A half-dozen other couples and families loiter around, but the crowd is still sparse, still filled with tourists. None of them are Swarm material except Copperhead next to me and the teenage boy twenty feet to my right.

Without turning my head, I risk another glimpse. He’s still sitting hunched over at the base of some monument. Eighteenish. Broad-shouldered. He jams his hands inside the pockets of an oversized Chicago hoodie like he wants to be mistaken for a tourist. Headphone wires disappear beneath the hood concealing half his face. He’s been sitting like that for over an hour. Even though I’ve snapped a dozen pictures, I can’t stare at him longer than a few seconds at a time without getting a piercing pang in my gut.

“Will you sign a petition to preserve our city’s parks?” A short, pixie-like girl holding a clipboard tight against her chest addresses Copperhead, who doesn’t look up, like her headphones make her impervious to solicitors. What I wouldn’t give for headphones right now.

By the time I grab my book and bury my face in it, Pixie Girl has already turned toward me.

“Do you like our city’s green space?”

I keep my head down, cuing her to move along, but Pixie Girl is undeterred. Just my luck.

“We’re collecting signatures today to stop the Lakefront Project from selling off the parks along Lake Michigan. We had a city ordinance dating back to 1919, which protected that land . . .”

I make the mistake of looking up. Pixie Girl has long, narrow ears sticking out of her short blonde hair. She wears shimmery eye shadow. At this point, I have to assume she’s embracing the whole elf-image thing.

She misinterprets my glance for interest, and her eyes ignite with fervor.

“. . . should belong to the city, not wealthy businessmen and bureaucrats with their million-dollar homes . . .”

“I’m only sixteen,” I say, unable to tolerate any more of her rant.

“You can still sign. This is just a statement of support indicating—”

“Not interested.”

I’m about to tell Pixie Girl that fairies don’t exist when her face flattens. She shoves the clipboard toward me. “I’m out to collect three hundred signatures today.”

I look at Copperhead, wondering how she escaped this persecution.

Impatient, I grab the clipboard and sign my name. Pixie Girl smirks, curtseys. “Thank you for your support.”

As she skips off to find her next victim, I glance down the pier toward the city. My pulse races as I realize I can no longer see the entrance to Festival Hall or the beer garden fifty yards away. People are milling. The crowd has grown thicker in the last few minutes.