Chapter One
A Minute Late
The bell was a minute late on the day Milo Serrin came back. Iris Talven knew because she had already drawn its shadow in the place it ought to have been.
She sat on the low courtyard wall with a sketchbook balanced on one knee. Sunlight had found the bell arch and laid its shape across the paving. The iron circle of the bell was plain. Its shadow, stretched by the afternoon, looked enormous, as though something much larger than the school had been waiting above it. Iris shaded the edge with the side of her pencil. Inside, her friends were waiting for the last class to end. June had promised to save her a seat at the meeting about the old hall. Iris should have gone in.
Instead she watched a minute pass. The bell stayed silent. Then a boy came through the gate carrying a piano case she recognized before she recognized his face.
Milo had been twelve when he left Briarwick. At twelve, he had worn his hair badly cut, collected smooth stones for reasons nobody understood, and announced that every song needed a part where the singer could breathe. Iris had once believed they would be friends forever because they had been friends since forever was a reasonable length of time. He had left halfway through a term and sent no goodbye. By the time she learned that he was gone, the desk beside hers belonged to someone else.
