Chapter 4 Chanel #2
merely observed that many people find him intimidating. I, for one, am not intimidated by him. I would just be wary of someone
like that.”
“For good reason,” I say grimly. “Because something really, really weird happened with him the other night, and I thought
you might have a better idea of what to do after your little . . . situation.”
This is how the three of us have been referring to the fact that Alice suddenly started turning invisible last year—like literally, actually invisible, something I refused to believe until I watched her vanish right in front of me.
We talk about her situation as if it was a random, mildly embarrassing early-teen phase, the same way some people might go through a pony phase or a boy-band
phase.
“Don’t tell me Ares can turn invisible too,” Alice says, her eyes widening.
“No. That’s the thing—I don’t think it’s him. Like, it’s not something within his control. But there was this vision. . . .” I go over everything from last night in as
much detail as possible, from him sneaking onto a rooftop where he definitely didn’t belong, to me following him into the
park, to the vision and his reaction afterward.
When I’m finished, both of them are silent for a long time.
“So do you think it’s real?” I prompt. “What I saw in the lake?”
They exchange a glance.
“Ares said he saw a burning house too, right?” Henry asks slowly.
“Yeah, and I didn’t even describe the vision to him. So it couldn’t just be a coincidence.”
“And you’re sure you saw a lighter in his hand,” Henry confirms. “You think he’s the one who set your house on fire.”
I nod. “I definitely saw a lighter. And the house was definitely my house. He seemed eager for it to happen too. Like, really,
disturbingly eager.”
Alice’s face tightens with worry. “What’s his deal? Why would he want to burn your house down? Should we—I don’t know, should
we tell the teachers? The police? If this guy’s out to get you . . .”
“But that’s the thing,” I say. “I have no idea why he’s out to get me.”
“And unfortunately, they can’t arrest Ares for something he’s yet to do,” Henry says with a grimace. “We don’t have any proof he’ll harm Chanel or her mother, aside from the vision—which,
if what Ares was saying is true, nobody else except the two of them can see.”
“So . . . what do I do?” I ask. But despite the churn of dread in my stomach, I also feel steadier than I have since yesterday,
with Alice and Henry next to me.
“Let’s go over the facts first,” Alice says, standing up and pacing in circles around the couch, the way she always does when
she’s stressed or thinking hard about something, as if her body needs to be moving in sync with her mind. “We know the vision
involves Ares, it’s at your house, and—do we know when the fire will happen?”
“Prom night,” I say. Just one day ago, nothing excited me more than the idea of prom. Now there’s nothing I dread more. “The
night of the lunar eclipse. In my vision . . . I saw the blood moon.”
“So that’s three weeks away,” Henry says.
I take a sip of my Diet Pepsi, but the sweet fizz of the drink burns like acid down my throat. Just three weeks. In three weeks, my childhood home might be turned to rubble, with my mom inside it—
“I suppose murder isn’t an option,” Alice says in a contemplative voice.
Henry and I stare at her.
“What? I said it isn’t an option,” she says, throwing her hands up. “Not the easiest one, anyway,” she adds.
“Alice, you know I would break you out of prison in a heartbeat,” Henry says very gently. “But I would most prefer not to.”
Alice shoves his shoulder. “I’m only saying, we don’t have to just let the future play out—we can take matters into our own hands.”
“Right, yes, there are actually two main schools of thought regarding this,” Henry says, shifting forward in his seat, his
shoulders straight and eyes alert as if he’s about to make an intelligent point in class. “To drastically simplify them both—this
philosopher called William Livingston believes that the future is set in stone. Everything is predetermined, so no matter
what you do between now and the night of the vision, you’ll only be playing into fate’s hands. His theory strips away any
individual agency; we might as well all be hired actors, going through dialogue and stage directions and monologues that have
been scripted out for us by a higher power.”
My stomach sinks. “Wow, that’s super comforting.”
“But that’s only what Livingston believes,” Henry says. “This other philosopher, Ma Mengxu, argues the precise opposite. He
considers the future to be fragile and malleable, and he interprets the butterfly effect to be proof of that.”
“The butterfly effect?” I echo, my head spinning.
Henry nods, and recites, as if he has a textbook open right in front of him. “A seemingly trivial change in one part of a
nonlinear system can trigger significant nonlinear effects elsewhere.”
“That sentence means nothing to me,” I tell him.
“It basically means that one event leads to another,” Alice explains. “Even something small could set up a chain reaction down the line and act as the catalyst for a huge change in your life.”
“For instance,” Henry says, “a few months ago, I turned on my notifications for National Geographic.”
I blink. “Congratulations?”
“Well, yes, thank you. But my point is, because I’d turned on my notifications, I received an alert about an exciting scientific discovery as I was leaving the auditorium
from the Top Achievers’ Assembly. I had originally been planning on heading down to my father’s company, you see, but after
I read the National Geographic update, I had a new train of thought for my science project, and so I decided to go straight to my dorm and make my edits.
And because I was in my dorm room at that time, Alice was able to find me when she was panicking about suddenly turning invisible.
