The next morning when I'm getting dressed for school, I feel strangely inspired. I don't have much choice of how I actually dress, given that my school has a uniform, but styling your hair and a few accessories are within the dress code. My hair is as flat as mom's and dark brown like dad's, though, not all bright blue and curly like the doll's, so if I put mine up like hers, it's just gonna look off. I eventually just do as always and part it on the left, fastening it with a little clip. Just before leaving, I get a text from Asha.

  Asha:'hey girl check the schedule'

  'pe today'

  Destiny:'Fuck'

  'Maybe I can get out of it if I fake a note from mom again'

  Asha:'not without hurting your grades'

  'your ass hasn't been in a single pe class this year'

  Destiny:'Who cares about pe grades anyway'

  Asha:'your average does'

  'gotta take that seriously senior year'

  Destiny:'I hate when you're right'

  'Fine, I'll think of something'

  'Cya at school'

  Asha:'bet your ass'd look fine in a pair of tiny shorts'

  'aight cya'

  I roll my eyes and smirk at the last text. She always says things to try and boost my confidence like that, trying to make me see myself the way other people might. It's... Oddly nice. I grab my gym bag and stuff the PE uniform along with a few extra essentials in there, then leave while I start mentally planning how and where to get changed without inconveniencing anyone. Maybe one of the bathrooms near the gym will be empty.

  That day, as well as the next week and indeed a few months, progress without much noteworthy happening. Standard school days, lunch with Asha and Jeanette, more school, hanging out with them in the afternoon and then back home where I spend most of my nights restoring the doll I found. I research for a while on the internet to figure out which kinds of stitches are best for yarn dolls, how best to wash her hair and many other things. I can't find a button of the right size or color to match her existing eye, so I wind up snatching the closest match I can from mom's stash. It's a little mismatched with the original, but I think it gives her a quirky kind of charm. With the doll all fixed up and clean, I decide to put her in my bag and bring her around with me. No reason for her to sit around at home doing nothing, right? Shawn comes to visit a few times over the following months. It's nice to see my brother as always, but something about being at college is making him a little insufferable at times. We do have a particularly nice evening when he asks me about some of my fashion projects as well as the strange doll on my desk, though.

  "So what's up with the doll?" Asha asks one Sunday afternoon as we arrive at The Hangout for our usual friend date. Today, her black, curly hair is pulled up into a puffy bun on top of her head, and today she's wearing a white crop top and ripped jeans underneath her thick lilac coat. "I barely ever see you without it anymore and you never mentioned where you got it." She's wearing bright purple nail polish today, which contrasts nicely with her dark skin.

  "Oh- Uh. Well, I guess I just feel a little more lucky when she's around. Tests at school feel just a little easier, I've found money on the ground more often, and remember that free lunch I won us the other week? That never happened for me before!" To make a point, I pull her out of the purse and put her on the table in our usual booth as we sit down, leaning against the wall.

  "Doesn't that feel a little...? I mean, girl, you were never the superstitious type," she continues, and I know she's right, but I just shrug and she seems to back off. "Does she at least have a name?"

  "I haven't found one that feels right yet."

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  Jeanette, with our usual drinks in hand, cuts in as she sits down next to Asha. Both the shortest and the palest of the three of us, she stands out a little bit, but I think she likes the attention. She mostly wears black, practical clothes, like today where she's in a pair of cargo pants and a cardigan. Her pale skin contrasting with the clothes makes any color she wears all the more vivid, though, like the crimson tank top underneath it all. "I think it's cute. None of us are gonna be Celestial Knights like we always wanted, but it almost feels like you've got your own little Squire anyway!"

  "Well, when you put it that way, yeah, I guess it's kinda cute. And pretty on brand for our girl. Just promise me you're not dyein' your hair blue, cuz you'd have to bleach it first and that'd absolutely kill your roots."

  "Hah! Yes, I promise Asha. But I do want curls like hers. Let's call her my Squire for now, until I find a proper name."

  Squires are the strange, sentient little creatures that accompany each of the Knights, as we learned in the first interview any of the squads ever gave back in the '90s. They are the source of their Knight's powers and training, and each make the decision for who they choose to accompany each new generation. Since all five Squires have been accounted for since this time last year, none of us has the chance to be chosen. We'll be too old for that when it's time for the next squad to roll around. Or, well, six, I guess, since one of the Squires consists of a duo, Willow and Nox, who always accompany the squad's leader.

  "Probably for the best anyways, right?"

  "What is?" Asha and I ask at the same time, looking over at Jeanette. On the silent TV on the wall opposite our booth, is what I recognize to be a rerun of the documentary about the ninth generation of Celestial Knights. Jeanette's eyes are practically glued to the screen even as the waiter, Alejandro, who Jeanette has the hots for, brings us our usual order.

  "That none of us wound up a Knight. Casualties aren't uncommon among them anymore. Just last generation, two of them died in their final battle." The temperature at the table almost feels like it drops a handful of degrees, a shiver runs down my spine and I look over at Asha, catching her eye.

  "What's up with the glum topic all of a sudden?" She asks. Jeanette's always been prone to dark moods like this, but it's usually not out of nowhere like this.

  "Sorry, I-" She shakes her head a little. The immaculate edges of her sharp bob of black hair brush along her chin and she chuckles a little. "I just caught the subtitles on the TV talking about the first Knight casualty, and I guess the topic of Squires mixed with it in my head. It just got me thinking... I don't know what I'd do without you girls in my life, so the thought of you in danger got me all down for a moment."

  I reach over to take her pale hand across the table, squeezing it through the thick fabric of her cardigan. "Like you said, though, that's not gonna happen since we're all just regular girls, right?" I look to Asha to have her help me assure our friend, just in time to notice an inscrutable expression on her face that disappears like dew in the morning as soon as she sees me. Then she's quick to scoot over and hug Jeanette from the side.

  "Yeah. We're not leavin' you like that."

  After we finish calming down and assuring Jeanette, the rest of the meal proceeds pretty much as usual with in-jokes and casual chatter about all kinds of subject and a few questions about upcoming school assignments or tests we had in the past week. It doesn't even take long before Jeanette is back to sniping downright lustful glances after Alejandro. As always, we threaten her that if she doesn't ask him out soon, we're going to do it for her, but she brushes us off and says she wouldn't be serious about it anyway. At the end we split up as always and I take the bus home, reflecting a little on what Jeanette said about Knight casualties. Maybe we are lucky that none of us wound up chosen after all. A mundane life isn't so bad in the end, and I'm looking forward to studying fashion design next year if I make it in, maybe even having one of my dresses on one of the celebrities walking the red carpet at one of those big galas.

  I also can't help but wonder why the casualty rate has been increasing so drastically. The Knights went almost fifty years without a single casualty, at least as far as the public knows. There's plenty of conspiracy theories about the Knights, of course, and no small number of them feature undocumented deaths. So why has there then been five confirmed deaths in just the last three generations? It's practically common assumption that each generation faces more dangerous threats than the last, but they usually also managed to keep pace with more impressive powers of their own. And what was up with that face Asha was pulling? Even as I try to remember it, I can feel the memory slipping between my fingers like sand and soon enough I can't recall it at all. I'm not even halfway home before all that's left of it is a hole in my memory, and by the time I get off the bus, I don't even remember what I was so stressed about remembering, filing it away as something that probably wasn't all that important if I already forgot about it. That happens all the time with other stuff anyway.