I can’t get her out of my head. Anna’s ash colored face is superimposed over the fire I’m making out there. It’s spooky, being so far from the house, out and down past the pool yard, over the hill where a fire can’t be seen so late at night. But I can’t leave because I told Michael before dinner I’d be here waiting for him. Then Dad grabbed him for a talk, and who knows how long that could go?

So there is Anna’s face between me and the fire, a memory looming.

I don’t care what Bea says, seeing Anna like that today shook me. I mean, that’s what she is probably going to look like right before she dies. And the thought of it is just unbearable.

I try to shake it off, but I can’t. Even if it’s not this week, or even this year, Anna is going to die. And these last days of hers will be spent in a near coma, unless I do something about it. And unless Michael helps me.

But he will help me, even if I have to use every power of persuasion I can think of. I all but got full permission to tell him everything and teach him anything. So why not get him to help me? He can’t want Anna in there on his behalf, anyway.

I’d talk to Anna about it, if I could. She’s my first allegiance and if she said no, for sure, I’d have to respect that. But I can’t talk to her, and she can’t tell me no. It’s a loophole, too. For sure Bea won’t go for it. So Michael is my only chance.

Anna’s only chance.

“Hey,” I hear a voice say from behind me, soft and low. My heart skips a beat, and not only because he scared me. I like being around him. A lot.

“Did Dad bore you to death?” I ask, trying not to let the heartbeat thing make my voice all wonky. It’s a good thing my face, now flushing full red, will be hidden by the fire light.

“No. It was okay. Guy stuff is all,” he says. “Nice fire.”

“Can’t take credit. I asked the handyman to set it up for us. Told him the family was going to roast marshmallows out here tonight. All I did was light the match.”

“Sometimes that more than enough,” he says, like it means something.

I don’t catch his drift, but I’m not going to admit to that. I want him to help me. So I need him to like me. Well, I’d also like him to like me. But that is beside the point right now.

“I saw Anna today,” I say.

“Awesome,” he says, truly excited. “When can I see her?”

“You can’t,” I say, pausing for dramatic effect.

“What? Why not?”

Another pause. A hesitation. “Bea said everyone has to stay separate,” I add. “Except me. I can see anyone. But none in the immediate family can see each other.”

I say “immediate family” because I’ve just gained some kind of family status according to Bea and I’m not about to deny it. I’m one of them, she said. Maybe not blood relation, but I’ll take what I can get.

“Why would they do that?” he says, clearly confused, and maybe a little outraged.

Perfect. He’ll be as upset as I am, when he hears what’s next.

“It wouldn’t matter anyway. They took Anna down. Bea says it isn’t safe for her to have any consciousness at all.”

“No,” he says. “No way.”

I look down and away, and I wait.

“You can’t be serious,” he asks, reaching out for my shoulder, as if turning me back toward him would allow him to see a different story in my face. Fortunately, it’s all true.

“I’m serious,” I say sadly. “She wasn’t even out of bed. She looked like she was in a coma. It was bad, Michael. Really bad.”

“They can’t do this!” he nearly yells.

“I know,” I say, “it’s so much to ask of her, for our sake. For your sake.” God, I’m a little too good at this. “There is good news, though. Bea said I can teach you what she teaches me. That it will be up to me, not her. It’s a loophole in her agreement not to teach you. I think that’s why I’m here, in fact.”

“That’s great,” he says, “but at what cost? Anna’s consciousness? I don’t think I can live with that.”

“Yeah,” I say, forcing myself to wait.

Okay, so now the guilt tripping is turning on me. I’m not normally a game player.

“So what do we do?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. That’s the whole truth, and it feels good to tell it.

“I don’t either,” he admits. “I did figure out about the spoon spinning. Why it didn’t work.”

“Why?” I ask, biding my time. We’ll get back to Anna. With her face still hovering over the fire, I’m not exactly going to forget.

“It’s the leather bag she gave me to wear when I’m around her. None of my magic works when I’m wearing it. But take it off and it’s all back to normal.”

“How did you figure it out?”

He shrugs. “The way I figure everything out. I just kind of leave my mind and go off looking for an answer. I don’t try to hard, just sort of put it out there. Playing sports is great for it—you get into the zone, let your body move without thinking, and then an idea comes, nearly out of nowhere. That’s where I got the idea to eat organic. I was wondering how to get better at the magic, and I started playing. The soccer ball came flying at me and in the spit second before it hit me, I saw it was the junk food that was getting in the way. The ball nearly knocked me out, but when I got up, I knew I’d never eat that crap again. It would hurt me and my magic too much.”

“So you just stopped, like that?”

“Yep. It wasn’t hard at all. In fact, I really couldn’t eat that stuff anymore. Even a soft drink was too much—like drinking cough syrup and motor oil.” He shudders, like for real, not effect.

“So you think you could use that method to figure out how to get Anna out? I mean, if I told you everything I can, and taught you everything they teach me, and you got into the zone, do you think something would come to you like that?”

“Can’t hurt to try,” he says. “But you should try, too. Anyone can do it.”

“I’ll try, because right now I don’t have any ideas at all. I do know my way around there, for sure. But you can’t get anyone out of the building for more than a few minutes. Unless she can shapeshift time again. But I think that might be pushing it, and anyway, she’d have to be conscious to get her to do it.”

