I feel overwhelmingly plain in comparison. Plain blue cotton dress. Plain white slip-on sneakers. Plain face with no makeup.
“You found your shoes,” I say.
She looks down to her feet, then back at me, frowning. “Who are you?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Calliope. Your neighbor.” I wave toward the woods between our houses. “Max came by the other day.”
Her frown eases. Slightly. “Right. You’re the weirdos who don’t believe in sugar.”
I laugh. “That would be my family, yes.”
“I’m Marlow. So… what’s that, then?” She points at the plate of cobbler in my hands. “Dessert with no sugar? Sounds delicious.”
“No white sugar. Luckily my moms do believe in honey. In moderation, of course.”
“Marlow?” Max materializes from the dark hallway behind her. He’s wearing glasses today, half-rim frames, black and silver, looking like he’s walked straight out of a Warby Parker shoot. “And… oh, hey, Calliope.” He grins. “I knew you wanted to be friends.”
“You got me. I’m here with a welcome-to-the-neighborhood present. It’s my mom’s cobbler recipe.”
“Super, thanks. I can’t wait to try that. Hey, Marlow, can you take the plate and put it in the kitchen, please?”
“Why can’t you?” She leans her hip against the doorframe.
“Because I’m just about to explore the woods with my new friend. Gotta get to know the neighborhood and all that.”
She raises one thin, perfectly arched black brow. “But Dad said to unpack and—”
Max cuts her off with a glance. “It’s fine. I won’t be gone long. Okay?”
“Whatever.” Marlow grabs the plate, her gold nails glittering, and turns away from me, disappearing into the house.
“She’s not always that rude, promise. She just doesn’t want to be here. I’m not sure any of us really want to be here.” Max catches himself this time. Winces. “No offense. Just the truth.”
“Then why did you move?” I ask again, and immediately regret it. Family stuff, he’d said before. Meaning: not my business.
He looks up at the sagging porch roof, all splintered wood and rusting gutters. “Long story. But there was family drama in Philly, and my parents wanted a fresh start for all of us. So, anyway… Green Woods. Here we are. This marvelous old shack.”
I watch as he skips the second and first steps altogether, leaping gracefully into the tufts of grass. I quickly follow. He pauses for a beat to glance back at the house, his lips curling down. “We came for a family cleaning day before we moved our stuff in, but this place needs a lot more than some Mr. Clean and a dustrag. My dad talks like he’s going to fix it all up, make it nice and shiny, but… yeah, let’s just say my hopes are low. Thank god I only have one year left before college. Poor Marlow.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the heart to tell him that the house his family chose for their fresh start is a town legend—and not for happy reasons. So I walk and take the lead instead, pushing aside some low-hanging branches as we dip back into the woods.
It may be shadier here in the leafy shadows, but it somehow feels like the sun shines brighter than it does over the Jackson house.
“Did you really want the neighborhood tour, or would you rather I drive you somewhere for sugar and a little taste of civilization? It’s going to rain soon.”
“Honestly, anywhere that’s not home right now sounds great to me.”
“I’ll give you the abbreviated tour then, at least until it starts pouring.”
We walk without talking for a few minutes until we reach a towering oak. “This,” I say, stopping, “is my favorite tree in the woods.”
“Favorite tree, huh? Can’t say I’ve ever had one of those. What gives this one the edge?”
I motion for him to follow me to the other side of the trunk, so thick we could easily both hide behind it.
“See this perfect hole at the bottom?” I motion toward the opening at the base of the tree, a neat arch from the ground up to nearly my waist. “My moms refused to build a tree house for me when I was little—Mama is deathly afraid of heights, though she pretends not to be afraid of anything. But Ginger and Noah and I had this at least. We even slept out here a few times. We couldn’t all fit at once so we’d rotate.”
“You slept out here?” Max’s jaw drops. He looks genuinely horrified. “In a dirty tree hole where squirrels and beetles and spiders and god knows what else were crawling on you all night?” His hands slap at his arms, fighting off invisible critters. “That’s disgusting.”
“I’m sure it’s challenging for a city boy such as you to understand. But we survived, and somehow we even managed to avoid any rabies.”
“It’s a miracle you’re still standing here. So…this is the neighborhood? Maybe I don’t need senior year and a diploma after all.”
“Probably not if you want to be an artist.” I lean back against my tree, bark scraping at my shoulders. “Is that what you want to do?”
“My mom says I can only do art if it’s a double major—the second major needs to be something practical so I can have a real career. She majored in history, and has hated every job she ever had, which is why she has no job right now. So… clearly trying to fix her mistakes through me. Though my dad studied philosophy before law school—an equally meaningless major—and he’s turned out to be, well…” He kicks at a dead branch, snapping it in two. It’s clear he doesn’t intend to finish the sentence.
“I’m a senior, too,” I say, to carry on the conversation. “I’m thinking about environmental studies or biology or ecology—some practical way to appreciate nature. Maybe with a dual major in education so I can teach kids about these things, help them to care, too. Making a permanent decision about colleges and majors feels so scary, though. Sometimes
