Indexing: Reflections (Kindle Serials) (Indexing Series Book 2) by Seanan McGuire Page A

while the music was bouncing around inside her brain. The glass began to move almost immediately, flowing like water into a single solid sphere that then proceeded to roll to rest against one of the trees. I held my breath, waiting to see if the tree would turn to glass. Nothing happened.
    Demi lowered her flute.
    “There wasn’t any other glass near here,” she said. “Not even Jeff’s glasses.”
    “Nope, they’re more ‘plastics,’” he said, tapping one lens while he chuckled unsteadily at his own joke. “We’re going to have to come back for that. Even if it’s inert right now, there’s no guarantee that it won’t wake up again later.”
    “This is why I became a high school teacher,” said Gerry. “Nothing inanimate ever ‘wakes up’ around here.”
    “Yeah, well, lucky for you,” I said. “Sloane, we good?”
    “Nothing else seems out of the ordinary for a horrible haunted forest being inhabited by a child-eating witch,” said Sloane, grabbing Gerry’s arm again. He gave her a startled look. She smiled thinly. “You’re with me now, handsome. I’m going to explain why your sister’s going to murder you soon, and you’re going to listen.” She dragged him into the woods.
    Demi looked alarmed. “Are you really going to murder your brother?”
    “No,” I said. “But I’m going to yell at him a lot if he doesn’t cut this ‘my life is so much better than yours because it’s not under constant attack by stories’ bullshit. Come on. We don’t want to let them get too far ahead of us. I’m willing to bet that people get lost in this forest.” I started walking.
    As expected, Jeff paced me, glancing nervously in my direction several times before he said, “You know it can’t be a coincidence that Elise is involved with this story, and that it’s happening this close to your brother’s school.”
    “I know,” I said. “I think Gerry knows the story didn’t land here by accident. It would explain why he keeps rubbing it in my face that he got out and I didn’t.”
    “Henry . . .”
    “We were doing so well for a while there, you know? I was almost starting to feel like my brother and I could have a relationship that wasn’t about fighting with each other all the time.” The sound of giggles drifted through the trees. I scowled. “And maybe this is not the right time to get upset because my brother got the good end of the stick.”
    “Did he really?” Jeff’s voice was soft. “He didn’t get caught in a story, because he was born part of a story that could never have been his. Maybe if he’d been given a Jack’s role, or a second son’s, or even a stableboy . . . but no, the narrative wanted him to be a princess, and the only way to get away from it was to leave everything behind. Was to leave you behind. I know he loves you. You’re the most important person in his world, you’re his twin , and the only way he’s been able to wrest even the thinnest sliver of peace from the universe has been by cutting you out. At least you had the option of accepting yourself for what you were. At least you knew it wouldn’t destroy you.”
    “Yeah.” I sighed. “I don’t want to forgive him for leaving me the way that he did. And I don’t want to just shrug and let him insult my life’s work because it makes him feel better. But I don’t know how else to deal with this.”
    Jeff smiled, the expression barely visible through the gloom of the wood. “Ah, but you see, you’ve already made some great strides. A year ago, you would have suffered in silence, rather than saying anything to anyone. Now you’re opening up to me. That means you’re feeling much more confident in your place.”
    “A year ago we weren’t dating and we didn’t have Demi to help balance out the power levels on this team.” A year ago, I hadn’t been a Snow White: I’d been holding myself in permanent abeyance, praying I could get through the rest of my life without slipping up and