(Content/trigger warnings for this chapter: self-hatred, family member reacting negatively to anxiety, mentions of anxiety)

-Ranya-

When I nearly fell off the chipped neon blue school bus into the mist-free, open air, my eyes immediately darted to the forest behind my faded house in search. But I didn't see the Watcher or Pitch. Just tangles of tall grass and wildflowers and the trees with their many full, normally-green leaves. Farther back and to the right, I knew, the forest still recovered from the mass death the Watcher had spawned on it six years ago. Bright grass peeked up there, but no trees stood tall yet. I checked every month.

The bus spluttered back to life behind me and continued down the road. My tennis shoes plodding on the hot pavement, I stumbled up to the small front porch and its low wooden chairs that strobed orange. Somehow, I didn't fall and scrape myself against the concrete. My knees were still sore from this morning.

When I tottered inside my house and closed the door behind me, the kaleidoscope of spiraling, flashing colors made my face hurt. The hall was narrow, with doors splitting off to different rooms like my mom's office and the basement. I crouched. A few pictures were spaced along the smooth surface of the walls, but my mom had told me to not use them for support after they fell on multiple occasions. So I crawled across the scratchy carpet to the kitchen.

My stomach growled and ached from my missed lunch. Self-hatred burned in my chest. In the dining room, windows looked out onto the backyard and its neatly trimmed lawn. I used the sharp corners of the rectangular glass table to pull myself up and slid my bookbag onto the hard chair. The kitchen was small but had a myriad of cabinets and drawers above and below the curved counters, and most of those were full of snacks. I helped myself to a granola bar in the cabinet nearest me as my mom strode in from her office.

"Did it…?" she began.

"No," I said. I slid my wallet out of my pocket again and held the $900 she had given me in her direction. But both our eyes drew to the starry pendant swinging from the silver chain like the pendulum of a clock.

The pendant glowed. Not in the way things normally did when I hallucinated, but a distinct, powerful, small brightness.

I told my mom about the storms, my feeling that the time was coming when I'd have to act on Isabelle's Guardian Angel's warning, and my guess.

She pressed her lips together and clasped her hands so tightly in front of her chest that her knuckles were a different color. "We knew this day was coming." She met my eyes. "I'll help you as much as I can. We won't let Isabelle die." Her hands released each other, and one clenched into a fist. "We are ready to sacrifice for her."

"I know a lot about Pitch now. Hopefully that will help me win." And a tiny voice in my head shouted, You'll get to meet the Guardians! They'll help you! I would get to meet my favorite characters! And they would help me defeat Pitch.

"I'll call Dakota's parents again," my mom added. "Ask nicely, see if they'll speak with me."

Dakota's parents didn't even pick up the phone. I'd expected that, but it hurt anyway.

When Isabelle and Zachary came home, I tottered downstairs to greet them. I clutched the armrest of the stiff couch in the living room before my siblings stepped inside. As Isabelle set her butterfly-patterned bookbag neatly by the door, Zachary plopped his tiny dinosaur one in the middle of the hall and took out a dark dented folder. His brown hair, normally straight, looked like he'd rubbed it against a wall and smashed it down his face, half-shielding his big blue-green eyes. His body was pinkish, chubby, and freckled, and flashed red that day.

My mom stepped into the hall from her office and plucked the folder from Zachary's outstretched hands as Isabelle carefully went through her bookbag. My mom opened the folder and looked through the papers. "You got them all right! You're so smart!"

Zachary grinned. "Ranya, can you please play with me after my snack?"

I smiled, but had to say, "Not today, buddy."

"Aw, you had a weird dream again?"

"Yeah."

"You have them too many times! Now I'll have to play by myself!" Zachary proceeded to run into the nearby basement and shut the door. "Darkness! Darkness! Darkness!"

Then my mom pulled out the next paper.

"You got a yellow card again?" She raised an eyebrow at the basement door. "Ranya and Isabelle never got so many yellow cards."

Zachary huffed and said in his matter-of-fact tone, his voice muffled behind the basement door, "It wasn't my fault! Ben said liking dinosaurs was stupid!"

"That doesn't excuse your behavior."

"He made me mad on purpose!"

Isabelle looked over at me. "I made you a drawing at school today, Ranya, but I think Windshallow took it." Her usually melodious voice was tight. I sighed. Something had scared her again.

"And why is your hair messy?" my mom asked Zachary, whose face got redder and redder, as he stepped out of the basement. At least, I guessed it was growing red, because it grew increasingly purple.

"I was playing hide-and-seek with Leo when Mrs. Lanson was talking with another teacher, and I secretly squeezed into a cabinet!" he said. "It's fun being in the dark! Monsters hide in the dark!"

My mom sighed. "Zachary, monsters don't exist. And we've discussed your behavior already. You and Isabelle both."

Isabelle looked down.

"But—" Zachary began.

"If you get another yellow card this week, you won't get to watch TV this weekend," my mom said.

Zachary pouted and crossed his arms. "No!"

As my mom and Zachary continued to argue, Isabelle stepped silently over to me. "I have to tell Mom about something before I take my nap," she whispered, darting glances over at Zachary. "…Did you know Pitch is real?"

Cold prickled down my back. She knows? "What did you hear?"

"A person named Lotus broke through time when I was walking back to class after therapy. They warned me Pitch has risen, and a war is coming. They didn't sound like my Guardian Angel," Isabelle added when I opened my mouth to ask. "I don't know who they were, but they knew my name. They began to tell me something that would happen to me today, but then the rift closed."

I thought about telling Isabelle what her Guardian Angel had told me, but no, it would terrify her even more.

Instead I lifted my green eyes. "Mom, Isabelle knows it's coming, too."

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