Celine was joking, but when Mira was younger she didn’t understand the categories, why Celine was considered white and Mira and Jesse not. All three of them could be a mixture of anything, especially seeing them clustered together on her mother’s porch. Who was to say what any of them were? When Mira looked at their skin, especially now during the heat of summer, the differences felt slight. Still, they were there, and come the early part of fall Celine’s skin would pale, while Mira’s and Jesse’s stayed mostly the same. This was the true marker between them.

A breeze blew, cooling their damp skin, and the surprise of it caused them all to stop. The leaves made a rustling from the wind, calling their attention to the woods that bordered the periphery of their neighborhood. Jesse took a sideways glance toward the cluster of trees. The midday sun blinded him and he squinted to shield his eyes from the light. “That Woodsman Plantation is out in those woods you know,” Jesse remarked. “Why haven’t we ever gone to find it?”

Celine at first paid the question no mind, seeming to think he wasn’t serious, but when she saw he was, she shifted in her seat. “It’s because of all the stories about it.”

“Other kids at school have gone. I’ve heard them talk of it.”

“Yeah, talk,” Celine emphasized. “You really think they’d tell the truth? Who cares anyway if they have? You don’t have to be like them.”

“You’re one to talk.”

A look of surprised hurt flashed across Celine’s face and Mira knew she needed to do something before the two of them got into it and ruined the rest of the day. “Do you want to try and find it?” Mira asked Jesse.

Jesse quickly turned around to face her. His eyes lit up. “Do you?”

“No,” Mira told Jesse, but changed her mind. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know where it is.”

“I could find it, I bet. It wouldn’t be hard. We should go.”

“What’s gotten into both of you?” Celine interrupted.

Mira ignored Celine, instead gazing at Jesse, wondering how serious he’d been, but he was fixed in the direction of the woods.

“Nothing’s gotten into me,” Mira said, shrugging off Celine’s judgment in an attempt at hiding her interest. “I’m bored, I guess. What else is there to do?”

“It’s a thousand degrees today. You really want to go traipsing through the woods to look at some derelict house? We can do that without going anywhere. Look around.”

“We should go,” Jesse agreed. “It’s not like we’re doing anything else. I’m kind of curious if all those stories are true.”