“This is the child?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sky’s mother said quickly. “She won’t cause trouble.”
Miss Calva bent down until she was almost level with Sky, though somehow she still felt much taller.
“Children,” she said in a voice that could have frozen boiling water, “are never as invisible as they think they are.”
Sky’s stomach twisted. She nodded because she didn’t know what else to do.
They kept walking. Room after room. Everything too clean, too perfect, too quiet.
Then Sky heard it.
A small sound, muffled, like someone crying and trying not to. A sound she recognized from nights when her mom cried in the bathroom with the fan on, thinking Sky couldn’t hear.
She stopped.
Her mother didn’t notice; she was too focused on the man with the clipboard.
Sky turned her head. Down the hall, a door stood slightly open. The sound was coming from there.
Her feet moved before she’d decided anything. She walked toward the door, heart pounding, and pushed it open just enough to slip inside.
A girl sat on the floor with her knees pulled to her chest, hands covering her head. Pale skin. Blonde hair. Maybe eight years old. Bald patches showed through, angry and red. The girl’s shoulders shook.