“You can’t be in here!” she said.

“I don’t care about that bullshit,” he said.

“Get out!”

“I only want to talk about this.”

“I don’t. I’ve seen how you are. Now I know I don’t want to be with you.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “Five minutes and I’m out?”

“Yes. Now go. I’m closing the gate.”

“So close the goddamn gate!” he said.

She looked behind her, afraid she’d see Mama coming.

“Raven . . .” He ran his hand over his hair. “It’s just . . . what I said the other day was true. I’m, like, in love with you. It just made me kind of crazy to see how you looked at him. And in front of everyone.”

“I can see it made you crazy,” she said. “That’s why I can’t be with you anymore.”

He stepped toward her. “Let’s just talk about it.”

“What could we talk about that hasn’t already been said? You accused me of using Mr. Danner’s death to influence Jackie. You said I’m not allowed to say I love you to Jackie when he most needs to feel love.”

“So you do love him?”

She walked down the road fast, hoping he’d go back to his car, but he followed her. He jogged to catch up and blocked her.

“What are you doing?” she said.

He grabbed her arm. “Come back to the car.”

“You need to go.”

“Just come back to the car, damn it!”

“Get your hands off her!” Mama called out. She was hurrying down the road, her rifle pointed at him. As she got closer, she said, “I do believe my daughter asked you to leave.”

He backed up. “You’re crazy, old lady, you know that?”

Raven’s mother cocked the gun. “I am. And you never know what a crazy old lady will do.” She walked toward him. “You’re on my land, and my signs clearly say trespassing isn’t allowed.”

He left, muttering curses. Raven closed the gate, and Chris pulled away with a screech of tires.

Mama lowered the gun. “What a child he is.”

“I know,” Raven said. “I just found that out.”

Mama held the gun on one arm, wrapped her other around Raven’s back as they walked to the house. “What drew you to such a boy?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe only that he liked me. My raven spirit always kept its distance when I was with him. It seemed afraid of him for some reason.”

“He wanted to possess you, put you in a cage,” Mama said.

He did, Raven realized. Her raven side had been trying to tell her that from the start.

“The prom dresses arrived while you were gone.”

“Let’s go find two big pairs of scissors,” Raven said.

6

Raven turned off her alarm, buried herself beneath the duvet, and went back to sleep.

Mama woke her hours later, her hand on Raven’s forehead to check for fever. “Are you unwell?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Since second grade, you’ve missed only two days of school. What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Mama’s pale eyes glittered with resentment. “I know what happened. That boy—Chris Williams—has caused trouble for you, hasn’t he?”

Raven looked away from her eyes.

“I should have shot his balls off,” she muttered.

“Mama!”

“What has he done?”

“He’s telling people only his side of the story. And he told them about you coming at him with the gun.”

Mama grinned.

“It’s not funny. They’re all treating me different.”

“Well, you are different. You’re a miracle. Keep that in mind and hold your head high.”

Miracle or not, she hated going to school now. Reece was the only one who wasn’t aloof with her. Chris was bitter, didn’t even sit at their lunch table. And Jackie and Huck were like different people. But that had nothing to do with her. Their father’s death had changed them. They were serious all the time, and when they laughed at a joke, Raven saw they were pretending.

School had become seven hours of bleakness. She remembered Mama’s warnings about school when she was younger: You will be the raven’s child caught in a cage. You’ll feel like a bird beating against glass in your desperation to get out.

“I don’t want to go back,” Raven said.

“In this state, you have to go until your eighteenth birthday. You may quit then if you like.”

“I’d nearly be done with high school by then,” Raven said.

Mama shrugged.

Raven sat up in the bed. “Am I going to college?”

“Why would you? You can learn anything a college teaches from books.” She stood. “Let’s eat and spend the day outdoors. The spirits will do you good.”

Raven doubted that. Their ninety acres sometimes felt as much a prison as school did.

“Let’s ask the spirits for a baby together,” Mama said. “We haven’t tried that yet. Having a baby in the house is what we both need.” She caressed Raven’s cheek. “I know you can’t imagine the joy of it yet. You’ll understand when it happens.”