The house was empty when Riley got back home.

Twenty minutes into her return trip to campus, the turtle shell had vanished and her vision had returned to normal. This simultaneously relieved and frightened her. No blue shell around her, no turtle, and none of the other students on the field trip with her knew they’d existed at all. It would have been easy for her to pretend there had never been a blue shell except for the fact that she was clutching a card with Xander Rainey’s name and number on it, which the gossiping girls had asked her about repeatedly.

Now, safely home, the afternoon’s events replayed over and over in her mind. Is it possible that I hit my head and it just doesn’t hurt, she wondered, feeling around for a knot. Because if I didn’t, I saw people turn into animals.

And I turned into one, too.

Still trembling, Riley peered out the front window at the surrounding neighborhood. Ohio’s cookie-cutter suburbs bore no resemblance to the rural Oklahoma farmland that she and her brothers had left behind. The hills and greenery were beautiful, but so perfectly manicured that they appeared plastic to her. Not real.

Nothing here seems real. And for the next four years, until Reed and I graduate, we’ll be living right here in Plasticville.

If we don’t get knifed first.

She moved slowly down the hall toward her room. I wonder where the attackers went when they left. And what they were doing racing through the park in the first place. And why they came after ME. And why Xander saved me. And if he volunteered to be on that trip because he knew the knife guys would be there—

Her phone buzzed and Riley jumped.

It was Jack. ‘At the hardware store. We’ll be home around 5.’

That gave her less than an hour to pull herself together.

Riley went to the bathroom to wash whatever remained of the river's ‘filth’ off her body. As she scrubbed, she thought about Xander’s last words to her. ‘Call me or I’ll come and find you.’

Does Xander have access to my address through school? Can he find me here? And if HE can find me, does that mean those other guys can too?

After dressing herself with shaking hands, she sat down on her bed and forced herself to breathe evenly. Looking around for something — anything — to distract herself from her trainwreck of thought, her eyes settled on two framed photographs on the top of her dresser.

The one on the left was a picture of a couple in their early thirties. A small, pale, full-figured woman with thick blond curls who greatly resembled Riley and her brother Jack was standing in front. Behind her, a tall thin man with brown skin and very high eyebrows who was an older version of Riley’s twin brother, Reed, had his hands on the woman’s shoulders. 

Neither of them was smiling.

Riley frowned at the photo. She hadn’t been close to her parents. Their problems had always been more important to them than their children. Even before they died, it was Jack who had given Reed and her the love and security they needed. She glanced away from the picture without emotion.

But when she looked at the picture on the right, an image of an adolescent boy and a young girl, Riley’s eyes filled with tears.

She had burned all her other pictures of Will last year in a fit of self-pity. But this one was her favorite, and she couldn’t bring herself to destroy it. In the photo, Riley was nine and Will was twelve. They were outside on a sunny June day, walking together, and had turned to look joyfully into each other’s eyes. There was love on both faces, even then. Even at that age! It was the happiest picture she’d ever seen, and she was actually in it. She hadn’t been able to burn it.

But she could never look at it without crying, either. Will’s love and loyalty then were absolute. Now, he had neither.

Here come the tears. Every time she was hurt or angry, Riley’s eyes turned on like a faucet. Which only upset her more.

Breathe, Riles…

The front door opened and closed. She could hear Jack and Reed talking in the front room. A few seconds later, Reed knocked and then stuck his head in the door. “Here are some bulbs for your lamps…” he trailed off when he saw her expression. “What’s wrong with you?”

What should I say to him? Riley gestured to the photos. “Will.”

A black look passed over Reed’s face. “I can’t believe you still have a picture of him on your dresser. Why torture yourself?”

“Because I had that, once. It’s good to know it’s possible.”

“Not with him.” Reed sat down on the edge of her bed and exhaled. “Look, the idea of my sister being in a relationship with any guy turns my stomach. But it’s past time for you to get over this, Riles. It’s been years.”

She bit her lip and looked away.

“We got the rest of the hardware we needed this afternoon,” Reed continued. “So the house is almost done, and you can finally get a life. When we get to school tomorrow morning, make it a point to meet as many guys as possible. Somebody somewhere is bound to be desperate.”

“Jerk!” Riley grabbed a stuffed raccoon off her bed and threw it at him.

He chuckled and stood. “Go make dinner. I’m getting hungry, and you know you don’t want me to do the cooking.”

She shuddered. In their nontraditional-yet-super-traditional family, Jack made all the money, Riley cooked and cleaned, and Reed did the gardening and yard work. On the rare occasions when Reed had attempted to cook something, it ended up charred and smothered in hot sauce. No one wanted Reed to do the cooking.

Riley followed him back out into the front room. Jack was screwing a new bulb into the floor lamp. “How was your field trip?” he asked.

Riley forced herself to smile. “The river is beautiful,” she dodged.

“We should all go sometime.”

Not a chance.

She went to the kitchen and removed several bags of vegetables from the fridge. Riley took down the old, pitted wooden cutting board and began chopping vegetables. The more she chopped, the more questions about the day occurred to her.

‘You’re a Shawnee descendant on Shawnee land,’ Xander said. ‘You’re in physical contact with your native soil. That’s what’s making all this visible to you now. We call it ‘lifting the Veil…’’

…well, what is ‘the Veil?’ Riley shivered as she contemplated, one by one, all the glowing things she’d been able to see, theoretically because she’d made contact with special dirt. This is delusional.

