Like how I was supposed to feel about this. Because I still didn’t know.

  Part of me felt like this was happening to someone else, like some novel I was reading, revealing secrets. I was shocked, but distantly.

  Was it normal to feel like this when looking into your own past?

  Mr. Blackbourne redirected his attention, showing me the photo. “Well, then we’ll have to move on to the next step.” He paused fully; his whole face rather stoic as he seemed to consider his next words carefully. “Do you feel it’s time to see them? Those family members that are still alive?”

  My voice rose a pitch when I spoke. “Right... now?”

  “There’s an opportunity to do this now,” he said. “It’s a valid reason to make the attempt. The goal today was to find any remnants of your existence, and this would be part of that process. We’ll make arrangements at your discretion. However, you have the ultimate decision. It is always a choice.”

  He’d mentioned this might happen. The Academy usually worked with children and teenagers broken from their families for one reason or another. Like with state run facilities, it was normal to try to seek out extended families to see if they’d like to care for or be in contact with the kids at all. The Academy went a step further, because they gave the individual the choice. If so, the Academy planned the introduction and set up so the new family members could support them easily if they wished.

  It was always their choice. There were always options.

  However, in my case, with my desire to join the Academy and help, and particularly become a ghost bird, I would need to go through both of those steps, to check out any existing family members and make the choice to stay with the Academy. In addition, I’d have to find any paperwork they might have that traced back to me. This meant possibly getting close access to individual homes.

  There was no way I could have predicted we’d actually ever find anything. Now I was face to face with choices. The right decision was elusive. It felt like every answer had its own risks.

  I was thinking for so long about it, Gabriel finally broke the silence.

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “We can just make a few calls. And one of us could run up and double-check for any other photos or paperwork.”

  That didn’t feel right. Not in my heart. Maybe I didn’t have to face them in person individually, but it felt wrong to not go. Something inside me was saying this was the right thing to do. It was the timing, the not really being able to think this out that bothered me.

  But there was no preparing for something like this. There would never be enough time to think. Maybe going and getting it done was the best solution. So I could get back and find peace that much faster. “No, no I’d like to go.” If I was going to dive into information about myself, I wanted to do it all at once. I wanted to discover every bit I could. Like ripping off a bandage, I just wanted to get it over with. To get answers. Were there any to find? “But if I go, don’t I risk bumping into one of them? And should I not directly meet any of them to keep it possible to be a ghost bird still?”

  “They probably presume you’re alive,” Mr. Blackbourne said, “and still with your parents. Although from your parents’ records, they haven’t been in contact. It was part of the problem in locating them. What records we could find, there were no calls from anyone that appeared to be family.” He flashed the photo at me. “If there are any more, we should find those, too.”

  “So even if I go, I shouldn’t meet them,” I said. “It might stir up them wanting to connect. But... what if they wanted to reach out to me and couldn’t?”

  Mr. Blackbourne’s steady gaze suddenly drifted downward, seeing me but not seeing me at all. “Those are questions I can’t answer, because it’s entirely up to you.”

  There was a silence that hovered among the group. There was no way for any of us to know what would happen, either going up or even leaving it to fate and not looking into it. Since I was still sixteen, and one of them could show up any day and make a claim that I need to come live with them.

  So there was only one way to know for sure. “We have to go,” I said. “I can’t become a ghost bird without being sure. We can’t even proceed with me being in the Academy...”

  “You could always not go,” Gabriel said gravely. “And not join.”

  There was sudden shift as everyone redirected their attention to Gabriel.

  But Gabriel wasn’t looking at anyone. His head was lowered, and he continued, “You need to know all the options available. This isn’t your only choice. Joining the Academy, you must want to be in it, but it’s not a no-other-choice option. It should be the one you really want.”

  Mr. Blackbourne’s shoulders lowered just slightly. “He’s right. This is a choice you have to make, and we might not even be able to help you make these choices. What we can do is allow you to see, even from a distance, your family. If you wish. We can at the very least give you more information so you can make the choices you want.”

  I felt like I had already made my choice. The Academy helped me so much, and I wanted to become a part of it. The more I was involved, the more I saw the good they did. To join the Academy fully, I had to take the step. I had to secure my ghost bird status. I wanted in the Academy, so I had to go.

  Being ready was something entirely different. I hoped I’d be ready once I was there. It still felt surreal.

  I nodded very slowly to him. I’d go. I’d at least see, as he said, from a distance, and maybe that would be enough. “I should go.”

  Once he had my answer, he turned immediately to the others, “And who will go on this trip?”

  Immediately, all hands were raised.

  Gabriel raised both of his hands and then shifted to reach out and try to force Silas’s hand down. Silas resisted easily, smirking at Gabriel.

  When it clearly wasn’t working, Gabriel turned his attention to Luke’s hand, and wrestled with his hand to get him to lower it. Luke was still at my feet, so there was a slight arm-wrestling match happening right in front of me.

  Victor’s hand was raised, but he was the first to drop his willingly. “I guess I can’t.”

