Tansy threw away most of the books her father had given her. She vowed never to read another story again. She didn’t want to hear her father’s voice narrating in her head.

Instead, she heard more keenly her mother’s voice. Tansy remembered every criticism her mother gave her, as though she were engraving a monument of her mother’s opinion.

You’re so stubborn. Why won’t you listen to anyone? You’re as bad as your father.

That one was engraved with deep, sharp edges.

You’re as bad as your father.

She wondered what her father would have said to that criticism.

He wouldn’t have let it stand. But he wasn’t around to defend either 11/356

himself or Tansy. True, he called on the phone, but Tansy, when she talked at all, only gave brief answers to his questions. She was cutting herself out of his life as thoroughly as he had cut himself out of hers.

And so there they were, both of them cut.

The next year, Tansy only saw her father for one month in the summer when she and Kendall went west for a visit. During most of that month, Mr. Miller was busy at work—Rock Canyon had opened a new library branch, and he was in charge of it. Being in charge meant staying late every night.

Fairy’s side note: At that point, Tansy probably should have asked if he’d acquired a gold mountain somewhere.

When she was fifteen, Tansy’s father married Sandra, one of the other librarians at the branch. Perhaps it wasn’t only his work ethic that made him put in late hours even when his daughters were visit-ing. New love for an auburn-haired woman with a quick smile and the ability to quote both Shakespeare and romance novels easily trumps time with one’s resentful teenage daughter.

In what was possibly the tackiest wedding reception ever to grace Rock Canyon, Mr. Frank Miller and the newly crowned Mrs. Sandra Miller greeted friends, neighbors, and avid readers right next to the checkout desk in the library lobby.

Tansy and Kendall got a stepbrother who was just a few months younger than Tansy, and on those occasions when they came from New York to visit, Tansy got to watch firsthand the zeal her father put into parenting him. He proofed Nick’s school papers, went to his swim meets, and played some fantasy computer game where they both went around hacking trolls to pieces.

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Every time Tansy saw them at it, happy in the new world they’d created, she gritted her teeth.

But because she was a teenager, her father couldn’t tell the difference between her sullenness and normal moody teenage behavior. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with mortal girls. Besides, Kendall had enough love inside her that their father didn’t go without hugs and affection and chatter. She was young enough that she hadn’t learned yet to ration love out.

When Tansy was seventeen and happy for the most part with her life among the skyscrapers, good fortune struck Kendall—and bludgeoned Tansy. Kendall was chosen to play a main part in a Broad-way play. She would travel across the nation singing in the spotlight, fed by caterers and applause. And since she was only twelve years old, her mother needed to travel with her.

Tansy was shipped off to live with her father in a land of palm trees but no ocean. To a new wardrobe of shorts and sandals, but nowhere to wear them. And to a high school full of kids, but no friends.

She met Bo on her first day of school at Rock Canyon High. She was in the office registering, and he was in the office getting in trouble.

He wore clothes that said he didn’t care what other people thought.

His stance said the same thing. His hair, if interviewed, would have given a different story. His hair had been fussed over and grown to the perfect length to show off his features. The skulls on his T-shirt and the holes in his jeans might proclaim he was a bad boy, but his hair as-serted he was a bad boy with a standing monthly appointment at Len-ora’s Uptown Style Salon.

While Bo and Tansy waited in line to speak to the secretary, he looked at her from underneath brooding bangs and said, “What are you in for?”

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“The time of my life, according to my mother.” Bo laughed. “Do you listen to your mother?”

“Hard to do since she’s in”—Tansy checked her watch—“Chicago right now.”

“What’s she doing in Chicago?”

“Taking care of my sister.” Tansy looked at the school office with a sigh, wondering yet again where her well-being rated on her mother’s list of priorities. Not very high, probably.

“Ahh,” Bo said, as though he understood. And maybe he did. Bo was the type of guy who was close friends with anger and roommates with resentment.

Tansy looked him over thoroughly now, for the first time appreciating these qualities in a guy. Why care what other people thought?

Why try to be good? She had done that her whole life and all it had gotten her was a trip to Small Town, Arizona, and a father who knew everything about his stepson but nothing about her.

Bo didn’t miss her hungry gaze. “So you’re a new kid?” She nodded. She had just realized there were all sorts of new things she could be. She didn’t have to be the smart girl, the good girl.

She could be rebellious, dangerous.

“You’re pretty,” Bo said. “You want to get together later and do something?”

Fairy’s side note: Bo wasn’t the best at pickup lines.

Tansy smiled and said, “Sure.” Sometimes the allure of rebellion is more attractive than a good pickup line. She gave him her phone number, and, when he thought to ask for it, her name. Tansy Harris.

She had stopped using her father’s name when he left New York.

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That day at lunch, instead of eating with her stepbrother, Nick, and his honor student friends, Tansy skipped school with Bo and rode on his motorcycle to a fast-food place.

The first week of school, Bo came over to Tansy’s house twice—coming over meaning sitting in front of her house on his motorcycle wearing mirrored sunglasses and a bored expression. She climbed on his bike and he took her to his older brother’s band re-hearsals. They called themselves Indestruction and played music that sounded like trains crashing into each other. It was usually too loud in the room to talk, and when Bo’s brother wasn’t singing, he was satur-ating the room with cigarette smoke. Still, Tansy felt a certain exhilar-ation being around Bo’s friends. No one told her to look on the bright side of anything. No one told her to give her new school a chance. No one made her promises they weren’t going to keep. And as an extra bo-nus, every time she came back home, her father looked irritated and worried about her.

That hadn’t happened for years. And although she wouldn’t have admitted to it, it gave her hope. Hope he still cared.

Nick didn’t approve. He’d known Bo since junior high, back when Bo cared enough about school to cheat on his exams. Bo had stolen Nick’s lunch and tripped him in PE and … there were several more ands.

But in Bo’s defense, he was handsome.

Fairy’s side note: Mortal girls will overlook a piñata full of faults if a guy is considerate enough to be handsome.

Things might have continued between Tansy and Bo for quite some time. After all, she had lived with the scales in her heart tipped to one side for so long it was hard for her to judge situations with 15/356

accuracy now. For example, when Bo told her he loved her, she actually believed him.

Fairy’s side note: The only things you can truly love after such a short time are ice cream flavors and comfortable shoes.

Then misfortune struck. Misfortune, in this case, carried with it the same sorts of travel plans her cousin Fortune had brought to Tansy earlier.