“Riley?” Jack called out from the front room.

“Yes?”

“What are we having for dinner?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out.

“Riley?”

“Vegetable soup,” she finally croaked.

“That takes forever,” Reed complained. “Can you toss us out some chips or something?”

“Don’t be disrespectful!” Jack snapped at him. “We’ll wait,” he told her.

“No, it’s okay.” Riley was grateful to have been given a clear task, a sense of direction. “Reed’s right. I haven’t even finished chopping yet.” She fumbled around in the still-unfamiliar cabinets until she found the tortilla chips, and she carried them, and an unopened jar of salsa, out to her brothers.

“Is something wrong, sweetie? You seem out of it.” Jack frowned as she turned back toward the kitchen.

She hesitated. I want to tell them. Jack always calms me. And Reed would spot the problems in my convoluted thinking.

Xander said all it would take was for a Shawnee descendant’s feet to make contact with his native soil. What if I get Jack and Reed to walk outside barefoot?

Riley pictured that and immediately ruled it out. If her brothers were ‘Miyala’ too, then they’d have the same disoriented feeling she had right now, and the same questions, and she wouldn’t be able to answer any of them.

“Riley?”

“I am a little out of it, Jack. I may be coming down with something.” Something like insanity.

Jack stood and walked over to his sister. He examined her expression with concern. “Should you be cooking right now?”

“Should you be breathing on our food?” Reed amended.

“I’ll be fine, guys. I think peace and quiet would help, though. Can you turn the TV down a little?”

“Absolutely.” Jack grabbed the remote, and Riley disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Dude,” she heard Reed say a few seconds later, “if you turn it down any lower I’ll need the captions.”

As she put a pot on the stove, Riley’s thoughts turned to her parents. Did they ever lift the Veil? She pictured her father: drunken and tormented, wracked with physical and emotional pain that Riley had recognized but never understood. Is that why he drank himself to death? Was he trying to cope with all this?

You’re reaching, Riles.

She emptied the cut vegetables into the boiling water, then paused as a more disturbing question occurred to her.

Xander said our animal spirits stay with us as long as we’re alive. And when we die, they live on. Are my parents’ animal spirits still around somewhere? Is there any way of locating them? And if I did manage to find them…

…would they recognize me?

She pulled out her phone and began tapping out a text to Xander.

Wait.

If I text him, he’ll think I believe everything he told me. He may even take it as me joining his ‘clan.’ And either way, he’ll have my number.

Riley deleted the message.

“Are you okay?”

She jumped.

Jack put the chips and salsa back on the counter. “I’m worried about you, Riley. Reed and I get sick from time to time, but you never do.”

She pulled him into her arms. “I think I’m allergic to Ohio,” she said as she hugged him.

Jack squeezed her back. “Is anything in particular bothering you?”

Well, let’s see… today I saw an intangible fox. I was chased down a river by armed glowing men. I found out that I have a giant turtle living inside of me. And on top of that, I miss home, I miss my friends there, I miss my dog, and I miss the hell out of your best friend even though he wants nothing to do with me.

But she only mumbled, “I miss Ghost.”

Riley first saw Ghost on the worst day of her life. She was sitting under a tree, weeping, and when she looked up he was there… a big gray dog who was watching her with a mournful expression. A minute later, as if to comfort her, he offered her his paw. And Riley felt as though she’d been tossed a lifeline. She took him home and adopted him over her brothers’ objections. Ghost had adored her. He spent his days in the fields behind their home, doing his stray dog thing while she was at school. But he spent every night curled up at the foot of Riley’s bed. And if either of her brothers tried to separate him from Riley, Ghost responded with a menacing growl.

He’d paced around anxiously for days as they packed their things to move to Ohio, snarling and snapping at the boys when they came to carry boxes out of her room. But when the moving van pulled up, he trotted off into the field behind their house. She called for him for hours, but he never returned. A neighborhood-wide search had failed to locate him. In the end, to meet the deadline for buying their new house, they’d been forced to leave him in Oklahoma, Will and some other friends still hunting for him.

“I still can’t believe he ran off like that,” Riley lamented for what was probably the tenth time.

Jack smiled at her. “Ghost will be fine. He’s a stray. He’s used to looking after himself. Besides, Will promised he’d take care of him.”

“I know how Will takes care of things,” she said quietly, stirring the soup.

“You shouldn’t say that,” Jack scolded.

Riley turned to glare at her brother. “I have good reasons to say that, and you know it.”

Jack was silent for a full minute.

“Riley,” he eventually whispered, “You’re a kind and gentle and beautiful young woman. Someday you’ll find someone who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. I’m sure of it.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be fine, Jackie.” He drives me nuts, but no one could ask for a better ‘dad.’ “You have enough on your plate supporting our family. The last thing you should be worrying about is my love life.” Riley rubbed her hand over the little playing card tattoos at the top of his left arm.

Like Will’s. 

She flinched and stepped away.

Jack brushed his loose blond curls up under his ball cap, then he turned and walked back into the front room. Riley heard him sigh, and she frowned.

“I’ll have dinner ready in about twenty minutes,” she assured him.

“No worries, sweetie.”

She picked up her phone again, and scrolled down to Xander Rainey’s name. Right above Will Rush’s name.

She wanted to text them both. Badly. But Riley put her phone down again and stirred the soup.