Chapter 2

Coralie's POV

Back in the trailer, Mom was sitting at the folding kitchen table, balancing the checkbook under a harsh light.

"Did you register?" she asked without looking up.

"Mom, Seraphine is competing this year. Her dad is the mayor, half the judges are family friends. Even if I go..."

"I asked if you registered."

"...I did," I lied.

She finally looked up, stared at me for a long time, and sighed. "Coralie, if your face was just a bit clearer, you'd be ten times better than that Blanchard girl. You're smarter, and you have a better heart. But this face..." She trailed off, looking back down. "I was one step away back then. Just one step."

She'd been saying that for seventeen years. Every time she said it, the volcano I had been suppressing inside me edged closer to erupting.

I retreated to my tiny bedroom and locked the door.

I opened my secondhand laptop and typed in the search bar: "How to cure cystic acne," "Fastest way to remove acne scars." The results were endless ads for obscenely expensive dermatology clinics in New Orleans. I couldn't even afford the gas to get there.

I clicked open the selfie I had sneaked earlier today, cranked up to the maximum beauty filter. The girl in the photo had flawless, glowing skin. Not a single scar. Her eyes sparkled.

So beautiful. If only I could look like this every day.

I opened an editing app, painstakingly erased Seraphine from the group photo, and photoshopped myself in, standing right beside Cillian.

We looked so good together.

"You erased her."

I jumped, nearly knocking the laptop off the bed. I turned around—Clover was standing in my half-open doorway, her pale grey eyes fixed on my screen behind her round glasses.

"How did you get in?"

"Your mom let me in. Told me to tell you not to stay up too late," her voice was faint, slow. "That's Cillian Landry. You erased Seraphine."

"...You saw nothing."

Clover smiled faintly, said nothing, and turned away. Thank god it was her. She wasn't one to gossip, and she hated Seraphine too—when Clover's mom was sick last year, Seraphine announced to the whole class that the Fontenots were "keeping an old witch in their house."

I turned off the light and lay in bed, tossing and turning.

Sometime deep in the night, I heard rustling in the yard, like footsteps on wet grass. I scrambled up and peered through the window. Nothing. Just the thick, white fog rolling off the swamp, swallowing the cypress trees whole.

Early the next morning, I went to the mailbox to get Dad's paper. My fingers brushed against something hard and cold.

A compact mirror.

It was palm-sized, silver, old-fashioned, its edges rubbed smooth from use. No brand, no packaging, no note. I looked around. The yard was empty; the fog hadn't lifted.

Who left this?

Driven by some strange impulse, I opened it. Inside was a small mirror and a pan of perfectly smooth pressed powder. My reflection stared back at me—scarred, pitted, so ugly I didn't even want to look at myself.

I hesitated, picked up the tiny puff, dabbed a little powder, and lightly patted it onto my face.

Nothing happened.

I scoffed. I actually thought it was some kind of miracle cure. It's just cheap makeup.

I shoved the compact into my jeans pocket, turned back to the house, and completely put it out of my mind.

I wouldn't know until later that this was the most regrettable decision I would ever make in my life.

But that morning, I knew nothing at all.