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right before she hits the ground. He’s wearing these shapeless trousers and a tattered shirt, and he has this bizarre floppy hat on. I’ve never even seen a picture of one like it — I swear I think he sewed it together himself! But anyway, every time he catches her, she looks up at him and she just beams… it’s so obvious she’s in love with him! And when he looks at her, he has the oddest expression on his face. Like he can’t believe she’s looking at him like that, but it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. But at the same time, I can feel his fear, too. Like he was afraid he wouldn’t catch her!”
    I stopped only because I had run out of breath. My cheeks were flushed. Talking about the shadows had always seemed so risky and personally exposing that doing it for the first time with Zane had felt like parading around school in my underwear. Yet here I was, babbling on… and I didn’t ordinarily babble, about anything. What had gotten into me?
    I looked anxiously at my friends. Kylee’s eyes were wide, her mouth open slightly. Tara stared back at me with an expression that was unreadably blank. Almost like she was in shock.
    “Sorry,” I said weakly. “Too much information?”
    They both stared at me another moment. “No way!” Kylee said finally, her face lighting up. “That is so totally freakin’ cool I can’t stand it!”
    I smiled back at her, then turned to Tara. Her expression was still completely blank. She sat unmoving for a good five seconds. Then she gave her head a shake and looked around the room. “Is there any more dip?”
    Kylee and I exchanged a glance. “No,” Kylee answered. “We finished it off hours ago.”
    “Oh, right,” Tara responded, not looking at either of us. She smoothed out her sleeping bag, plumped up her pillow, and laid down. “Sorry, guys, but I’ve got to crash. It’s been a long day.” She pulled a sheet over herself, then buried her head in her pillow facing away from us.
    I opened my mouth to say something, but was stopped by Kylee’s hand on my arm. She shook her head, her dark eyes sending me a silent message. Not now. Give her time.
    I decided to take her advice. I’d only lived in Cheyenne a few years, but Kylee and Tara — despite their very different personalities — had been best friends since elementary school. I suppose that was why they fought so much. They felt like sisters.
    “Yeah,” I agreed, my voice sounding almost as hoarse as Zane’s had. “I’m pretty tired, too.” I stretched out on my own bag, and Kylee crawled into her bed. “Goodnight,” I offered.
    “Night,” she returned.
    “Samesies,” Tara mumbled.
    I grinned hopefully. “Samesies” was one of Kylee’s favorite made-up words, the kind of cutesy nonsense that Tara ordinarily rolled her eyes at.
    She would be all right with it. With me.
    Eventually.

Chapter 4
    “I don’t know what you’re so nervous about,” Kylee said brightly, practically shoving me up the steps toward the back door of her house. “You’ve met my ba noi like what — three times already? Chillax!”
    “That was different,” I insisted. “Then I was just some random friend of yours, not a freak of nature.”
    “Will you stop with that?” Kylee chastised. “I haven’t told her anything about you yet — you can do that yourself. Besides which, what makes you think you’re so special? My ba noi’s dealt with some seriously weird people in her lifetime, believe me. It’s like she attracts them. You and your shadows are not going to shock her.”
    I reached the door, but refused to open it.
    “Kali,” she said with a groan. “Just what are you afraid of? My ba noi is not some creepy third-world medicine woman who’s going to exorcise you with a bloody rooster — she’s from San Jose! She’s lived there since the seventies, and aside from being into supernatural stuff, she’s a perfectly normal person!”
    I had a strong urge to crawl behind the nearby