“You could poke around, ask someone there what happened to her. Maybe you could learn something?”

“True. Someone had to give her something. Unless she’s going out of her own accord, which is possible, I guess.”

“I don’t think so,” he says, picking up a stick and poking the fire.

“I don’t either,” I say. “I don’t know how I would know that. I just feel like I do, actually, know that.”

“That’s how it works most times,” he says. “You don’t ever really know how you know something, you just do. It kind of lands on you, and you know it. And all the facts can seem like they point in a totally different direction, but you still feel like you just know what you know. I’ve test it out a lot.”

“And?” I have to ask.

“It’s trustworthy. But you can’t make it happen. It just comes if and when it wants to.”

“If it wants to? You sound like Bea and Anna, magic is nearly a person.”

“Do I? I’d sure like to think I sound like either one of them. You’re lucky. You already know a lot more than I do about what and how they think.”

“They don’t always agree, so it’s kind of hard to know for sure what is what.”

“Like what do they disagree on?” he asks, intrigued, like he doesn’t even know his own family members.

“Bea thinks Anna is crazy to say you are good and Jake is a mix of good and bad, and that I’ll have to chose between you and Jake someday, to see who will be head of the family.” I pause for effect, but Michael doesn’t seem phased. Or even surprised.

“She says it is way to complex to be teaching me that right away,” I quickly add. “But Anna thinks Bea’s methods of teaching me magic isn’t good, because I’m not protected and I’m learning too much, too fast.”

“What does Jake say?” Michael asks. His voice takes on a new tone, and for sure now I know it is competitive. You can just hear it in there, though he’s trying to hide it.

“He seems to get that nobody’s fully right or wrong. I’d say he’s pretty open minded. But I’m not always sure if what he thinks is right, either. So I’m left guessing a lot.”

“Do you like him?” Michael asks, looking worried.

“Jake? Well, not like him, like him. I mean I don’t know about that. Haven’t really thought about that. The choosing thing is just weird, don’t you think?”

“I could imagine us both wanting you,” he says. “You having the magic, too.”

My spine stiffens. “Oh, but not me just because I am me?” I say.

Michael sighs loudly. “I didn’t mean that. I just mean…. Okay, so I stuck my foot in my mouth. But that isn’t what I meant. I already like you, magic or not. I liked you when I first saw you with Anna. There are plenty of reasons to like you besides the magic. I’m sure Jake and I have both noticed them.”

Another full blown flush rushes over my face. I’m really glad for the fire. I don’t know what to say. I mean, what do you say to something like that? Having never had a boyfriend, I have no experience in guys saying nice things to me. At least beyond, “Hey, you got an A, good one.” Surely nothing like what he just said.

I look to the image of Anna over the fire for her take on it, not that she’d have one, but she’s gone. Guess I’m on my own. As ever.

“So, then, what…,” I stammer, “I mean… we should have a game plan,” I finally manage. “For Anna.”

“We should,” Michael admits, again poking the fire. Perhaps he is what made her go away. “First, I have to know what you know. Tell me about that—whatever it was—that Bea turned into this morning. I know you saw it.”

I nod. “They call it shapeshifting. I guess it is what your family does.”

“Turning into animals,” he says slowly, as if the gears are turning deep in his head.

I nod. “Bea turns into a black panther. She says Anna turns into a mountain lion. I saw Jake—or what I was told was Jake—as a spotted leopard. He was sort of deformed, though.”

“Deformed?” This peaks his interest.

“Yeah. Bea just said he wasn’t very good at it yet.”

“Interesting,” he says, but doesn’t go further.

“Why?” I probe.

“When I was a kid,” he explains, “we saw a lot of animals you normally would not see around here. I was told Bea had a small exotic zoo, but that it was off limits because I was so young. Jake and I searched and searched for it, but we could never find it. We’d just see an animal roaming around in the yard every so often and tell someone that one of the animals got out.”

“You think it was Bea’s cover?” I ask in a whisper.

Michael looks at me, then shakes his head. “You know how crazy this is, right? How all of this is not possible? I mean shapeshifting, into animals?”

“Sure,” I agree, glad it seems weird to him, too, “but you saw what I saw today.”

He sighs again. “Yes, I did. But what good would it be to be able to turn into an animal, anyway? What could the family get out of that? And what could ‘magic’ itself want? What is it all about, Mayden?”

“It’s about the planet,” a voice says, off in the distance but loud enough to hear, plain as day. I can’t see, but I know the voice.

“Jake?” I say.

Michael turns and starts to move toward the voice, but we hear a deep hiss.

“Don’t come near,” Jake warns, “They’ll find out.”

“Okay,” I say, already holding Michael back. He can’t get close. That much we know.

“What are you doing here?” I say to Jake, loud enough so he can hear, but no louder than I need to.

There is a pause. “I want Anna out, too,” he finally says.

I can hardly breathe for the excitement I feel rushing through me, hearing those words. Again my body gets those tingles from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.

Nothing is said, but there is what I can only call an “understanding” that circulates through the three of us. No words are spoken, but none need be. There is no sound save the crickets, but the understanding crashes over me, like a wave or a wind, again and again.

“So… We are a team?” Michael finally says out loud.

“We always were,” Jake returns. “What should be any different now?”