WS

Ashlee was never supposed to exist in The Kid at the Back. She arrives halfway through the school year with a Kentucky drawl, a leather journal full of tragic poetry, and enough gothic flair to make an entire classroom stare. To everyone else, she is simply the strange new transfer student. Emily knows better. She saw Ashlee appear in an empty courtyard through a glitch that should have been impossible. Now Ashlee is stepping into relationships already tangled by years of friendship, obsession, jealousy, and memories from a life Emily cannot remember. Jericho protects too fiercely. Solivan loves without knowing where devotion should end. Hyugo hides violence behind a grin. Emily has spent years becoming someone they return to—and she has no intention of being quietly replaced. Meanwhile, the world itself is beginning to feel wrong. Reflections move when they shouldn’t. Old memories surface in people who never lived them. Expressions reveal emotions their owners would rather hide. And somewhere beneath poisonous flowers, stained glass, golden shackles, and fractured moonlight lies the answer to a tragedy that already happened once. Ashlee may not belong in their story. Unfortunately, the story has already noticed her.