“It’s a month of silent meditation. Lots of people stick around for a while after. If you only do a week, it’s torture. But if you do the full month, it’s like you can’t get enough.”

“Do you know where he went?” I said. “After the after, I mean.”

He laughed. “That’s not the sort of question I ask people,” he said.

“He didn’t come home,” I said. My eyelids burned. I looked at the sky to keep from crying; the clouds that day were fat and fluffy, smug as aftermaths.

For a minute, nothing happened. One cloud moved slowly toward another. Then I felt Luke pull me against his chest, wrap his heavy arms around me. I shuddered, sure for one wild instant that I was going to be electrocuted by his touch—but that was the fence, not his body. I knew the difference. “It’s all right,” he said. He hugged me tight. “It’s not your fault.” I could feel his heart beating. I could feel my neck beginning to sweat. “What can I do?” he said.

I closed my eyes and saw Serena. Her fingers in my hair, her raised eyebrow, her crowded grin. I didn’t think about the blurred logic of her plan, or what it could mean. I thought only that I could get something for her, something that the other girls couldn’t. He never lets anyone past the fence.

I took a deep breath and felt my body expand against his. “I know you can levitate,” I said into his shoulder. “Can you teach me?”

Did his heart begin to beat a little faster, or was I imagining it? “Levitation is not something you should be trying to learn,” he said after a moment. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Please,” I said. I turned my face up toward his. Maybe Serena wouldn’t have to promise him anything after all. Maybe he would tell me now, and I could give her exactly what she wanted, and she would be grateful, so grateful she would never leave me.

He hesitated, looking down at me. He sighed. “Close your eyes,” he said at last. I closed them, and he held me a little tighter. “Imagine yourself as a feather, floating upward,” he said. I could not imagine myself as anything. I could only feel the dampness of his shirt against my cheek, two soft things. “Imagine yourself as a bird, hollow-boned and small.”

I tried. He adjusted his arms a little. One hand slipped onto the bare skin of my back, between my shirt and shorts. He left it there, and after a few seconds, began to move his thumb up and down, almost imperceptibly, against my skin. It felt like a little animal there, curious and rough and rubbing.