I had thought the floating castle was a beautiful thing when she had told me about it, but I realized I’d never see it unless I painted it, so I did. A lot of my paintings are things Jo told me about that I wanted to see.

  I had been working on it for a week, coming back day after day. It was almost finished. I would work on it at home, but Wes thought it was a useless hobby and Mom was always worried that I would get paint on the furniture.

  “Who made this?”

  Alejandro had already reached out before I could stop him. He trailed his hand across a lantern on the castle ship. An orange line from a big glob of undried oil paint followed his finger all the way up to one of the Mireflies.

  “Oops! I didn’t mean to mess it up, I didn’t realize it was wet.” He reached out again to try to rub the line out, but I snatched his hand in the middle of the air. “I’m so unlucky.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “But whoever painted it might get mad.”

  “No, they won’t,” I said as I grabbed a brush from the table by the easel and started touching up the smear.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “Because I painted it.”

  “Wait, really?”

  I winced at his shock. Very few people had ever seen my paintings before.

  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen!” he said, leaning in to take a closer look.

  “You… you think so?”

  “Well, not the best thing—the best thing I’ve ever seen is a mac ’n’ cheese pizza—but it’s a really good thing.”

  I smiled. That wasn’t the best thing someone could say, but it was a really good thing.

  “Oh, shoot, and I messed it up! I’m sorry. How can I help you fix it?”

  “It’s fine.” I looked at the orange streak. “I like it, actually. Looks like a fireball or something.” More like a skid mark, but who cares? No one else is ever going to see it anyway.

  “I don’t even know how you learn to do something like that.”

  “I just practice a lot is all.”

  “You know what it reminds me of?”

  “What?”

  “Torch Throwers.” His face lit up as he sat on the ground, pulling his tablet out of his backpack. “Let me show you.”

  Alejandro clicked the tablet on. The screen was covered in bright game icons.

  “Which one is Torch Throwers?” I asked.

  “This one. It’s just a tapping game, but the art’s cool.” He almost sounded embarrassed as he said it, looking up at me with unsure eyes.

  I knew that tone of voice. My voice sounded like it all the time. “I like cool art.”

  He smiled back, sliding half of the tablet into my hands. “You play offense, then. I’ll play defense.”

  As soon as he touched the icon with a flaming torch on it, tinkling music played. The screen burst bright with colors. Front and center was a castle—it was white and gold and looked as if it were painted right onto the tablet itself. A bright red START appeared in the middle of the castle.

  “Ready?”

  He tapped it. The music became fast and loud, and the colors grew brighter—more alive. Little people ran out from the side and stood in front of the big wooden drawbridge. On my side of the screen they carried torches. On the right side they carried shields.

  “Get ready for it,” he said.

  Then, from behind the castle, a giant shape emerged from the shadows. It was dark and scaly and angry.

  A dragon.

  Its big wings wrapped around the castle, nearly cracking it in two. Its eyes gleamed red as it shrieked into the orange sky.

  “All right, tap.”

  I did. One of the little people threw their torch. It hit the dragon, and the dragon growled.

  “Okay, my turn.”

  The dragon spat flames at us. Alejandro tapped his screen, and one of the shielded people jumped forward, blocking the fireball from hitting the townspeople.

  “So we have to stop the dragon?” I asked.

  “We have to stop the dragon.”

  “Easy.”

  It wasn’t.

  As we kept playing, our little people started disappearing—wiped out by the dragon’s wings as it swiped at them or burned away by fireballs.

  But we kept tapping, Alejandro’s shouts growing louder. Together it seemed like we might actually win. I couldn’t imagine playing this game alone.

  Finally, the dragon began to wobble. There were only two little people left, however—one shield holder and one torch thrower. Alejandro and I were screaming at each other.

  “TAP NOW!”

  “TAP! TAP! TAP!”

  The last tiny woman on the right leaped forward with her shield while the tiny man on the left threw his last torch.

  The dragon exhaled a final burst of flames that took over the whole screen, burning bright.

  “TAP!” I screamed.

  But it was too late. All the shields and torches were gone.

  When the light from the explosion cleared, nothing was left but the castle in ruins. The walls were filled with holes, and the roof had fallen down.

  YOU LOSE danced across the screen.

  Alejandro and I sat in silence. Then I spoke. “Well, that was…”

  “Kind of depressing?” Alejandro finished for me.

  “Kind of,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m not sure how to beat it, honestly. I thought maybe together we could.”

  “To-together?”

  “Sure,” he answered, beaming. “Why not?”

  After last summer it seemed like no one wanted to do anything with me. Now even Jo was gone, right when I thought I’d gotten her back. I stared down at Alejandro’s tablet.

  Then the castle rebuilt itself, the sun reappeared in the sky, and everything went back to the way it was at the beginning. START appeared again in big bright letters.

  “I wish I could do that in real life,” I whispered to myself.

  “Do what in real life?”

  “Just undo everything and start over.”

  He looked at me but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a mean silence, though, or a confused silence. It was just like he was thinking.

  I had only known Alejandro for, what, an hour? And already I felt more comfortable with him than any of the other kids in school.

