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  Kami kept cleaning up, whistling to herself as she folded and stacked piles of cardboard and dust fell around her like soft gray rain. Her glittery blue scarf, pencil skirt, and vintage Liberty blouse were not, she had to admit, the ideal clothes for manual labor. But she’d wanted to make a statement on her first day as a journalistic pioneer.

  Kami was wrestling with a box that was determined never to fold, when there came a tap on the open door. She looked up from her giant origami creation, into the eyes of the best-looking guy she had ever seen.

  There were two things about him that were more important than good looks. One was that he had a serious, substantial camera hanging from around his neck. The other was that Kami had never seen him before in her life, which meant he must be a Lynburn.

  Chapter Two

  The Prince of Aurimere

  Kami’d always retold her fairy tales to make the fair maidens braver and more self-sufficient, but she had never had any real objection to the handsome prince. And here one was, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans instead of armor, with golden hair that curled at the ends and eyes the ridiculous blue of high-summer skies, drenched in sunlight and melted clouds.

  Those blue eyes were, of course, fixed on Angela. “Uh, hi,” said the Lynburn, wearing the same expression all boys did when they met Angela, as if they had been smacked in the face and were enjoying it. “Are you Kami Glass?”

  Angela lifted the arm over her eyes a fraction. “Go away,” she commanded. “I only date college guys.”

  “You don’t know any college guys,” Kami pointed out.

  Angela’s gaze went to Kami, and she smiled. “Which leaves me with more time for napping.” She closed her eyes again, leaving Kami and the Lynburn looking at each other.

  Kami had to hand it to the guy. Most males were in retreat or infuriated when faced with Angela’s inexplicable rudeness. This guy’s expression had not changed, apart from a slight widening of his eyes. She admired his self-control.

  “I saw a flyer on the bulletin board about the school newspaper needing a photographer, and it said to come here after school.” He had a lovely, drawling American accent: more proof he was a Lynburn.

  His voice also sounded unruffled. Was he really offering to be a photographer for the paper, despite the fact that he’d just been insulted and their office was awash in cardboard?

  Angela sat bolt upright and glared at Kami. “You put up a flyer? Before you even talked me into this?”

  “Angela, Angela,” Kami said. “We can dwell on the past or we can move into the future!”

  “I can hide your body in these piles of boxes. Nobody will ever find it.” Angela made a gesture of dismissal at the new kid. “Do you mind?”

  He looked at Kami, who gave him a winning smile. This was how it went after Angela dismissed a guy: then he would take a look at Kami. Which didn’t always work out for Kami. Angela was the one with the exotic beauty, which was unfair considering that Kami was the one with the Japanese grandmother. Kami’s hair was black but shot with brown, not the raven’s-wing black of Angela’s hair. Kami’s features were subtly different from her schoolmates’, and her skin was pale gold, but she was betrayed by a nose dusted with freckles. Exotic beauties did not sport freckles.

  The Lynburn smiled back at her. Kami liked his smile almost as much as she liked his camera.

  “Seriously,” said Angela. “Go away now.”

  There was only so much rudeness anyone could be expected to take. Kami seized Angela’s arm and pulled her from the sofa. “Would you excuse us for just one moment?” she said to the Lynburn. “My colleague and I need to confer in our office.” With that, she hauled Angela into the empty stationery cupboard and shut the door behind them.

  In the darkness, Angela asked, “Why am I in a cupboard?”

  “There are only two important things for us to discuss right now,” Kami said. “The first is that to be a success, our newspaper requires a photographer.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “He’d be excellent decoration for our headquarters,” Kami said. “You have to admit, he’s very good-looking, and I need a photographer, so can I keep him, please, oh, please?”

  Angela sighed. In the cupboard, the sigh was like a gust of wind. “Kami, you know I hate guys being around all the time. They won’t stop staring and bothering me and giving me the sad, sad eyes like a puppy dog until I just want to kick them. Like a puppy dog.”

