The boardwalk had been condemned since before any of us were born, but the dare never died: six kids, one flashlight, the Hall of Mirrors at the dead end of the pier. Salt wind rattled the boarded ticket booth as we squeezed inside. The air went still and warm, like breath. Then our six reflections stepped in beside us, perfectly in time. "Okay," Maya whispered. "Now what?"

"No way are we splitting up," Maya said. She grabbed my sleeve. "We stay together, we find the door, we leave." We linked arms, all six of us, and shuffled forward as one clumsy chain through the cold glass corridor.

We found a door, finally, low and crooked in the glass. Maya yanked it open and cold air rushed out. But the room beyond was just another Hall of Mirrors, identical, and there we were on the far side, already standing inside it, waving back at us.

Theo stepped through the crooked door to test it. The moment he crossed, the copy of him on the far side stepped out, and our Theo froze mid-step, flattened into glass. We hammered on the mirror but it was just a mirror now, with Theo's shocked face inside it forever. Five of us walked home, and we never said his name out loud again.