Ethan didn’t remember walking home from the lighthouse, only the feeling that the night had folded itself around him like a secret too big to carry openly, and by the time morning arrived he felt older in a way that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with knowing something no one else did, because Luna hadn’t come back with him, she hadn’t stepped out into the world like before, she had stayed inside the lighthouse light as if she now belonged to it, and that thought followed Ethan through breakfast where his parents talked about ordinary things, through the bus ride where kids complained about homework, and into school where Luna’s empty desk no longer felt like an absence but like a warning.
Noah noticed it too, because Noah noticed patterns, noticed when things didn’t line