  “So you have some puppy issues,” Kami observed.

  The cupboard door swung suddenly open.

  The new boy stood framed by the bright light of the office. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But I can hear everything you’re saying.”

  “Ah,” said Kami.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I can take a hint. Especially if the hint is along the lines of—” He did a good imitation of Angela’s dismissive gesture. “Go away now.”

  Angela looked fondly reminiscent. “We’ve had some good times together, haven’t we? I’ll always remember them. After you go away.”

  The boy’s brow wrinkled slightly. “Also, you might not have noticed, but this is a cupboard.”

  “I admit our private office is of modest dimensions,” Kami told him. “But that’s the way we like it. Just because we’re the editors doesn’t mean we need special privileges. We’re not snobs.” She climbed out of the cupboard, and the new guy offered his hand. She didn’t need it, but she took it all the same.

  He smiled again. “My name’s Ash Lynburn.”

  Kami beamed at him. “I thought so. We don’t get many new people in town. Tell me all about yourself, and let me get a pen so I can write it down. Did I mention that you’re hired?”

  “Kami’s always like this,” said Angela.

  Even though Kami knew Angela was saying it with love, she was saying it in front of someone Kami wanted to impress. She hesitated, then reached out to Jared in her mind, and uncertainty washed away in the wave of reassurance she got back. “True,” Kami said cheerfully. “I am a born reporter. But you know, the old family moving back into the manor house—everyone who comes into my mother’s place is talking about it.” She looked at Ash. “My mum’s place is Claire’s,” she said. “Bakery in the morning, restaurant in the evening. Best food in Sorry-in-the-Vale. We’ll take you there when we have weekend staff meetings.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Ash said. He still had hold of her hand.

  Kami shook hands firmly, then pulled her hand away and walked over to her desk: she needed it to take notes. “I’m Kami Glass,” she said once she had a pen and a notepad. She waved at Angela. “This one-woman welcoming committee is Angela Montgomery. Congratulations! You’re part of the team. Your first assignment is to go out to the stairs and take some pictures of Angela standing on them slapping her ass.”

  Angela said, “I’m going back to the cupboard.”

  They all ended up at the stairs, Kami coming in order to drag Angela and staying in order to interview Ash. Ash ran from the top to the bottom of the stairs a few times, trying to get the best shot of Angela (though there was no way to get a bad shot of Angela, all swishing hair, snapping eyes, and perennial annoyance), and answered all Kami’s questions pleasantly, if cagily: Where had the Lynburns been? Oh, all around. Where had he liked living most? Oh, here.

  “So, now that you’re back, do you think you’ll be staying?” Kami looked down at Ash, pen poised over her notepad.

  Ash lowered his camera and looked up at her. Light flooded down the corridor, lending his hair a sheen of hazy brightness. “Sorry-in-the-Vale is where we belong,” he answered, and for the first time he did not sound calm and lighthearted. He sounded as if he was making a promise, one he intended to keep. “We’re going to stay here forever.”

  Kami woke that night from a dream of being someone else, to the sound of screaming in the woods. She reached for Jared.

  He answered, awake too, comforting and curious at once. Are we going t
o go see what’s happening?

  As soon as the silent voice in her mind asked that, the sound stopped.

  Kami told herself to get a grip: she was only allowed to be a certain degree of crazy. There were always kids messing around in the woods. These noises were perfectly normal.

  Through her connection to Jared she could feel again the chill she’d felt earlier today, the knowledge that he was unhappy. I’ll be intrepid another time, she told him. I was just dreaming about you. How are you doing?

  Kami had to reach for him across the boundaries they had built up so they could both have their own lives and not look entirely insane. She only got bits and pieces of what Jared was thinking, especially since the summer before last. She thought of it as their decision: Kami had found it was easier to act like he was real, and they’d both made the rules.

  She leaned against the boundaries between them now, venturing into his space a little, and tried to make out his feelings. His weariness dragged at her senses, like holding hands with someone who was walking slowly.

