The Alchemy of Forever

outside.
    But Leyla just chuckles, tossing her magenta-streaked hair. “ Anyway ,” she continues, “can we get back to discussing the party?”
    “You’re coming, right, Kailey?” Madison waits for an answer.
    “To what?” I ask. I figure that since I missed school yesterday I don’t have to pretend to know about it.
    “Dawson’s party Thursday night,” she huffs incredulously. “It’s up in the hills, in Montclair. Dawson’s parents are gone. We’ve only been talking about it for the past two weeks.”
    “Oh, right. Um . . . I can’t go,” I say, hoping I sound sincerely disappointed. “I’m grounded.”
    “You are?” Chantal is incredulous. “What for?”
    For being a very bad body snatcher, I think. “I got in a fight with my mom. It was stupid.”
    “Does this mean Bryan’s not going?” Leyla asks, an urgent tone to her voice.
    “I have no idea,” I reply. “Why don’t you ask him?”
    Her brown eyes sparkle. “If you insist.”
    Nicole clears her throat. “I thought we were forbidden to talk to your brother?” A rosy flush appears under her freckles and a defiant glint flashes in her eyes. She tucks a loose lock of hair behind an ear.
    A look passes between Leyla and Nicole that I don’t understand, and Madison seamlessly changes the subject.
    While the girls prattle on about what to wear to the party, I look around at Kailey’s friends, bonded by years of history and inside jokes. I think of how well I knew Charlotte—that she snorted when she was embarrassed, that she could only memorize things if she made up a song for it—and how well she knew me. My decision to leave the coven was the only secret I had ever kept from her.
    I have been so distracted by waking up as Kailey and by looking for Cyrus’s book that I am only realizing just now how utterly alone I am. No one knows my real name or what I really am. And the thought makes me want to burst into tears.
    But then my phone buzzes and I look down. It’s from Noah; he’s played another word: “friend.” And I wonder if I am not quite as alone as I think.

sixteen
     
    My second day at school is a little easier. I know where I’m going and where to sit. I speak up in my English class, offering my thoughts on Hamlet and impressing the teacher. I eat lunch with Kailey’s friends, still feeling slightly shy, but not like a cannon about to go off. It helps that Nicole has a doctor’s appointment—“Isn’t that, like, her fifth appointment this month?” Chantal asks suspiciously—and isn’t there. Fake it till you make it, Charlotte and I would joke every time we were disoriented after a switch or had to move to a new house we didn’t like, and I repeat the mantra to myself on a continuous loop.
    I have to stay late to make up a French test Kailey had missed when I ditched, but I breeze through it, finishing in a half hour, and dash out the front door with other detention-goers. Bryan’s at practice and Noah’s long gone, so I have to walk. I’ve only gone a few steps when I stop, noticing a pay phone just outside the school.
    All day I’ve been mulling over how to find Taryn. I keep circling back to one idea: calling my car in as stolen. It’s risky, I know—it could raise a lot of questions—but I decide it’s worth it if it means I get Cyrus’s book back. I won’t be able to give them Kailey’s cell, so I quickly download Google Voice and create a second line on her phone with a different number. Then I drop a few quarters in the pay phone and dial the police.
    It rings three times before a perky woman picks up.
    I cross my fingers behind my back, hoping I am doing the right thing, and lower Kailey’s voice to make it sound older. “Hi, I’d like to report a stolen car.”
    I give her the details—the license plate, the fake name I bought the car under, the location where it was stolen, and the new number I just programmed into Kailey’s phone. I hear the woman typing loudly as I speak.
    “I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” she warns. “Stolen cars rarely turn up. The thieves usually change the plates or get it to a chop shop within hours. But we’ll call you if we find anything.”
    I thank her and hang up, then set off toward Kailey’s home, my mind working overtime. I don’t need the car back, I just need to smoke out Taryn. I feel badly possibly getting her arrested, but she really shouldn’t have taken my bag and my car.
    I’m a few blocks away from the Morgans’ house when I