  “You have to stay to check in with your probation officer, and this will likely take too long,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Victor said and he sighed. He gazed in my direction. “A few months of being babysat is just something I’ll have to get used to.” Victor winked at me. Despite the broken nose that changed his profile that he sometimes complained about, I thought he seemed much happier these days being free from his parents. And I liked the new nose.

  I smiled, trying to show some sympathy. Because he was on probation, he had to show up to school every day, do his community service, schedule meetings with the probation officer and at some point, he had to start a drunk driving course and a few other things the judge finalized on. For a first-time offence and because it was rushed through the system, the sentence was kept secret because he was a minor, but the judge did everything short of having him sit in juvenile detention for six months. Apparently, the judge was harsh on teenagers, especially wealthy ones, for DUIs.

  By the time Mr. Blackbourne redirected his attention to the other three, Gabriel had apparently lost by Luke forcing Gabriel to simply hold his hand rather than Gabriel managing to lower it any.

  “You won’t be going alone,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “Dr. Green has requested time off from the hospital and work. Although I feel like it’s more because his mother has decided to relocate to Charleston.”

  That was a surprise to everyone. “Oh man,” Gabriel blurted out. “Love the woman, but goddamn, moving here?”

  Mr. Blackbourne was about to respond when there was a gentle, familiar knock at the door.

  Miss Walter, one of the assistants at the school, poked her head in. Her dark, straight hair pulled back in a bun and her eyes wideset, gave her a stern appearance, but when she smiled, it showed her soft heart. She glanced at the rest of us and then to Mr. Blackbourne. “Could we trouble you for a moment? There’s some strange occurrences happening with the computer system.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Blackbourne said. He stood up, grabbing his gray suit jacket to put on, and before he left, he motioned, once, quickly, to Victor.

  Victor waited until Mr. Blackbourne closed the door to the office, and then immediately went to Mr. Blackbourne’s computer and started typing and utilizing the mouse.

  “Strange occurrences?” Luke asked, as he slithered up from the floor to the seat Victor had given up.

  Victor kept his eyes on the computer, typing, clicking with the mouse. “We’ve been waiting for this. Someone trying to break in and mess with the records here. We’ve set trackers and left a few breadcrumbs.” He adjusted the chair quickly and settled in like he was prepared to be there awhile. “Whoever it is, they’ll try to make it look like a system-wide crash and then probably have people on standby to pretend to come ‘fix the problem.’ They’ll want to physically get rid of the hard drives they haven’t had access to since they were arrested. But we’ve got the data already. We just need a trail.”

  “Isn’t the principal in jail?” I asked.

  “At home and restricted there for now, but yes, Principal Hendricks is not doing this,” Victor said, and he gazed up, meeting my eyes and a small smile on his face. “But their buddies aren’t on watch. There was the superintendent involved, but then there was a third, remember? An accountant who likely is the one who squirreled away the money. We’d like proof for both.”

  “Are we sure it’s not Vice Principal McCoy?” Luke asked.

  Victor shrugged. “He might have been getting paid, but he seems more like a minion to me. Doing what his superiors told him. From what I understand, he was the first to start pointing fingers and he didn’t really know about the money side or he would have said so.”

  It had been a team effort for the old principal and others to coordinate scamming the school out of millions of dollars to line their own pockets. It wasn’t hard to imagine they had an outside person to safely store away the money. But finding out who it was would be crucial to getting the money returned to the school and not lost forever.

  “Should we put off going to Kentucky?” I asked quietly. “This seems more immediate...” I almost said it also sounded more important. In a way, it was. “I’m okay to wait.”

  “No,” Victor said. “Actually, it might help with our other problem. Volto. They’d been talking about separating the team, you included, and seeing if either of the Voltos follows or remains here. It’ll help us identify who he... they... are actually more interested in, which will play a big part in what we try next.” He paused and smiled. “Still hard to think it’s been two people the whole time. It makes sense though.”

  I’d heard something like that before from them, to split ways and see who Volto follows, but I supposed this was as good of an extra excuse to make the attempt as any.

  I wasn’t going to talk my way out of it. Maybe part of me wanted to put it off a little bit, nervous as to what we would find. But would putting it off help that feeling ease? I nodded to Victor. “Then I guess I should go.”

  Luke checked his phone and sat up. “The others are in the courtyard. They want to know if we’re here and if they should come in.”

  “You guys go,” Victor said. “This is going to take a bit of time.” He spoke to Silas. “Stay in here with me and be my lookout? I might get zoned out when I focus on this.”

  Silas pulled the school uniform jacket off of his body and set it on the arm of the chair he was in. “If I must,” he said, although he smiled at me. “See you later.” He hadn’t said much this whole time, and he looked a little tired. I wondered if he’d been on some night job with the Academy, or if he’d been up for other reasons.

  Gabriel and Luke stood up to trail out. I drew closer to Victor, feeling a little reluctant to leave.

  Victor gazed up at me when he realized I’d approached the desk. “Don’t worry about me,” he said with a lighthearted smile.

  “I’m not worried,” I said. “But if I leave soon, I won’t see you for a bit. I don’t know when...” I’d hardly seen him the last couple weeks, because he was on such a strict schedule and he had still been healing from the car accident.

