“Ora is my mother, and she is very, very real,” Hawthorn says. “She thinks if you get really attached to a single word for someone, that’s not good, because how can a whole person fit inside one word? And then maybe they find one that fits better, or they use more than one, or they never find one that fits — that’s the natural flow of things. But I happen to think that words are important, too. I mean, Ora calls herself a witch, right?” I didn’t know this about Hawthorn’s mom, and it makes me want to ask a mess of questions, but I nod and wait, because Hawthorn doesn’t seem finished. “Yeah, so . . . here are my words: I’m a bisexual Black witch with a pretty strong lean toward masculine folks.”

“They can be ridiculously cute,” I admit.

I find myself back in the tree with Sebastian, except the tree is swaying, creaking, groaning, the winds too high.

“Rush, I think it’s your turn,” I say, trying to steady my voice.

She looks down at her feet, matching one word to each step, intent on the rhythm, in her own little Rush world. “Fat. Queer. White.” Then a skipped step, and she finishes the list off with “Cello player.”

“So, what word fits in a way that makes you happy at this very moment?” June asks me. “Lesbian? Bi? Pan? Queer?”

I grab for that word — and not just because Rush said it. It feels right to me. Less limiting in who I am, who I’m with. No solid lines around the definition. A way of saying different that doesn’t have an apology folded in. “Yeah. Queer.”

I couldn’t imagine saying that in front of anyone before the Grays. Not even Mom. A lack of homophobia is so far ahead of the game where we’re from. I wince, remembering how upset she was when she found out I’d been kissing girls and hadn’t told her, like she’d fallen down on the parental job. I didn’t know how to explain that it was about more than who I was kissing. It was about me, everything about me. And my mom might be okay with gay, but queer would make her cringe.

I’m shaking with the power of it.

I take out my phone and send a quick text.

I’m alive.

Hawthorn brings us to a stop.

We’ve reached a tree that’s no taller but much wider than the ones around it. That’s not the real reason it stands out, though. The tree looks like it’s been burned from the inside, hollowing out a space that reaches about three times as tall as I am. It probably looks like an adorable hollow during the day, but at night it’s a dark scream.

“That’s where the hermit lives?” I ask. “They let him do that to a tree?”