cake and placing it into a spot she'd cleared in the fridge. I hadn't even noticed she'd left.

"You'd better talk to that girl, Reed, or she's going to get herself into a lot of trouble one day. And you know I know what I'm talking about."

I didn't. I hated being left in the dark.

Dad sighed. "Yes, Megan, I'll talk to her."

"I want you to do more than talk, Reed! Make her realize the consequences of her actions. If not, she's going to wind up being just like Anne! And God knows one of her in a thousand years was more than enough."

Dad stared at her not saying anything. I could feel the tension building up.

Anne… Anastacia, perhaps? I'd never heard either of them mention her by name before. Maybe Mom didn't notice I was there?

I looked at the two of them. "Can we wait for Carrigan to get home before we do the cake and presents thing?"

That broke it. They both nodded. "Yeah, sure honey," Dad told me.

I hurried back to my room. My safe haven from the tension downstairs. I hated tension. One of the many reasons I was glad me and Carrigan never fought. Sharing a room with her would be absolutely unbearable.

Around 6:30 I heard the front door open and I ran downstairs to greet her.

Her hair was disheveled and she definitely didn't look happy. Glancing towards me, she dropped her book bag next to the couch and forced a smile in my direction.

I smiled. I'd ask her what was wrong later. "Cake and presents."

Nodding, she brushed passed me into the kitchen and settled herself into one of the chairs. I'd always admired the way she could slouch and still look completely elegant and classy.

"I'll get Mom and Dad," I told her quickly and rushed off to get them.

I still loved blowing out candles and opening presents. That was one little kid quirk I didn't mind carrying into adulthood.

Dad lit the thirteen candles—we always added and extra one for good luck—and they sang to me and I blew them out, making the wish that one day I would understand everything that seemed so adult to me now. Was that a stupid wish? I was sure Carrigan would think so.