Page 185 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

“Because we’re friends now!”

Friends? We were never friends.

“Okay.”

“You should meet Nova,” he tells me. “She’s funny like you.”

“Okay.”

I meet Nova at school. She is pretty. Her hair is long and blonde and her eyes are big and round.

Nova, from the dreams.

“I’m Desdemona,” I tell her.

“I like your name,” she says. “It’s so pretty.”

That’s the first time someone’s called any part of me pretty. “Thank you.”

The three of us start hanging out every day before and after school because we all live close. I tell them about my mom and me and all the places we’ve lived. That there were three villages before this one, but I only remember two.

No, there are seven.

They think it’s cool I’ve seen so much of the world.

One day after school, the three of us venture out into the woods. “Show us your fire, Des!” Nova shouts.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bernice says.

“Don’t do that,” Nova says, smacking Bernice’s arm. “I’ve never seen a Fire Folk before. I think it would be cool.”

But Bernice goes red in the face, shoving Nova with his arm. “There’s a reason you haven’t seen them,” he mutters.

“Come on, Des, please.” I look between them and back up into a tree. “It would be so cool. Wouldn’t it, Bernice?”

“I guess,” he shrugs.

I think I know how this ends.

I lift my hand and feel, like Mom says to do. I feel the flicker of heat that starts in my stomach and moves through me like wind through my hair. It’s when it enters my chest that I know it’s working.

Fire appears in my palm, and it spreads across my fingers. I wiggle them, and when Nova looks at my hand with awe, I smile.

She likes it. Mom doesn’t.

“That’s so cool!” Nova says.

“Thanks.”

When I go home, Mom is looking at me like I’ve done something wrong. I don’t know how I know this look, but I do.

“You used your power today?”

She knows I have power?

“Yeah.” I scratch my arm.

“You know you can’t use it without me close!”

---