  Does it matter? he asked.

  Of course it matters, Kami said, and pushed at him, bullying a little. Tell me.

  My mother asked me if I still talked to you, said Jared. I said yes.

  Neither of them really talked about the other: hearing a voice in your head made you act weirdly enough without discussing the voices. Back when they were kids, when Kami had been young enough to send an English penny to an address she’d made up somewhere in America, their mothers had both been worried. Kami’s mother had been really scared, obviously convinced that Kami might actually be going crazy. Kami had been the only child for years before her brothers arrived. She’d been brought up by young, frantic parents and her grandmother, knowing they all had to work together to make their family work at all. She was supposed to be self-sufficient. She was not supposed to be a problem child who terrified her mother by inventing an entire fantasy life for her imaginary friend.

  Her mother’s fear had made Kami scared as well, but not scared enough to give Jared up. She stopped asking Jared questions about his life, though, and she stopped talking about Jared to other people. He was her secret, and that meant she could keep him.

  Kami did not feel comfortable talking about Jared’s mother, but she knew they didn’t have a good relationship. She also knew it was irrational and illogical and insane to worry about his family troubles. It was insane to care so much in the first place. He was a voice in her head, after all: she tried not to think about it too much because it made her think she really might be crazy.

  Jared filled in the silence. She wants me to stop talking to you.

  Kami did not let her dread touch him. And will you stop? she asked, trying to show him nothing but support.

  I told her I had to think about it, said Jared wearily.

  Kami curled tighter under the covers, feeling cold. Jared said nothing else. There was silence in her head and silence beneath her window, and still she could not sleep.

  Chapter Three

  The Secret in the Woods

  The first issue of The Nosy Parker came out two days later. It was a huge success. Kami was unsurprised, as the entire front page was a certain picture of Angela. Since Angela was wandering around looking like she wanted an excuse to kick someone’s kneecaps, Kami was getting all the compliments.

  “I really liked your tell-all article about the cricket camp,” said Holly Prescott, the second-best-looking girl in school. She kept up with Kami as they made their way through the riot that was the hallway at the end of school. “How old were those kids, eleven?”

  “Nine,” said Kami. “But old in sin.”

  Holly laughed. She’d always been nice to Kami, but since she mostly hung around with a succession of guys, or several guys at once, they never really felt like friends. “I’ve got a few ideas for articles,” Holly offered, to Kami’s surprise.

  Kami was struck by the thought of how many copies a picture of Holly’s clear green eyes and clearly dangerous curves would move. “What kind of ideas?” she asked, and smiled.

  Holly grinned back and hugged her books to her chest. Ross Phillips stopped in his tracks, obviously wishing he was a biology textbook. “Well, you know I have a motorbike,” Holly said. “I was zipping round past Shepherd’s Corner, by the woods, you know? And there was this dead badger.”

  “Animals are always getting knocked down at the Corner,” said Kami, not sure where Holly’s story was going.

  “Yeah,” Holly answered. “But this badger hadn’t been hit by a car. I mean, I was on my bike, I didn’t get a good look at it, but I got a better look at it than someone in a car would’ve. It had been cut up.”

  Kami recoiled. “Oh my God.”

  “I know,” said Holly. “And, I mean, maybe I got it wrong, but it just kept bugging me. I started thinking that if some horrible little kids hurt an animal, it’d be smart to put it at the Corner so it’d get run over by a car and it’d look like that’s why it died.”

  Some subtle signal, perhaps the fact that Kami looked like she wanted to be sick, made Holly stop and backpedal. “I’m probably just being paranoid,” she said hurriedly. “God, you must think I’m so strange. Look, forget about it, okay?”

  “My house is right next to the woods,” Kami said, thinking out loud. “We keep hearing stuff like yelling at all hours, waking my brothers. I’d been wondering about it. I’ll look into this. Thanks, Holly.”

  Holly looked half pleased and half terrified. “No problem,” she murmured. She left Kami at the top of the school steps with a wave, heading for her motorbike.