If she hadn’t sought me out, we might have never come up with the Beijing Ghost app, and you wouldn’t have been our first
client, and you wouldn’t have found out about Alice’s invisibility powers, and the three of us wouldn’t be sitting together
in this room right now,” Henry says. “Now, Livingston would argue that us being here is inevitable, but Ma Mengxu would make
the case that this current moment is comprised of all the little moments that preceded it, and there are hundreds and thousands
of alternate timelines where things played out very differently.”
“To sum it up,” I say slowly, “Livingston thinks I’m fucked and I should just call it quits and let the fire happen, because it will, whether I like it or not, but my man Ma Mengxu thinks I’ve got a shot at changing the future.”
“I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that,” Henry says, “but effectively, yes.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m like, a way bigger fan of Ma Mengxu’s school of thought,” Alice tells me, and I feel a deep rush
of gratitude for her.
“I’m a big fan too,” I say. “So—okay. Okay. If I’m going to change the future, then . . .”
“I believe Ares is key here,” Henry says. “Your fates are intertwined, and judging from what you described in the vision,
he’s the one who’s setting out to ruin your life. If you want to change the future, you’ll have to stop him, somehow.”
“But, like. How?” I ask.
The room lapses back into silence.
“Maybe we should revisit murder,” Alice mutters after a beat.
“Alice.”
“What? How else do we stop him from going after Chanel? Unless he has a sudden change of heart—”
“Wait,” I say, springing up on my feet, my blood abuzz with adrenaline. “That’s exactly what has to happen. If I can manipulate
him into liking me, he won’t want to hurt me, and he’ll have no reason to set my house on fire.”
Henry doesn’t look super convinced. “Emotions aren’t so easily manipulable or quantifiable, Chanel—”
“Emotions are very manipulable,” I counter, tossing my hair over my shoulder.
“Even if that were true, how could you measure whether he likes you enough? How would you know if your plan is working?”
“I just need him to ask me out to prom,” I say, and as soon as the words leave my mouth, I can see it happening. The alternate
timeline, a future where everything works out the way it’s supposed to. My home will remain intact, and I’ll be crowned prom
queen. “Think about it,” I urge them. “He’s already been nominated as prom king . . . and the prom queen and king always stay
back until midnight for photos and the special yearbook feature, right? So if he goes to prom as my date, spends the entire
night with me, and we win, it’s physically impossible for him to be setting my house on fire at the same time.”
“It could work, in theory,” Henry says slowly, exchanging another look with Alice. “And you know I’m fond of the theoretical.
But in practice . . . how would you go about doing that?”
Ares’s face flashes through my mind again, the memory that isn’t a memory: those sharklike, remorseless eyes, the lighter
gripped in his bruised hand, the glow of the flames against the hard lines of his profile. I try to imagine those features
softening into a look of pure affection, his hands gentle around my waist, slow dancing under the chandeliers. It does seem difficult, almost impossible. But I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent the vision from happening. I’ll pry his ribs
apart if it means forcing my way into his heart.
“Maybe we should break it down into steps,” Alice suggests, turning to Henry. “Can you bring out your whiteboard?”
He perks up immediately. “Give me a moment,” he says. He returns with an entire set of markers in every color, and a whiteboard almost the same size as his plasma TV. At the top, he’s already written the title: How to Make Ares Fall for Chanel in Three Weeks. Then he nods at me, expectant. “Well?”
I grab the hot pink marker, thinking back to every boy I’ve charmed and bent to my will, and start adding below:
Step one: Learn more about him (his family, interests, dreams).
Step two: Grab his attention.
Step three: Build a connection based on all the information gathered in step one.
Step four: Start dropping hints about prom and including him in prom plans.
Step five: Share photos of him on social media to build buzz for campaign.
Step six: Suddenly ice him out and show interest in another guy to make him jealous.
Step seven: Get invited to his house; hook up there.
Step eight: Give him a gentle push to ask about prom.
When I step back, satisfied with my work, Henry stares at the board for a long time. “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s
only . . . nobody has ever written the words hook up on my whiteboard before. Other than that, I don’t see any glaring problems here. And at risk of sounding severely egotistical—”
“Trust me, it wouldn’t be the first time you did,” Alice puts in sweetly.
Henry offers her an affectionate eye roll. “I only intend to point out that I won’t be competing for the title of prom king, so that is one less factor to worry about.”
“You won’t be?” I ask.
“No. I won’t be in Beijing at all,” he says. “My father wants me to attend this tech conference in London with him during
prom week.”
I hadn’t realized how much I was counting on Henry’s help until my stomach sinks. But I shouldn’t be relying on anyone, even
my closest friends. I’m meant to be stronger than that.
“That’s all settled then,” Alice decides. “Now, it just comes down to the execution—but, like, I have full faith in your charms,
Chanel. If anyone can pull off this plan, it’s you.”
I have far less faith in my charms than I usually would, but I smile with practiced confidence and lift my glass from the
table. It’s left behind a ring of condensation on the red mahogany, like the outline of a target. I can almost picture Ares
Yin’s reflection inside it.