  “I think my parents tried to do that when we moved back here,” he said finally.

  “Where are you from?”

  “I’m not from anywhere. That’s the problem. My parents just keep pressing the restart button.” I looked at him, confused. He continued, “We started here, see? I was actually born in Arizona. But, uh”—he looked down with a sigh—“some bad stuff happened. An accident. And we had to move to live with Dad’s family in Mexico City.” I wanted to ask him about it, but I sensed he didn’t want to say any more as he rolled on. “Then Mom got a job in California, then Houston, then Florida. It sucks because I never got to actually feel comfortable anywhere, you know?”

  Wow, he’s lived in more places than I’ve even been to.

  “Why did you move so much?”

  “Bad things just kept happening. Accidents. Mistakes. I don’t know why. It was like every time things just started to get good, something terrible would pop up and we’d have to leave again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what else to say.

  He shrugged. “It’s fine. The thing I’ve realized is that you just have to find a way to make yourself happy wherever you are.” His dark expression turned bright as he looked up at me and smiled. “Whenever something bad happens, something good will follow. So you shouldn’t restart your game. Just keep playing and wait for the good thing. Yeah?”

  “I guess… but what’s the good thing about losing Torch Throwers and all the little people getting burned up?”

  “That we get to play it again.”

  I nodded, thinking about everything he’d said. I couldn’t ignore the question nibbling at my belly, though, some of which I said out loud and some of which I kept to myself: “Why did you stand up for me”—and follow me here, and play a game with me, and now want to play again with me—“and stuff?”

  Alejandro lay back on the stone floor, spreading out his arms and legs like a starfish. “I’ve gone to a lot of schools, and I’ve met a lot of people, and most of them didn’t like me.”

  “Why not?”

  Alejandro shrugged, still lying on his back. “I think it’s because I was always new, which meant I was always different, and the more different I felt, the quieter I was. The quieter I was, the meaner people became.”

  A shiver ran up my spine. I knew exactly what he meant.

  “But now that I’m back here, I want a fresh start! I’m going to trust my gut—even if it gets me in trouble sometimes—and my gut said that you were someone who needed help.”

  “I thought you said your gut was going to puke.” Now I lay back too.

  “Yeah, sure, maybe both.”

  We laughed, the giggles echoing up the stone walls.

  Then there was a short silence. I heard Alejandro’s leather jacket scraping against the ground as he sat up.

  “Who was that guy, anyway?”

  “Oh, Jeremiah?” I groaned. “I used to be friends with his sister, but then it was like everyone just… changed, and I didn’t. They started dressing cooler, hanging out in little groups, texting inside jokes that I didn’t know. I just didn’t get it, like I’m an alien or something.” I looked up at him from the floor, upside down. “They stopped wanting to hang out with me. Then they started getting mean. It became cool to be mean to me, you know?”

  He nodded.

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter, I guess. I don’t need friends.” The second I said it, I almost regretted it. Like I was insulting Alejandro.

  “Where do you eat lunch?”

  “Usually here by myself. Why?”

  “Well, maybe I could join you sometime. I have a lot more games I could show you.”

  I abruptly sat up and my eyes widened. “Wait, really?” I hadn’t meant to say it.

  “I mean, if you want me to.”

  “Sure!” I said too quickly. “That could be cool.”

  “Cool,” he repeated, then he stood up and threw his stuff back into his bag. “I should probably get to class now before I really get in trouble.”

  As he took the stone steps that led to the door, I wrestled with a thought—something I wanted to say but was embarrassed to.

  “Hey, Alejandro?” He turned to look back at me. “Thanks.”

  He smiled and nodded before closing the door behind him.

  After Alejandro left, I didn’t want to follow. I just really didn’t feel like facing everyone else. So I painted instead.

  I picked up the brush and worked on the castle picture, painting little fireball lines with a smile, thinking of Alejandro’s face when he’d messed it up.

  And when I finished that canvas, I moved on to a blank one.

  I started blobbing out the shapes of a large stone floating in the middle of a fiery marsh and the figure of a tall, frilly pirate girl.

  I remembered her face in every detail, down to the freckle.

  Then I started in on a new picture of that monster I’d dreamed about in class yesterday.

  I painted until my fingers became stiff, then I sighed, lying down on one of the pews. How long had it been now? What was I going to do for the rest of the day? I couldn’t paint anymore, and I would have to wait here until Mom was done with work at 3:00. Then I could call and have her pick me up.

  I pulled the watch out of my pocket and popped it open. It was just past 11:00.

  I watched the hands spin, and my eyes suddenly grew heavy. It was like the night before. Just looking at the watch made me feel so—I yawned—sleepy.

  I’m not sure how long it took me to fall asleep. I imagined the dark Mire from the night before, how it had looked, how warm it had been, and how close we had been to the land. I wanted to know what it looked like in that magical place.

  The visions blurred into black.

  ELEVEN

  Boom. Scratch.

  The ground shook. It felt familiar somehow, but strange. My eyes cracked open. I winced at the light—and then the ground moved again.

