“There aren’t many who are still alive. And people really care about recovering these stories. There’s this huge grant that my professor wants me to go for that’s all about surfacing underheard stories like that. And your family’s story—the wars, the pencils. It’s incredible.” She paused and seemed to swallow hard. “If you and your family are open to that, of course.”

It was just my luck to start falling for someone who was interested in me for an entirely different reason. I couldn’t reply, choked up on the feeling that I was only a stepping-stone for her and that when she was through with me, she’d move on and not look back. And who was I, a mere stone, to ask her to linger, to squash me a little more gently?

“Hey,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’m being rude, aren’t I? Throwing my goals at you and pressuring you to help me. Do you remember what I said last time? I really meant it. I like talking to you in a way that has nothing to do with pencils or archiving or memory work. In fact, let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s talk about something else.”

I wondered if this was how it would always be, a last-minute change of the subject to avoid my insecurities.

“Like what?” I managed to say.

“Hm, what do girls talk about? Tell me about your first kiss.”

The question made me flush.

“It wasn’t a good one,” I said.

“What made it bad?”

“It was with a boy,” I said before I could hesitate.

“Ah,” she said, and I wondered what that meant, what exactly it was she understood with that one syllable.

“Your turn,” I said.

“It was in one of the staircases in my high school, after volleyball practice. And it was electrifying.”

She did not elaborate, and I had so many questions.

“I’m glad yours was good, then,” I said to draw out more information. It worked.

“Well, I didn’t make the mistake of being with a boy.”

“Ah.”

“Ah,” she agreed.

We didn’t talk much longer after that. I was going through various highs and lows, and they were all conflicting, and she had to go meet with her study group.

After hanging up, I came to this conclusion: There’s a power that my grandmother possesses, which she says she is willing to teach me, and Louise is particularly interested in this power, and I am particularly interested in Louise. Which results in a weird dynamic that can go wrong in so many ways it is best that I don’t tempt it.