“Well, because what people think of you usually tells you much more about them than it does about you. For instance, I think you are the smartest, best, most wonderful little girl in the world. Now what does that tell you about me?”

I giggled. “Um, that you love me?”

“Very much,” Gram said.

The memory ends abruptly as Boomer flies up to me, skidding to a halt just as he reaches my chest. I hug him tight as he pants, looking over his back at Gram’s gravestone.

“I know there’s nothing I can do to change my skin,” I say, “and maybe I don’t even have this vitiligo thing. I’ll try not to worry. And I’ll try not to care about what people think of me.”

But secretly, I bet it’s easier not to care what people think of you when you’re Gram’s age than when you’re twelve.

And anyway, when I was with Gram, it was like I lived in a different world—one made of old books and warm milk and sprinkled with fairy dust. A world where Gram could fix anything with a twinkle of her eye. But now that she’s gone, the spell has broken. And I’m not sure if her advice can fix things in the world I live in now.

I think about the last thing that little boy said after I pinched his friend. About Gram putting a curse on him.

I feel a tear snaking down my cheek.

Gram always said that there was magic in the world for those who cared to see it.

And if magic is real, then I guess curses must be, too.

10

Instead of turning for home when we leave the graveyard, Boomer and I walk to the meadows, duck underneath the barbed wire strand, and slip into the Spinney.

When we reach the middle of the forest, I sink into the moss. It’s a relief to be here after spending all day at school. I lie there for a while, breathing in the smell of the wild roses and looking up at the branches of the sycamore tree.

For now, most of the leaves are still green, but in a couple of months, they’ll be amber and orange and gold. Then they’ll fall and sunlight will take up the whole sky.

Change is coming, the trees whisper.

That’s the thing about transformations. You think you’re looking at one thing, but it’s already on its way to being another. Just because you can’t see it changing right in front of you doesn’t mean it’s not. And there’s usually nothing you can do to stop it.