We pass the cafeteria because it’s way too nice to sit inside voluntarily, and head for the courtyard. I follow Hawthorn and Lelia as they tramp over endless freshmen and sophomores to get to their favorite spot. The five of us keep our hands linked, even though it’s hard to walk like that. We cut through a circle of popular kids, and red hair causes me to crank my neck, but this girl is too young to be Imogen, and her face isn’t blank. There’s a crease that should be a smile as she listens to other girls talk about their crushes.

Hawthorn tugs the chain of the Grays, and the feeling travels, a pulse that reaches me at the end. “So we have the hours between dawn and school, and the hours between school and when your mom gets home, but only the days you’re not working?”

“And lunch and study halls,” June says.

“No study halls,” I mumble. “I don’t have any in my schedule. Mom was worried they wouldn’t keep track of my attendance.”

“What about nights?” Hawthorn asks, sitting down abruptly. We fall around her, and lunch appears from bags. “Can you at least get weekends?” I shake my head. “Just Saturdays?”

“Only daylight hours,” I say, “at least until I build up some good-daughter points again.” I hate thinking of it that way, but it’s true. Good behavior is currency to parents, and I don’t have any to spend.

“This might become a problem at some point,” Hawthorn says, tapping her lips.

“Why?” I ask.

June unfurls a black lace parasol and Lelia, the pale one, huddles in its circle of shade. Rush has become one with the grass. Hawthorn sits cross-legged, her long legs pulling her skirt into a tray for her lunch. She lines up each item neatly. Thin-skinned plums, carrots that haven’t been babied, some kind of cookie that looks like it’s mostly oats.

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” she says. “Dowsing rod first.”

“After school?” I ask.

“Ora needs me today,” Hawthorn says, not elaborating.

I wonder how long it will be before I feel like I can ask why. I might have gotten drunk on the sight of the Grays naked in the woods, but there are parts of them I still don’t get to see.

“I can’t make it either,” June says, attacking a sandwich with eager bites. “Babysitting. Do you have any brothers or sisters, Danny? I have six.” She notices that I’m not eating and holds out half of her sandwich.

“Only child,” I say, accepting the offering with a grateful nod and a few wolfish bites. The minifridge in cottage nine is woefully limited. “My parents were never really together, in a romantic sense.”