After we leave the shop, both of us in a good mood now, we go for burgers, another thing Mom doesn’t usually like to do. She and Lily are “salad people.” When I’m done with my fries, she slides half of hers onto my plate and studies me as I eat.

“I’m sorry that things have been hard on you lately, Emma,” she says. “I know you miss your gram a lot.”

I meet Mom’s gaze, her eyes that are mirror images of my own, and feel a swell of love for her. Even though I’ve never said it, I’m actually really glad that I take after Mom in the looks department. I’m glad we have that in common, at least. Something she and Lily don’t.

In fairy tales, kids almost always have terrible moms. Like Hansel and Gretel’s mom, who leaves them in the woods so she won’t have to feed them anymore. Or else their moms have died and left them with a wicked stepmother, like in Cinderella. Mom and I might not always get along, but I know she loves me. I can see it in her eyes right now. So I guess things could be worse.

“Yeah,” I say. “I miss her all the time.”

“Things will get easier,” Mom replies, leaning back in her chair and blinking, “once you start school and make some friends. To be honest, I was always a little worried that spending so much time with your gram, wonderful as she was, wasn’t the best thing for you. It’ll be good for you to have friends your own age.”

Leave it to Mom to ruin the moment.

She makes it sound like I didn’t have friends at my old school. Like Gram kept me from having them. But Lucy and Isla and Delia were my friends since kindergarten. We sat together at lunch, went to one another’s birthday parties, hung out after school most days.

It’s just that when I started coming to Lanternwood more on the weekends, I missed a lot of stuff. And I couldn’t tell them about the Spinney or anything, because (a) it’s secret and (b) they probably would have thought it was stupid.

Anyway, they all started to change last year. Like, instead of going to play board games at Delia’s house, everyone else wanted to stay at school and watch the boys’ basketball game. I still don’t understand how watching someone else play something could be more fun than actually playing yourself.

Then I moved here at the end of sixth grade, and after a few weeks, we stopped texting each other so much. We had already kind of drifted apart, I guess.

After Mom pays the bill and we start toward the mall, I am still thinking about what she said about making friends.