As Elite Cain reaches the door, he pauses and calls over his shoulder. “We expect you at precisely six o’clock, Shy.” Exactly one hour before the football game. He turns his head to look at me. “You are lucky to be living in this time of change.”

Chapter Five

Anora and the Coin Box

Our new home is a two-story house with white siding and a big front porch. Very different from the multifloor, brick apartment Mom and I moved from. I like it well enough, and there is definitely more room. Boxes are stacked all around, most of them new furniture, things to replace those we didn’t get to bring with us. Photos and frames rest on the bar. I pause, taking note of the ones Mom chose: pictures of Poppy—my grandmother—with Poppa and pictures of me when I was little.

Mom tosses her keys on the counter and sifts through the mail.

“You can work on unpacking your room before dinner,” she says.

“Are you sure? I can help with dinner,” I offer. Mom and I enjoy cooking, especially together.

She shakes her head. “You need an organized place to study. I’ll work on dinner.”

I don’t need to be told again. Besides, I want to be by myself for a little while. I head upstairs to my room. It’s larger than the last one. A bay window overlooks the front lawn and lets in a lot of light, and two built-in bookshelves flank either side of it. I turn up my music and start unpacking and shelving books.

After, I move to folding and hanging clothes, not that it is necessary. Coming to Nacoma Knight Academy means committing myself to a colorless life of navy skirts and white shirts—just another way to drown the old me. I use the process to mourn some of my favorite clothes—colorful dresses, comfy sweaters, geek T-shirts, and skinny jeans. The only clothing items I held on to from before are my tights.

The next box is the only one I labeled Poppa. It’s full of his stargazing equipment: a set of astronomy binoculars, several posters of the night sky, and a cheap telescope he gave me for my tenth birthday. He had a bigger, fancier version, but Mom sold it for money for the move to Oklahoma.

My eyes burn with unshed tears as I remove everything from the box and arrange it around my room. Before we came here, I was torn between research fields: astrophysics or engineering. Did I want to discover planets and stars or orbit the earth?

But something happened the day Poppa died, and I put my dreams on hold, and ever since then, things have been falling apart.