  I missed him. A lot.

  Reaching out, he grabbed my hand and held it. “And I’ll bug you every day with texts and phone calls until you get back. So you won’t forget me.”

  I smirked a little at his joke. “Okay.” I’d never seen him as chipper as he’d been lately. Every moment was positive. He jumped up to help everyone. Nothing anyone said brought him down.

  I liked the new Victor. The broken nose and happier him.

  Boy, Stop Wasting Your Time

  Gabriel and Luke quickly left the main school office, and I trailed along behind them. The hallway was still busy with the late lunch crowd. Some students were starting to line up at the stairwell in anticipation of the bell for class ringing.

  I followed the others to the school’s central courtyard. The central outdoor area had pockets of people standing together talking. Large windows upstairs and downstairs made the light bounce around the courtyard a bit at this time, so it looked like a super bright day despite the chill of February.

  Hula hoops clustered around the courtyard. Here in the open air, there was music playing. I couldn’t hear the lyrics, but it was slightly familiar.

  “What are these?” Gabriel asked. He paused partway toward our group who sat in one corner of the courtyard. He opened his arms wide, palms up, disbelief and confusion etched on his face. “What is this?”

  Nathan, who was sitting on a bench along with Kota and North, shrugged. They’d all worn the uniform today. Kota had his tie on properly. North had his but he’d undone it and stuck it into the breast pocket with the ends hanging out. Nathan had his on, but the knot was so loose, the ends dragged around his waist a bit.

  North scratched a fingernail across his dark brow. “Pointless. They aren’t really using anything.”

  “It’s something to do with Valentine’s Day coming up,” Kota said. He’d been distracted with his phone as we approached. “The school apparently used to have festival events every now and again, and Mr. Blackbourne has been trying to bring them back.” He motioned to the hoops. “These are here. There’s a karaoke machine filled with love songs in the gym. I think there’s a few other things on the other side of the school closer to the football field. Stuff for couples to do apparently. On the actual day, there should be more.”

  “Oh god,” Nathan grumbled. “I was wondering what this was. But why the toys? I don’t understand.”

  “What’s wrong with hula hoops?” I asked.

  He gave me a serious eyeball. “Really?”

  The pack with the Bible I’d carried around, I entrusted to Nathan, and he took it gently, holding but not opening to see what it was.

  I kicked off my shoes and socks, tossing them aside, then moved to the grassy part of the courtyard, the coolness of the blades soothed my feet. As soon as I stepped away from my shoes, Kota retrieved them and put them nearby.

  I kicked one of the hula hoops up with a foot. It floated up to my chest, and I caught it with a palm.

  In time with the music, I started swaying the hoop over my head, using my hand and wrist to spin. The boys watched, seeming curious but not saying anything.

  I tossed the hoop into the air, letting it fly over my head, swirling ten feet in the air. It dropped back down. I caught it with my wrist and it fell into an instant spin.

  I’d had a lot of practice with cheap toys growing up. Kites. Wiffleball baseball sets. Hoops like these. The ones the school provided were a little heavier, which was better. Easier to control.

  When I let the hoop fly into the air again and then caught it, one of the boys hooted gently with approval.

  I smirked, pulling the hoop over my head and letting it drop as I moved. The hoop slid down my arm, around my head and down my chest toward my hips. I sashayed my hips side to side as needed to use a hoop without letting it fall, catching it and using the momentum to twirl. The tartan skirt of my uniform swayed and I worried for a minute that it might be flying up higher than I’d want. My only consolation was that the boys would have stopped me if that were the case.

  I shifted to make a forward back motion, rather than side to side, moving the hoop with me until I was facing the guys. Kota, North, Luke, Gabriel and Nathan. All staring.

  I tilted my head, confused by their slight open-mouthed and yet odd expressions. “What?” I asked them.

  Only Kota spoke, “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Just practiced,” I said. “You never tried this?”

  He shook his head. All of them seemed hesitant to make the attempt. It did take me a while to figure out how to do it the right way, the motion it took, so maybe if they’d never tried it before, they didn’t want to look weird and fail. At least not here at school.

  Maybe that’s why very few people were interested in these.

  Another hoop was nearby. I kicked it up with my foot catching it with a hand and lifting it into the air, spinning it at my wrist above my head while twisting my hips for the first one.

  After a few more spins with my wrist, I let the hoop at my wrist drop down, letting it slowly move toward my chest and then around my waist to join the other.

  When the song switched, I changed my pace, switching to meet the beat of the song. It was more difficult with two hoops, so I let one fall. I picked it up with my foot, and then kicked it toward the guys.

  Luke ducked. Kota caught it. His cheeks were bright red.

  “What’s wrong with you guys?” I asked, slowing until the hoop dropped to my feet. They usually liked toys. How many water guns and plastic swords did we have? Hoops seemed like something they would love to try. Maybe they preferred the karaoke machine.

  The boys didn’t answer me. They hardly moved at all. None of the other students seemed all that interest in us. Some on the other side of the courtyard were flipping the hoops they had around, so it wasn’t like I was the only one.