When I fall asleep that night, I dream that I’m in the Spinney. All the charmed folk are there, and I’m leading them in some kind of game that involves hopping from rock to rock down the stream. I’m barefoot, and when I glance down, my feet are all one color again. I look up, and Gram is there, sitting on Throne Rock, reading The World at the End of the Tunnel. She catches sight of me and smiles, sunlight dappling her skin.

By the next morning, Fina has decided that the figure we saw was not a vampire but was, in fact, a cult leader about to perform a satanic ritual, possibly involving human sacrifice.

And despite the fact that the figure seemed to run away from us, she is also sure that we made a narrow escape from certain death.

I have a feeling this is one of those stories she’s going to be telling forever, the kind that gets bigger and crazier the more time goes on.

It’s not until I get up to brush my teeth that I remember that I don’t have any makeup on. And my bangs are all funky, too, so you can see the patches above my eyebrows. But Fina didn’t say anything about it. She didn’t look at me weird. She treated me like there was nothing different about me at all.

And I start to wonder if maybe this whole time, I’ve been overreacting about having vitiligo. Because if everyone reacts the way Fina does to my patches, then all that’s going to change is the reflection I see in the mirror. And I know I could get used to my patches if I knew everyone else would, too.

I walk Fina out when her mom arrives, and then I decide I’m not ready to go back inside yet. Last night was the first night I haven’t felt lonely in Gram’s house since she died. I don’t want it to go back to the way it was. Not yet, at least. I run inside just to grab the sugar skull I made last night. I think I’ll go and leave it for Gram. She would love the colors.

It smells like a wood fire outside, which means Old Joe and Older Joe are probably burning brush on the farm. Ruth’s curtains twitch in her windows as I walk by, and I give them a wave. It was raining when Fina and I woke up, but now the air is clean and there’s a breeze whipping around the bright morning like Boomer zigzagging after a squirrel.