  Boom. Scratch.

  My eyes shot wide.

  I was in the dreamworld again. Everything looked the same as the night before, except my Islet had left the Mire and was now climbing back onto land.

  Afraid of falling, I scrambled to the edge. I peered over the gray lip of it and saw a field of black sand below.

  Then I saw the leg. Thick and trunklike, covered in black scales that gleamed blue in the light. The leg raised up from beneath the Islet and stomped onto the sand.

  Boom.

  It pulled the Islet forward, across the sand and shells and rocks.

  Scra-atch.

  I nearly rolled off as it pulled itself forward.

  Boom. Scratch.

  It eased its way out of the Mire, the tide of which I could see shimmering and rippling on the bank behind me.

  Thump.

  I lost sense of myself as the Islet seemed to walk upward. I watched, too scared to look down. We were heading toward a pile of boulders beneath a big cliff.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  I heard a huff from beneath me that reverberated throughout the Islet. A moment later the Islet dropped to the ground.

  Afraid of what it might do next, I slid off the back, collapsing onto the sand below.

  Could it be real? Was Jo telling the truth about the watch? I felt a tiny bit of hope, but I imagined Wes scoffing in my head. “Magic isn’t real,” he’d say. All the kids at school would laugh at me if they thought I believed in magic, and yet this was like no dream I had ever had before.

  I turned around to look back at the Islet. It had a large, flat shell that was weathered and stony, lumps and bumps all over. Four fat legs curled underneath it. The tail was long and whipped from side to side. I trembled as I finally looked up at its head.

  One spiraling orange eye peeked out from under thick, horned brows.

  I was unable to look away as two pointed ears unfurled, swiveling toward me. I backed away slowly but tripped on a rock and stumbled with a yelp.

  As if they were robots, the heads of all the Islets surrounding me rose, orange eyes stared, and ears unfurled and pointed directly at me.

  I ran.

  It was another few moments before I heard the screaming—shrill and high, terrified. And a few moments more until I realized that I was the one screaming.

  As I darted between boulders, I was vaguely aware that they were rising around me. Standing. Moving. They were slow but massive, and I had to move twice as fast as I ever had before to avoid getting stomped.

  I didn’t pay attention to where the Islets were going, but I could feel the ground shaking as their thick feet pounded against it. I could hear the booms of their cries as they jabbered to one another in a clicking, roaring language that sounded part turtle, part dinosaur.

  I continued to run, over the sand, across the beach, and then up. I scrabbled along the cliff, like a rat, until I reached a set of stairs carved into the stone.

  Now that I felt safe, I finally looked down, my chest puffing.

  Uh-oh.

  The Islets were all running now, in the opposite direction I had been. I could feel them, making the earth shake and landslides fall.

  I’d caused a stampede.

  “Oops.”

  “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  I heard the whisper before I saw her. Then I felt a yank on my arm, and I finally tore my eyes away from the chaos below. I looked up to see the girl from last night, Fleck.

  “Why didn’t you go to the cemetery like I told you? And now this? You really do know nothing.”

  Before I could speak, she tugged me up the rock stairs.

  “Come on. We have to get out before he finds you.”

  “Who?”

  “Just move.” She pulled harder.

  “Whoa, wait! Who—” But I couldn’t even finish, because she pulled so hard and the stairs were so uneven that I had to focus just to not fall off the cliff.

  We soon reached the top, and I got my first glance of the city.

  It was massive and loud and vibrant. The buildings looked normal, but they were every different color you could imagine and more—stacked up on one another so high, you couldn’t see the tops of them.

  Just in front of us was a stack that began with a blue house, and then, right there on its shingled roof was a second house, a salmon-pink one precariously balanced, and above that a brick house covered in fairy lights. Some didn’t seem to be balanced right, and others were at funny angles.

  Through the windows I could see the things going on inside: dancing and fighting and wildness. They looked like dollhouses.

  As Fleck pulled me, we entered the city, and I could hear the sounds of drums and trumpets. The whole city was filled with music—so loud that I could feel the low bass line rumble through my feet and up my legs, wobbling them.

  “Is it a party or something?”

  Fleck finally stopped for a moment and turned around to look at me with a funny expression like she couldn’t quite believe what I’d said.

  “It’s always a party at Eleven.” She then pulled a mask down over her face—glittering silver with swirling black lines—that covered her eyes and nose. “Put yours on.”

  “I don’t have a mask,” I said.

  She sighed and tore off a bit of the frill around her neck and then pulled a pen from her belt. She drew a mask shape on the frill. As she drew the lines, they glowed a faint purple, like the tile had the night before.

  Just as soon as she’d finished, light pooled around the shape and floated out—growing into a life-sized mask in front of her. The glowing mask then became the same white as the frill, with the same delicate, lacy pattern, especially around the eyeholes. It began to fall. Fleck snatched it out of the air.

  “Here.” She handed it to me along with a thin cord that she had pulled from her shirt’s neckline.

  I stared at the flimsy thing.

  “Well, tie it on! We’ve got places to be, and that spell won’t last forever.”