Flying in Place by Susan Palwick Page B

strangle me in the middle of the night.”
    At the word “pretty” her face went slack again, the way it had when I told her she was beautiful. She flew to sit on a tree branch, a big one that hung out over the water, and I joined her, wiggling my toes in midair. I’d long since stopped worrying about the fact that I didn’t really have toes here.
    “Well,” I said, “you are pretty. Nobody lied about that.”
    “Was,” she said, her chin set; when she was being stubborn she looked like our father. “I was pretty, when I was alive.”
    I looked away uneasily. “Oh, come on, Ginny. You’re the one who told me you’re real, right?”
    “I’m real,” she said, “That doesn’t mean I’m alive. You’re alive, remember? Don’t you have to go to classes or something?”
    “No! This is my lunch period!”
    “Then you’d better eat.”
    “Do I look like I need to eat? I’d rather look like you.”
    “No, you wouldn’t. Nobody should want to look like me. You need to eat. Everybody needs to eat,”
    “Ginny—”
    “Go eat your lunch,” she said firmly, and brought back the clouds again. “Anyway, somebody’s calling you. Can’t you hear it?”
    “No,” I said, but Ginny was gone and the lake was too cold again, and when I got back into my body the librarian was standing next to my chair and calling my name.
    “Emma? Emma, dear?”
    “Yes?”
    “Why, there you are. I thought we’d lost you for a minute there. Don’t you like that book? You haven’t turned a page for the past half hour.”
    “It’s fine,” I said. “Thank you. I have to go to French class now.”
    “Not yet, dear. It’s another twenty minutes until the bell. There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”
    It was Myrna. My stomach contracted when I saw her. Mom hadn’t let her come to the house, so she’d hunted me down at school. “I heard that you hadn’t been eating lunch lately,” she said, sitting down in the chair next to me, “so I thought I should find out why.”
    “Who told you that?” I asked, looking away. The librarian cleared her throat, returned to her desk, and began filing index cards.
    “Jane told me. You always used to eat with her, remember? Now you don’t even show up in the cafeteria.”
    “I can’t eat lunch with her,” I said. “She hates me.”
    Myrna rubbed her eyes; she didn’t look like she’d gotten much sleep lately either. “Emma, nobody hates you. Please tell me what’s wrong.”
    “Nothing’s wrong!” I couldn’t tell Myrna that Jane had spent math class throwing spitballs at me, or I’d be tattling again.
    “You’re not eating lunch. You’re not doing your school-work. It’s seventy-five degrees out and you’re dressed for late October—”
    “I’m fine! Leave me alone! Mind your own business!”
    “I am minding my business. If I think something’s wrong with you, I have to try to find out what it is. That’s my job. I’m the school nurse.”
    “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “If you leave me alone I’ll eat salami sandwiches every day and start doing my homework, okay? Are you happy now?”
    “No, because I don’t think you are.”
    I turned to face her. “I’m not even supposed to talk to you!” I said, yelling now. The librarian looked up sharply, and then studiously returned to her filing. “If my mother knew I was talking to you she’d kill me! Didn’t you hear what she told you on the phone last night? Go away!”
    “I didn’t talk to her on the phone last night,” Myrna said, frowning. “Did she say I did?”
    I blinked at her. Had Mom said so? My father had, but only after I’d asked him. But I’d heard Mom say “Myrna,” hadn’t I? Maybe I really was going crazy. “That wasn’t you who called?”
    “No,” She made a face and said, “Maybe it was my doppelganger. The one who’s been attending black masses and plotting to overthrow the Girl Scouts.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said