  From her vantage point on the steps, Kami could see Ash Lynburn’s head bent over the exposed engine of a sleek black car, expensive-looking but about twenty years old. It seemed like he was having some issues with it. She went down the steps and came up behind him. “Car trouble?”

  Ash banged his head on the car bonnet. “Oh, hey, Kami,” he said, giving her a smile even though she’d practically given him a concussion. “No, no car trouble. The car would have to start for there to be trouble.” He kicked a tire.

  Kami stepped forward to take a look. When she was a kid, her grandmother had decided their mechanic was dishonest and had taught herself and Kami the basics of car repair, and since Sobo had died Kami was the only one who knew how to fix anything at home. “Not a problem,” she said. “A wire’s loose, that’s it. Easy fix.” Kami leaned forward and tugged on the offending wire to demonstrate.

  Ash puffed out a sharp, frustrated breath. “Right. I’m an idiot.” Kami leaned away and he looked from the car engine to her. “I’m sorry, let me try again,” he said. “Thank you. I’m in a rotten mood, but I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s okay,” Kami said. “Though I will take a favor in exchange. Since you did not spill all the incriminating details I desire in your interview, I want you to help me write an article about moving back to England.”

  “Moving back?” Ash asked. “I wasn’t even born when my parents left.”

  “I’m still calling the article ‘Return of the Lynburns,’ ” Kami informed him. “And we’re taking a picture of you being all lord of the manor, outside on the hill. Do you own, like, an old-fashioned white shirt? Because you should wear it, and maybe it should be all wet, as if you were swimming in the lake.”

  Ash laughed. “What lake would that be?”

  “Any lake. There are two lakes in the woods. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Fixing the car wasn’t that big a favor,” Ash said. “If you want me in a wet white shirt, you’re going to have to do something else for me.”

  Kami raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Show me around?” Ash suggested. “I hear this place called Claire’s is good. Uh, how watchful is your mum?”

  Kami let herself be swayed by his easy charm. “She neglects me horribly. It’s kind of tragic.”

  Ash’s eyes lit up. “Great.”

  Kami’d had exactly one boyfriend in
her entire life, and Claud had been a college friend of Angela’s brother and a terrible mistake with a goatee. Sometimes guys thought she was cute. But sometimes they measured her up and visibly found her chubby or dressed weirdly or—always a risk—looking like she was listening to the voice in her head.

  She certainly wasn’t used to attention from guys this attractive. She looked away from Ash and down at the gravel of the parking lot. “So,” she said, keeping her tone casual, “why are you in a rotten mood? Someone bullying you at school? You can talk to me, I know how it is. Everyone’s always so cruel to the glamorous guy who lives in the big mansion.”

  “My aunt and my cousin just moved in with us,” Ash said, his voice back to its usual light tone. “We’re still getting things sorted out so he can go to school, so you haven’t had the doubtful pleasure of meeting him yet. We don’t exactly get on.”

  Kami glanced up and saw Ash was studying her. His habitual pleasant expression had returned. “Let me reference the mansion again,” Kami said. “Put the jerk in the south wing, you won’t see him for weeks at a time. Or lock him in the attic. The law will not be on your side, but literary precedent will.”

  Ash looked mildly puzzled, but smiled at the joke anyway. “I’ll take that into consideration. Can I offer you a lift home?”

  “Nah. I don’t really trust your car, buddy,” Kami said. “Heard you’ve been having trouble with it.”

  She always talked to Jared on her walks home. She reached for the connection to him as she left the school gates, letting him know that the next time there were screams in the woods, they were investigating.

  Neither of them mentioned their last conversation.

  That night Kami was so jumpy waiting for a scream and trying not to think about Jared that she couldn’t sleep. As a result, she spent the following day staggering from one class to the next. Angela gave up asking her what was wrong and just steered her in the right direction through the halls. Kami was wearily relieved when the last bell rang and she could stumble home.